Day 4 of no home Internet: AT&T still hasn't found the squirrel; I'm not sure they're really looking

I published my sad tale of home Internet loss on Monday evening. I'd figured out/remembered how to turn a cell phone into a hot spot by then. Thus, I had two hot spots -- the one under my collar and the aforementioned phone -- and a means by which to inflict my admittedly First World problem back upon the Internet itself.

I fancy myself a writer these days. Writers write. (At least, we're supposed to.) And, as Mark Twain may or may not have said, "Write what you know." (Maybe it was Hemingway who said it. Whatever. This sort of direction puts a person like me at a competitive disadvantage, given how little I know about anything. But I knew about not having Internet. So I wrote about that.) The trick, of course, is to frame one's complaints in a way that proves instructive or at least amusing for others. When successful, this raises the output from mere whiny journaling to something more. Not much more, perhaps (after all, it is still whining), but that is for the reader to decide. Either way, I found the exercise therapeutic.

Yesterday morning, still pleased with my effort, I Tweeted out a link to the post. (I still say "Tweet" when referring to a posting on X. If I were to write 'I X'd something out' it would be, in my view, ambiguous. Had I crossed something out, rendering it illegible, or had I launched it into the wider world on the social media platform now known as X?)

The X-post elicited a response from AT&T. A person who is probably not known as Emma to her actual friends and family left a comment which read, in pertinent part, "I completely understand how important it is to count on reliable connections and I truly apologize for the inconvenience this has caused to you. I'll definitely look into this. Could you please help me with the zip code?"

I provided it. Soon thereafter, Emma left another reply, "Thank you for sharing the zip code. As I have checked with the shared zip code there is no service interruption from our end." Welcome to Corporate America, where the customer is always wrong. But I was prepared for this; I had (you may recall) figured out how to sign onto the AT&T website and check for outages that way. I published a photo of my laptop screen, similar to the one above. Identical, really, except the one above is from this morning. I also published another screenshot, this one showing the area of outage. It's small. No more than a block or two in any direction. (Which is why I assume that a squirrel caused it, as opposed to the North Koreans or some piratical band of Eastern Europeans.)

Anyway, confronted with the evidence of her own website, "Emma" was forced to concede, "As per the picture it looks like there's an outage at your location. I'll definitely get this checked for you. Could you please meet us in a DM so that we can take this further."

Now I have to admit, despite Doomscrolling far more than I should on X, I have never used the DM feature to any great extent. My first mistake was thinking I was to find a way to DM "Emma." But that's not how it works. Eventually, I figured out that I had to DM AT&T itself. "Emma" was there waiting... but not for long. I also didn't know how or where to look for DM responses, so I didn't see her responses until after she completed her shift.

"Emma" was replaced by "Juan."

Hello, Jack. I understand that you are experiencing issues with the Internet service due an outage. We're really sorry to know about the situation you're experiencing. You can be sure our specialized tech team is working hard to get everything up and running as soon as possible.

I sparred with Juan for awhile yesterday afternoon and evening. He sent me back to the website which I've visited a hundred times in the last few days. Shockingly, it still showed an outage. It still does. Juan later insisted, "I've carefully reviewed and checked the area, we have our engineers working right now to bring the internet back on and repair all the lines damaged." He thanked me for my non-existent patience. Both Juan and Ella were unfailingly polite.

But you know what? It doesn't matter. My Internet is still out. It's a relatively nice day today here in Chicago; I could, and did, take a good long walk through the neighborhood this morning, looking for any specialized AT&T engineers. I didn't find any. And my Internet is still out.

On the other hand, I also didn't find a dead squirrel. Maybe finding the bloated, decaying rodent corpse is more difficult than one would think... but, then, I lack any sophisticated squirrel detection equiptment: I am not a specialized AT&T engineer.

I've often wondered why the Trojans let that horse in....

I don't know if the Millennials and Zoomers use antivirus programs; if they do, I suppose they would call them "apps," not programs. But the names of the unfortunate Trojan guards in the cartoon above should be familiar enough to the younger generations to prompt a chuckle, even from them.

The rest of us have paid for McAfee or Norton since before the Earth's crust cooled. Norton now operates on a subscription basis; actually, I think Norton was one of the first programs to require subscriptions. I know I was a subscriber in 2010, when I dealt with an actual 'trojan horse' virus. Much as I don't like subscriptions, I suppose a subscription model makes particular sense for antivirus programs, given the rapidity with which new security threats evolve in the online world.

But am I the only one who thinks the most common feature of antivirus software is trying to upsell the user on new products or features? The occasional scan may be reassuring, but the results always come with a warning that there are all sorts of unnecessary files or applications slowing down your computer -- and, if one tries to click toward a solution, an offer to 'solve' the problem by upgrading one's subscription for only several dollars more per year.

It feels less like protection... and more like protection racket. Hey, this is a nice computer you got here... it would be a shame if something happened to it.... It does leave the user -- this user, anyway -- wondering what it is that we are actually paying for now....

-------------------------------------------------------
The cartoon above was taken from a Facebook site called Writers, Readers and General Tomfoolery. I tried, but failed, to decipher the creator information at the top of the image so that I could give proper credit to the actual cartoonist. I apologize for that. I will gladly update to properly credit the original source if it can be ascertained.

Too big to fail, and too big, even, to pay attention...

We live in a marvelous age. From my computer, or even my phone, I can order almost anything, from almost anywhere, and have it on my doorstep in a moment. If I order from Amazon, and I'm willing to wait a couple of extra moments, Amazon will give me a digital credit besides.

Amazon has my credit card; I have my desires. I get stuff without having to leave the house; Amazon gets money.

Most of the time, it is a satisfactory relationship. Not healthy, necessarily, but satisfactory.

The picture above shows a Ninja Foodi Programmable 10-in-1 5-Quart Pressure Cooker and Air Fryer.

Amazon thinks I ordered one of these on August 21 of this year and directed that it be shipped to Vancouver, Washington, a place where I know no one and where I've never been.

I found what appeared to be an Amazon email in my inbox on the morning of August 22 advising me of this "purchase" and, of course, I completely lost my mind.

Mind you, as a sophisticated netizen, who knew damn good and well that I had not ordered this item, I did not click on any of the inviting links in said email. I fired up my computer, opened Amazon, and went to my recent orders page. And, of course, the order was not there. How could it be? I hadn't ordered it.

I found a "report a scam" address somewhere on the Amazon homepage and forwarded said email, advising of my suspicions that this must be some sort of phishing expedition.

Pretty good for an old guy, right?

But I am not just a good netizen, I am a cautious consumer. I went next to the webpage of the ginormous bank which issued the credit card I had linked to the Amazon account.

Ruh roh! Ginormous Bank showed a charge had been made for this item ($124.95, if you're comparison shopping).

Now we'd entered a different realm: Someone was trying to live in an even more marvelous age than thee or me. This person had found a way to order almost anything, from almost anywhere, and charge it to someone else's credit card. I had been hacked.

But I knew what to do. After fighting my way through not-at-all-helpful phone-menu Hell, I eventually got hold of a human at Ginormous Bank, advised of the fraudulent charge, and canceled the compromised card.

Meanwhile, later that same day, Amazon sent me an email proudly announcing that it had failed to cancel the fraudulent order but instead had shipped it.

In fairness, my initial email to Amazon (written before I knew that a charge had been made to my credit card) did not say outright that this order was fraudulent. When I forwarded that first email, advising that the order appeared to have been placed, I wrote, "This looked legitimate -- as well as fraudulent. I checked my account online to verify that no such product was ordered, but this is a definite phishing attempt."

So -- again -- good netizen and good customer that I am -- and within a few hours of receiving same -- I dutifully forwarded the shipping email to the Amazon "report a scam" address with a more carefully worded email, the pertinent portions of which are as follows:

I have received another email on this fraudulent transaction. I am forwarding this email herewith.

I reported this fraudulent transaction by email this morning.

I did not see this order show up on my Amazon Orders page. It is not there yet. However, the credit card that I have linked to Amazon was charged $124.95 in connection with this fraudulent purchase.

I have reached out to the card holder, disputed the transaction, and the card will be reissued.

I will change my Amazon password immediately.

Is there any other action I should take?

Thank you in advance for your anticipated prompt response.

Perhaps my communication skills are slipping... but I believe the above and foregoing was surely adquate to convey the fact that the order in question was fraudulent. This email was sent on the afternoon of August 22. Amazon said it planned to deliver the item in question -- to Vancouver, Washington -- on August 28. In other words, they had more than enough time to take the darned thing off the truck.

If they wanted to. If anyone was actually paying attention.

Amazon did not respond to this email specifically.

But that very night, in the wee small hours of the morning, Amazon sent me another email 'confirming' my order of a plant stand that I wanted sent to Barre, Vermont.

Another place I've never been.

And, of course, I had not ordered any plant stand. I fired off another email to Amazon "report a scam."

I must confess: Some ALL CAPS were involved....

But things seemed to settle down after that: Ginormous Bank issued me a new card. I linked said new card to my Amazon account and resumed ordering such gimcracks and gewgaws as I required. All seemed well with the world....

... Until last night. Why does Amazon send these things at night? (I fear I may know the answer: Our future AI-overlords have no need of sleep....)

Anyway, this latest email says, in essence, golly, your credit card issuer reversed the charge for this item... but we'd like our money anyway.

I've spent the morning trying to find a telephone number to call to complain. I did find a way to ask for Amazon to call me -- and someone did call -- and I related the facts as set forth here. Perhaps a bit more loudly. It didn't help that the "customer service" screens had no option for me to report (again) a fraudulent transaction. It also did not help that the call dropped twice. The poor lady who had to deal with me called back the first time; I guess she'd had enough after the second drop. I don't suppose, really, that I blame her.

Thereafter, after re-reading the latest Amazon email, I composed a terse, but rational, response (copying "report a scam" just in case they've never been introduced).

So far, I've received a generic reply to my response, mostly telling me to do all the things I did in August... when I first reported the situation. The interrupted phone call yielded this email:

I haven't responded, of course, because I don't know if the problem is resolved yet or not. Time will tell.

I am not entirely optimistic....

Why fix things that aren't broken? Aren't there actual broken things that need fixing?

Answer the second question first, please.

And, obviously, there can be only one answer to that one.

But, no, this morning, after being forced to reboot my fast-failing computer for the fourth time in two days (not counting the couple of times it's decided to reboot itself) and finally signing onto Blogger, your Internet home for this page and Page One of FWIW, I got the chilling message (reproduced above) in the upper left hand corner of my screen.

Things that actually work don't need improvement... such as the sign-in page for this site... and they especially don't need allegedly cosmetic 'look and feel' fixes.

Like how they "fixed" Quicken. Here was a perfectly good checkbook program, that worked well on its own, tied in with TurboTax, tied in with banks -- but, oh no, it needed improvement from a program that one updated every few years... to a subscription-only app, with an annual fee.

Gee... who did that help? Me? Consumers generally?

Now, instead of starting on command, Quicken begins its duties by looking for 'updates' -- and almost always finding them -- what is there to update so often? -- asking permission to download the updates found (you really don't have a choice) -- and then, after downloading said updates -- more often than not -- going back to sleep.

When I restart it -- again -- I can almost hear Quicken say, what? you wanted me to do something? I think it's mocking me.

They "fixed" Adobe similarly. I would have liked an update to my legal copy of Adobe Acrobat 9.0... but I was not going to agree to an open-ended subscription. Although version 9.0 was no longer sufficient to open new cases when the "new and improved" Illinois Courts website launched, I could still use Reader for that. For my own appellate work, and for occasional discovery responses, Adobe 9.0 carried me through right up until when I shut down my practice...

...at least up until the point where Odyssey introduced "enhancements" that made it impossible for me to use WordPerfect to print a brief to .pdf in a single step.

I figured a way around that, too. It was clunky and inelegant, but it got the documents filed. But it was anything other than an "enhancement."

I know I sound like an old guy that complains about every change in my routine.

And there is an element of truth in this, I admit.

If I didn't so admit, my kids would tell you all about how I fulminated at my first smartphone, calling it all sorts of names, as I tried to make the screen not blank out or change every time I touched the darned thing, the most polite of which may have been "Spawn of Satan"... but it is not true that I tried to buy a smartphone with a rotary dial. The kids exaggerate.

Some, anyways.

But I eventually reached a modus vivendi with my phone... and, now, one or more phones, successors to that original fiend, are my inseparatble companions. I can learn. And grow. And adapt.

I can even embrace change, sometimes, when I can find some advantage or benefit in it.

But I don't hold out much hope for Google's planned improvements here. And I know there are plenty of real problems that Google could address first... but won't.

Huh, that was weird....

Something must have been going on yesterday. According to my dashboard stats, Page One got 11,724 page views Tuesday.

That's a lot of daily page views for a site like FWIW which, admittedly, has a rather narrow focus. It's the kind of number I usually see only in the days before an election, when actual Cook County voters come to FWIW trying to figure out the merits of the competing judicial candidates.

When they are competing.

Though this is off topic, allow me to once again point out that, in Cook County, where Republicans are all but extinct, nearly all judicial contests are decided in the Democratic Primary. Persons trying to be good citizens in November visit Page One only to find that there are no informed choices to make in judicial elections -- all (or nearly all) are unopposed. If I keep repeating this, perhaps it will eventually sink in: In Cook County, if one is interested in judicial elections, one must vote in the Democratic Primary. That is not a partisan statement. It is a simple, inescapable fact.

But back to the topic at hand, namely, yesterday's suprising stat surge.

I've had page view surges at other times -- Russian, or at least East European, bots dumping all sorts of comment spam on various and sundry posts, usually old ones. One of the reasons I have comment moderation here and on Page One is to avoid becoming Cook County's leading source for information on fake Gucci handbags. (There are other reasons, of course.) Anyway, that hasn't happened for awhile... and it does not seem to have happened yesterday, either. No major influx of spam comments or anything. (And nearly all my traffic comes, as it should, from the good old USA... although Singapore is in a surprisingly strong second place at the moment. Are there a lot of persons interested in the Cook County judiciary in Singapore?)

Usually, when traffic ticks up for no apparent reason (no apparent reason to me), it is because a number of my readers believe (and a few of them may already know) that something has happened that I'm supposed to be reporting on and they're clicking back regularly to see when I finally figure it out....

A newly-minted judge I know told me how disappointed she was to find out that a lot of her new colleagues were incorrigible gossips. I told her this this was the secret to whatever limited success I have here. Modern judges can not really 'hang out' with the people with whom they would ordinarily have the most in common, namely, the lawyers who routinely appear before them. (In Lincoln's day, of course, they rode circuit together, eating, drinking, and boarding together. Sometimes they took turns being judge. But that was long before Greylord.) So judges often have only each other to talk to. And not all are equally interested in the latest permutations of the Star Trek universe, or on the latest cuts to the Bears' roster. So they talk about lawyers, and who wants to join them on the bench. Not being an incorrigible gossip, I won't name the reviewing court judge who once claimed that she (or he -- I'm not giving any clues here) clicked on Page One 50 times some days, waiting for my next update.

But this sort of repeat checking-in behavior only explains a jump to 2,000 page views a day on non-peak days when I might ordinarily only get 1,000 page views. It does not explain 11,724 page views on Tuesday. Maybe I'm missing something really big.

Even if I fail to figure it out the reason right away, yesterday's numbers nudged me unexpectedly further down the road to 5,000,000 Page One page views....

Another problem I never thought I'd have: An old blog post is alleged to have violated Blogger's "community standards"

UPDATE: Immediately after posting this, I opened an email from Blogger saying that the 2010 post described herein has been reevaluated and reinstated. The brown paper wrapper is off. Kind of takes all the wind out of my sails, don't it? Today, at least, if not, a couple of weeks ago, I pressed the right button. My thanks to Blogger... although, in all honesty, I wish they'd held off for a few days so I could convince myself that the following article somehow helped my cause....

I've been using the Blogger platform for Page One of this site since 2006. I started this Page Two in 2008.

That was so long ago, blogging was fashionable, even (arguably) hip. (I realize, of course, that this time is long past; this is why I am so careful to call what you are looking at a "site" instead of a "blog." It sounds more current that way. At least to me....)

Anyway, in that time, between these two sites, I've put up over 4,400 articles (I like to think that 'articles' sounds more contemporary than 'posts'). Some have been better than others, obviously; I even won an award (in 2012) from the Chicago Bar Association for one post. I mean, article. I got an honorable mention from the CBA in 2014, too.

(It wasn't too many years after this that the CBA stopped giving out Kogan Awards. I deny any responsibility for this.)

Along the way, I've attracted some modest trappings of success. For awhile, I even had some of my own trolls. But I try not to be overly controversial in what I publish, and the trolls eventually lost interest.

In other words, I'm boring.

Which is why I was shocked, a couple of weeks ago, to receive a notice from Blogger that one of my articles on this site, a piece from 2010, was in violation of Blogger's Community Standards.

The article was entitled, "Up all night with a sick computer." If you are brave enough to click on that link now you will find the article shielded by the Internet-equivalent of a brown paper wrapper. Judging by the recorded page clicks, only about 250 individuals were potentially contaminated by this content in the 13 years before this label was slapped on.

If you do read the article, which recounts my experience battling a Trojan Horse virus encountered while innocently browsing the Internet, you may find it overlong, self-indulgent, or not nearly as helpful or amusing as I thought it was at the time I pressed the "publish" button. But while I understand that some people don't like The Quiet Man in particular or John Wayne generally, I don't see how the article could conceivably be seen as violating any reasonable set of community values.

My best, non-expert guess is that, after all these years, a passing AI "spider" picked up on the scary website names (the ones that the Trojan Horse virus caused to pop up on my computer screen that night) (not linked, obviously) and leapt to the wholly unwarranted conclusion that I was offering links to pornographic websites.

After receiving the message, I clicked around ineffectually, trying to find some human who could look at the article and remove the 'brown paper wrapper.'

Blogger does not have much in the way of in-person customer service, and understandably so: Who would want to field calls all day from old ladies unable to post their latest kitten-playing-with-yarn videos... or from old lawyers grousing about inappropriate warnings being slapped on essentially innocuous content?

But I have noticed that whatever I did that first day has so far brought no response from the folks at Blogger. The 'brown paper wrapper' is still on that 2010 post.

I looked over the post again today and noted there was a button that could be pressed seeking review. I pressed. Then I wrote this.

Neither tactic may succeed in getting the label removed. But at least I've tried my best.

The removal of content from Nexis threatens us all

It was just another email, one among hundreds, many of them survey requests of one sort or another.

At least this one was from a company with whom I do business.

I was probably never going to answer it. I know the Millennials and Zoomers respond to surveys as a matter of reflex. When no one thinks to ask their opinions, Millennials and Zoomers write reviews anyway. But this is not how I was brought up.

I imprinted on Mike Royko's position (paraphrasing here): If trapped into answering a survey (or poll), lie. But better by far not to get trapped.

I will admit that I have read online reviews from time to time. There are so many gizmos I know nothing about; sometimes I think that maybe, just this once, reading reviews will help me decide if I want to buy this product or that one. But then I read the reviews: About half seem as if they were written by the seller's mother; the other half appear to have been written by the seller's competitors. Or worst enemy from junior high.

Not helpful.

I looked at the first question on the survey:

As a valued Lexis customer, your feedback is very important to us and will help us prioritize improvements to our products and services.

Please begin our short survey by answering the first question below:

How likely are you to recommend Lexis to a colleague, associate or friend?

I was supposed to respond on a scale of 0 to 9 where 0 means "not if you put a gun to my head" and 9 means "with me around you'll never need to pay for advertising."

If I answered that question, the survey would continue online.

But I wondered whether completing the survey would give me a real opportunity to express my serious issues with Lexis/Nexis -- and, if I did, whether anyone in authority would read and address my concerns.

After I stopped laughing at myself for having such a ridiculous thought, even for a nanosecond, I concluded that I would have a better chance of reaching the decision makers at RELX, Inc. (the current corporate overlords of Lexis/Nexis) if went into my backyard and screamed my concerns into an indifferent wind or if I wrote about it here. Writing about it here seems less likely to trigger the involvement of the police, so here we are.

I pay several hundred dollars a month for the privilege of access to Lexis and Nexis. There are far more economical ways to keep track of Illinois case law. But, from time to time, when I have had insurance coverage work (as I used to, anyway, before the Pandemic) I have discovered that, while the reviewing courts of Illinois might not yet have had an opportunity to weigh in on the meaning of a particular policy provision or endorsement -- some court in Oregon or Florida or Montana has. If you promise to pay Lexis enough money each month, Lexis will grant you search capabilities for all federal courts and the reviewing courts of all 50 states.

I promised to pay.

To get the best possible (i.e., lowest) price for this access, I had to agree to a term of years.

But, to overcome my resistance, I recieved access to Nexis as well.

At one time, Nexis had a comprehensive library of every major newspaper in the world, and most of the minor ones. Maybe I couldn't read today's Washington Post or New York Times on Nexis -- but everyting would become available in a day or two.

Having access to the Tribune and Sun-Times archives was particularly helpful for me when researching judicial candidates. Lawyers in private practice routinely put all sorts of stuff on line hoping to snag a unicorn, such as a client with a good case and the means and willingness to pay for it -- but career prosecutors or PDs don't have those concerns. And, at one time, though our newspapers very seldom covered a civil case, they published all sorts of stuff about doings in the Criminal Court.

But that was then.

As newspapers have erected paywalls around their content, they have also stopped sending content to Nexis and, in many cases, removed their content entirely. The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin was one of the first to disappear. I may still have been on Westlaw when that happened. Not only did I lose an invaluable resource for keeping track of judicial candidates, a decade's worth of columns I wrote for that paper disappeared as well. Vanished down the memory hole. But I had my original (unedited) articles. So my work was not entirely lost. Also, I still had a subscription to that paper (though it has since lapsed) and, while I missed the ability to conduct proper searches on judicial wannabes, I coped.

Recently I had a story idea that required me to search past issues of major newspapers in an effort to confirm my recollection of events a year or two past. But Nexis was the online equivalent of a ghost town. I could find nothing.

Sure, sure, you say. If I weren't such a cheapskate, I'd have bought subscriptions to all these 'papers of record' and then I'd have access to the information that I sought. Granted, I've made no secret of my disdain for digital subscriptions and the random pricing thereof. And because I don't have separate subscriptions to each of these publications, I can't say with certainty that they are less searchable than was Nexis. But, the truth is, I was already paying for subscriptions to all these papers, via Nexis.

And now Nexis has been effectively emptied. Though the price Lexis/Nexis (or RELX, Inc.) charges me has not decreased by a penny.

If you've stayed with me to this point, you may be experiencing pangs of regret: Why should you have to put up with my whining about paying for services not received? You have problems of your own.

And I'm sure you do. But, I humbly submit, whether you know it yet or not, this problem with Nexis is another problem for you. How can a newspaper be a 'paper of record' if there's no independent record of what it said on any given day? Libraries will have pre-Nexis microfilms; we've all used these at one time or another in our pasts. But did libraries continue to microfilm newspapers that were available on Nexis?

I've never been entirely comfortable with putting our official reports -- our Illinois case law -- online only. I'm sure the court system has the best possible security. But computer security evolves, action and reaction, strike and countermeasure. But this much remains certain: No hacker can ever change a book.

Now our courts have every reason to ensure the veracity and accuracy of our case law. In a profession that celebrates the doctrine of stare decisis (if sometimes only in the breach) we need to know what was said, and by whom, and how, before we can follow or abandon the principles espoused in the cases.

A "media" company is under no such obligation, legal or moral. Without a Nexis to preserve it, if a past story becomes embarrassing, it, too, can be pushed down the memory hole. Times change. Opinions change. Opinions that were mainstream a century ago, or even a decade, or maybe even a year ago, may now be inconvenient or worse. An old article may be jettisoned. Or rewritten to suit current fashions. And who will be able to contradict it without Nexis or some comparable national archive? New ownership may wish to 'sanitize' the unsavory opinions expressed in the property just acquired. If the Murdochs ever fade away, their successors may be mighty tempted....

We celebrate newspapers as the 'first draft of history.' But if we are to understand our history, and learn and grow from it, we need convenient access to those unedited first drafts.

Ephemera on Facebook triggers a memory

The late Avy Meyers, of blessed memory, used to suggest that this blog (he was talking about page one, not this adjunct, though it has the same name) was named for the Buffalo Springfield song.

Of course, I never contradicted him -- though, truth to tell, the real reason for the name was more lawyerly. Particularly in a bench trial, when a judge receives a piece of contested evidence, perhaps of dubious provenance or relevance, usually over the vociferous objection of opposing counsel, and to just get on with it already, the learned jurist will say (often with some exasperation) that the evidence will be admitted "for what its worth." Often signalling that its worth may not be much at all.

Still, when I saw this on Facebook this morning, I couldn't help but think that Avy would have liked it:

I don't think I'll be applying for this position....

I get lots of emails every day, some of which I actually want to see. I've been added to any number of political emailing lists because of the judicial elections stuff I write about here (and, mostly, on page one). Somewhere along the line I started getting emails from Daybook, which purports to list political jobs, not just in Cook County, but across the country and, as seen above, around the world.

The timing of this listing seems less than optimal.

But, no, it's not something that has sat and lingered -- I checked. When I clicked on the link in the email I found out that the job was just posted yesterday:

Somebody should tell those nice folks at the American Embassy in Kabul to turn on CNN or something.

Looking forward to "getting back to normal" -- but maybe not all at once

I'm see that I'm almost a month late getting to my friend Bonnie McGrath's most recent column on Chicago Now, "Everyone's looking forward to 'getting back to normal' but me," which isn't surprising, I know: A day late and [only] a dollar short would be a victory for me....

I sympathize with much of Bonnie's kind-of-squeamish attitude about the world's halting, uneven return to normalcy.

I've had my shots---no, not at Loretto Hospital, thank you---and my side effects were minimal, even less on the second shot than on the first. (I was feeling pretty smug about that, too, until my kids informed me that really old people are less likely to have troublesome side effects with the vaccine than younger people. Thanks, kids.)

But, like Bonnie, there are some aspects of my former life I am not so anxious to resume.

I'll not be dining out anytime soon. Or going to a movie. Even though I think watching a movie is best done in a theater.

And I'm likewise in no hurry to start taking the train again. I was never a fan of being wedged in a CTA Blue Line car like a sardine. I really didn't like it during the evening rush on hot summer days. I'm tall enough that no one's backpack actually poked me in the eye. But I got punched in the gut with them many times.

I'm told it's much less crowded now.

Still, I'll wait. And when I do go back on the train, I'll be wearing a mask.

I'm in no hurry to ditch wearing a mask in crowds of strangers.

Like a lot of you, I'm sure, my wife and I cut back on our grocery visits during the past year. Lately, though, while we're still going half as often, both our local Jewel and Costco seem twice as crowded. My wife invariably notices people in the stores who aren't properly wearing their masks. He's old enough to know better, she'll hiss, gesturing surreptitiously at someone whose beak has protruded over his mask. I try not to look. I prefer to think we're all still compliant.

Bonnie mentioned that she serves on a number of boards, and she's happy to keep attending them virtually. One of the boards I serve on is having a meeting next month live and in person. And the host suggested we might decide, close to the meeting date, to dispense with the wearing of masks. A couple of board members balked. I suggested that anyone who wants to wear a mask absolutely should, and no one should say them nay. I think that should be the rule for all of us. In any setting. For as long as any of us wants.

But, unlike Bonnie, I'm looking forward to attending meetings in person.

Zoom meetings are better than audio-only telephone conferences, but there is no substitute for seeing a person in person. One can read a room much better, and more accurately, than a screen full of faces.

For the same reason, I'm anxious to get back to court. Zoom hearings are fine for routine matters, and I know some practitioners who are thrilled to be able to log out of a hearing in Bridgeview and into a hearing in Markham without leaving their kitchen, but, in my opinion, anything serious should really be done with all persons present. Even if we all wear masks.

Bonnie mentioned that she's resumed service as an arbitrator. I got called recently to serve as an arbitrator in Rolling Meadows. I was unreasonably happy to be setting foot in a courthouse again. I think the Deputy Sheriffs were a little concerned.

This past Sunday I was able to attend Mass in person (with masks, definitely) and thereafter able to go to the White Sox game (ditto). I liked being among people again -- but I also liked keeping my distance from those not in my "bubble." Some of this may be a natural function of age---even I have to admit that I am no longer likely to be offered the juvenile lead in any plays---but I think it also, at least in part, a function of my own squeamishness about fully jumping into a pre-pandemic "normalcy."

We'll all have to find a new balance point as Covid (hopefully) ends and we get our lives back. Bonnie's approach and mine may differ somewhat, but not in fundamentals.

There was one sentence, though, in her post that alarmed me---and I quote---"I love cable news running all day as my basic connection to life."

Oh, no! You don't have to subscribe to every position espoused by Glenn Greewald, Bari Weiss, or Matt Taibbi to see the dangers inherent in cable news -- any cable news.

We have been isolated in our houses for a year. Our society was becoming increasingly atomized before that; it is far more so now. How we atomized-individuals reconnect and recombine when we return to the real world will determine whether we will continue to have a civil society. And cable news divides us, forces us into 'silos', and fans our worst instincts.

I submit that the real real world is found on our walks around the neighborhood. Bonnie likes trying to guess the color of her neighbors' walls, the make and model of their fixtures, and what kind of food they have on their tables. My wife likes seeing what kind of flowers people have planted. There's a house in my neighborhood that has a giant RV that takes up almost all the fenced-in backyard. I've seen it parked in the street sometimes, but I've never seen how it gets from the street back into the yard. I wish they'd send out notices when they're going to move the darn thing.

The real world is found in those neighbors we see, even though we now avoid them on our walks, often with a good-natured shrug or wave, not the talking heads on TV. Our "basic connection to life"---in my opinion---are the people who are really in our lives, not just on our screens. One terrible thing about Covid is that so many of the truly important people in our lives were too long reduced to mere images on screens. But we're getting them back in our living rooms now, or at least in our yards. Even if we're not entirely ready for everyone else.

Bizarre Internet "Rape Day" rumor frightens kids

There was a movie back in 2013, called The Purge, set in a fictional, near-future America where crime has been largely stamped out -- except on a national holiday, also called the Purge, where all crime is legal for 12 hours.

The movie must have done well enough. It has so far spawned three sequels, with a fourth scheduled for release this Summer, according to IMDb.com. A television show, based on the same detestable concept, ran for a couple of seasons on cable.

Clearly, the idea of all crime being made "legal" for a limited period of time is so obviously ridiculous that no one would ever take it seriously, right?

Wrong.

I won't name the teacher or the school, but I heard from a junior high teacher yesterday whose homeroom was greatly agitated about "National Rape Day," supposedly set for this Friday, April 24. On that one day, according to the frightened students, rape would be "legal."

The teacher tried to explain that there is no such "holiday," that rape is never legal, and will not be made legal on Friday.

But the students were unconvinced. There were warnings all over TikTok, they said, so it must be true.

And the students were not entirely wrong -- there were warnings all over TikTok.

Internet watchdog Snopes.com put up a post about this subject on April 19. The post, by Dan Evon, links to a single Tik Tok video from @la.tania.ftn2 that was viewed 1.5 million times between its posting on April 17 and the April 19 publication of the Snopes.com post. An excerpt from that TikTok post, as quoted by Snopes.com:

I just saw a video on tiktok and i had to make a video myself … because I need to make sure that you guys are aware that there’s a video going around Tiktok of disgusting men … and they literally came up with a date to go around and rape women and children.

Except... Snopes.com can't find the video that supposedly prompted this reaction. According to Snopes.com's post, TikTok can't find such a post either. USA Today published a "fact check," by Devon Link, on April 19 (updated on April 20) that likewise came up empty in a search for the video that allegedly precipited the many warning videos:

Millions of social media users have viewed or shared reactions to the perceived threat on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. However, neither USA TODAY nor TikTok could find any evidence of the threat users were responding to.

And, yet, according to the USA Today fact check, there were more than 31.1 million views and more than a thousand videos using the #april24 hashtag. Quoting further from the USA Today post, "According to CrowdTangle, there have more than 1,000 Facebook posts and nearly 50 Instagram posts about 'National Rape Day' in the week before this fact check published."

USA Today tried to reach out to the TikTok 'creators' who spread these warnings. None responded. While some of the creators claim to have seen the video announcing the 'holiday,' none, according to USA Today, shared that link, or stitched it, or dueted it. I don't know what those last two terms mean -- but it does certainly seem reasonable to conclude that the threat was largely, if not entirely, made up.

Snopes.com unearthed archived pages on Urban Dictionary which suggested that someone had proposed a National Rape Day as early as 2018. But it didn't go viral until the condemnations of an apparently non-existent video began circulating.

So there is no "National Rape Day" Friday or any other day, ever. But April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Wikipedia says the month has been observed since at least 2001. President Obama proclaimed April as National Sexual Awareness Month in April 2010.

The Internet has many uses, and the ability to rapidly---almost instantly---share information can be one of the most beneficial.

But only if the information is accurate.

And figuring out what is, or is apparently, accurate information is increasingly difficult for all of us. Especially where information, and misinformation, is surging through channels of which we may not even be aware.

"I am not a cat." Just another practice pitfall we did not anticipate when this two-week shutdown started, 11 months ago

The video itself is presented below, but I can't imagine it will be available indefinitely. For that reason, I've included a still (both the video and the still were obtained from this post on Lowering the Bar, a site I link to on Page One).

When I saw this on the news last night my first thought was there but for the grace of God go I.

One of my sons texted me a different link to this story first thing this morning -- and it occured to me then that I am indeed fortunate not to have all the latest gizmos and whizbangs installed on my creaky old laptop. I could just imagine that this poor lawyer's kids or grandkids got hold of his machine and, in all innocence, left it on a setting the poor lawyer could not un-set. He refers to his "assistant" trying to help him de-cat his image, and I wondered if said assistant might be the kid who got him in this predicament in the first place. And then maybe couldn't remember---in the pressure of the moment---how to fix the problem.

I know your malpractice carrier and the good folks at ARDC will tell you that lawyers need to keep their work machines away from family members -- and this video presents a perfect illustration of why this advice is given -- but the kids or grandkids are not swiping the lawyer's machine to ascertain client confidences or business secrets. They probably would take it only as a last resort: Adobe Reader is no substitute for Fortnite. They would only swipe a lawyer's computer because all the other machines had been taken.

The Texas judge in question released this video for "educational purposes," adding, "It is crucial that this not be used to mock the lawyers."

You'll have no trouble with me, Your Honor. Not on this one. But my kids may be a different story....

Spell-check is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th Century...

...this amusing bit of doggerel nothwithstanding.

However, on a more serious note, this poem illustrates the danger inherent in uncritical reliance on, or unthinking acceptance of, just about anything. Even something as useful as a spell-checker, or the media.

Today's media can only make us despise one another if we let them

Matt Taibbi covered politics for Rolling Stone for a number of years; the Internet advises that he now is self-publishing his work on Substack.

I saw a chapter of Hate Inc. online (it was in my price range... free) and I thought it so good, and so important, that I actually ordered the book. (OK, so I had a gift card.)

The subtitle of the book is "Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another." And so many of us do -- perhaps without wondering why we do. Didn't we always?

And the answer, of course, is "no." Throughout the course of American history there has never been a shortage of instances of vitriolic, ad hominem attacks and partisan extremism -- but there have also been many instances of persons with strongly held, opposite views who somehow remained friends. There are just a lot fewer examples of such persons in these turbulent times. (In mourning her passing, the apparently genuine friendship between the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia has been frequently cited... often with seeming astonishment.) A politician from one party could occasionally speak with an officeholder in the other party without either, or both, being denounced as quislings or traitors. Sometimes they could even meet in public.

Taibbi's book addresses how things have changed, and how the media has changed them... and us... all in the craven pursuit of clicks and bucks.

In particular, I submit that Mr. Taibbi is onto something with his 10 Rules of Hate. These are the rules; I encourage all to read the book to see his explanations:

1. There are only two ideas.
2. The two ideas are in permanent conflict.
3. Hate people, not institutions.
4. Everything is someone else's fault.
5. Nothing is everyone's fault.
6. Root, don't think.
7. No switching teams.
8. The other side is literally Hitler.
9. In the fight against Hitler, everything is permitted.
10. Feel superior.

It is difficult to imagine having a civil conversation with someone who has just called you Hitler, or who accuses you of supporting someone who behaves or acts like Hitler. And living in civil society with people who say we are Hitler or with people who we say are Hitler is pretty much unimaginable.

So this trend to extremism is flat-out dangerous. Dangerous to the future of the country, maybe even dangerous to any of us physically in the near term. Such as, for example, on November 4.

But it doesn't have to be this way. We can see how we are being manipulated. And we can refuse to play.

Naturally, I am inclined to believe that anyone reading me is not likely to live in a "silo" or "echo chamber" and has the wit to recognize how we are being played or manipulated by those who serve us "news," even if you had never before heard of the 10 Rules of Hate. You, Dear Reader, rightly disdain the open sewer that is so much of today's Facebook and Twitter -- but I'll bet you know plenty of people who are hopelessly mired in the quicksand of online hatred, fueled by manipulative media. These acquaintances of yours (perhaps persons whom you once called 'friend' in real life, or to whom you are regrettably related by blood or marriage) are probably denouncing paragons of virtue on your side, too, aren't they?

Oh... wait... maybe you might want to read this book first... before you give it to those poor, benighted idiots with whom you sometimes stoop to engage online....

Laughter is the best medicine...

Except, of course, if you're sick. In that case, efficacious medicine would be infinitely preferable to laughter.

And, if you're not sick, an effective vaccine would do you far more good than even a hearty chuckle.

At the present time, however, we have neither a vaccine to prevent, nor medicine to treat COVID-19. We can merely laugh at our fears.

In this post, therefore, I've collected a number of posts that appeared on Facebook or that I shamelessly stole from others who were aggregating these gags for their own selfish purposes. I can't credit the original creators of this content because I don't know who they were.

But I do know that all of these made me smile. Perhaps some will make you smile as well.

Kind of funny, isn't it, how reality has a way of undermining expectations?

When the schools shut down, this one struck me as 100% true. But, then, my wife, and one of my sons, is a teacher.

But parents are nothing if not resilient...

Fortunately for the future of the world, teachers are not permitted to simply declare victory and retire.

Still, standards and fashions may of necessity be revised on account of the coronavirus shutdowns. Hopefully, however, not to this extent:

When the history of this unhappy time is written, academics will be puzzled by the fact that, to address the threat of a respiratory disease, American consumers hoarded toilet paper.

Yet this is what happened, and the Internet made fun of it accordingly:

We can all hope that this is not an accurate prediction of how a future monument to this time may look:

There are any number of TP-related jokes. Just this morning I saw this one online: Last night someone TPd my house -- and now it's worth $875,000.

I don't think this will work with TP...

...but I believe it is a proven method for starting a potato plant. My ancestors thrived on these... before the blight. If things don't get better soon, we may have to remember how they did it.

It's all too easy to get depressed, watching the news, and reading social media accounts. We are supposed to be hunkering down in our homes -- but first responders and medical personnel aren't allowed to shelter in place. They must brave the storm despite critical shortages of personal protective equipment. Some solutions to ease the PPE shortages will work much better than this, but none will be sillier:

Social distancing is nothing new to me. People have crossed the street to avoid me for years. But it can be hard to handle for some.

Newspaper horoscopes used to be prepared months in advance. If this had really been prepared some months ago, it would have been quite impressive:

Pets were overjoyed when the work from home orders came out.

But even for Man's Best Friend, too much of a good thing can become a problem....

There are very few places that we can go during the lockdown, and the grocery is one of them. This church sign offers shoppers a tip from the Old Testament that is very relevant.

Somebody else was channeling their inner Steven Wright when they posted this gem:

They said a mask and gloves were enough to go to the grocery store.

They lied. Everybody else had clothes on.

But even though the grocery store is a permitted destination, it is not necessarily a safe place to go. In fact, you are only as safe at the grocery as the store's least careful customer. That's why this one made me laugh so hard. That, and the fact that I am of a certain age and level of nerdiness:

I initially thought to close this collection with something snarky, like this:

But this seems more appropriate to the seriousness of the times:

If you're supposed to stay home, stay home. And if you can't stay home, because you are keeping the rest of us fed, or keeping us safe, God bless you. Either way, be well.

Strictly Personal: Did Adam Schefter really have to break the Andrew Luck story Saturday night?

The whole family was over Saturday evening. The older grandkids were grumbling that the TV was tuned to the Bears game (such as it was), with sidetrips only for the Sox game (fewer and fewer as the evening wore on) and the University of Miami vs. University of Florida tussle on ESPN.

It was while watching the college game that we first saw news of Adam Schefter's tweet about Andrew Luck's retirement. My sons and sons-in-law had their phones out in an instant -- they all follow Schefter -- and instantly confirmed that Schefter had made this report. "He'd better be right," said one. "If he misses on this one, it's a possible career-ender."

"Well, he just doubled down," said another, reading Schefter's latest tweet.

(I had my phone out, too, but I seemed to only have tweets from Popehat's Ken White. Nothing about Indianapolis quarterbacks at all.)

We flipped back to the Bears game, where Schefter's tweets were under discussion by the broadcasters -- and, apparently, by many of the fans. There was quite a bit of exaggerated gesticulation going on in the stands that appeared unrelated to any action on the field.

"Try NFL Network," someone suggested, and we flipped over there next, but a different, though equally meaningless preseason game was unfolding there.

Millennials flip channels way too fast for me, but somewhere in the back and forth, supplemented by phone data, it was determined that Luck would address the media following the Bears game. And that Luck was booed by the fans in the Lucas Oil Stadium stands as he left the field for perhaps the last time.

One of my sons-in-law is an Indianapolis native. It would be too much to say that he was actually distraught, but he was a bit in shock. "They're not booing Luck necessarily," he finally said. "They're angry at the team for squandering Luck's talent. For failing to get a capable offensive line. The Colts ruined him."

I don't think they quite made it to halftime of the meaningless game on the NFL Network before the network cut away to show young Mr. Luck, choking up at the podium. They did a split screen for a minute or two, then just put Luck up full frame.

This wasn't how he wanted to go out at all.

He had talked to management about his decision to retire before the game. He wanted to break it to the team after the game, then have a press conference to explain it to the world on Sunday.

Obviously, somebody blabbed. A family member, perhaps. A team employee. Whoever the blabber was no doubt thought that he or she had extracted a promise from the blabee not to spread the news further.

Thus illustrating the old Ben Franklin maxim, "Two people can keep a secret so long as one of them is dead."

But why did Schefter have to tell the world so quickly?

Who would have been hurt by sitting on the news for an hour or so? That would have given Luck time to tell his teammates. It was evident, watching Luck's premature press conference, that he was devastated that he was not permitted to tell the team his news his way.

The Vegas bookies had to quickly recalibrate the odds of Indy getting to the Superbowl. Someone on Twitter posted a receipt from a sports book in Iowa -- do they really have sports books in Iowa? -- allegedly showing a wager made on Indianapolis to go to the Super Bowl made not five minutes before Schefter's first tweet.

But did we all really have to know Luck was going right then? The good people who bought Colts season tickets in reliance on Andrew Luck's return had already done so.

It was hardly a matter of life or death. I guess revealing the information when he did burnished Schefter's reputation as a knowledgeable insider.

I think it would have been better for all concerned, however, better even for Mr. Schefter, if the news had been withheld until after Luck had the chance to tell his locker room.

I guess I would never have made it in journalism.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew Luck photo obtained here.

Blogger rants about Blogger

I'm not Andy Rooney, but I'm feeling cantankerous and curmudgeonly these days and, like the late Mr. Rooney, I'm not afraid to tell you about it.

The immediate cause of my grumpiness is Blogger. Not a blogger, mind you, not some individual spewing his or her opinions into a largely indifferent Internet, but Blogger the blog publishing service that has been a Google brand since 2003. These guys:

Generally, I like Blogger. From 2006 until this afternoon, I've put up 2,667 posts on Page One of this blog and (since 2008) another 459 (this is post #460) here on Page Two. Blogger is in my price range -- free -- and it has been fairly easy to use. Despite the fact that I'm no 'techie', I've been able to insert photos and graphics and embed videos and customize my text -- it's not WordPerfect, mind you, but it's not bad.

However, lately, Blogger has made my blogging life miserable -- and today provides a perfect illustration.

Over the past 10 years I've covered Cook County judicial elections in some detail. I've got some substantial archives built up. Put it this way, if there is news about Cook County judicial candidate Joan Smith, and I want to do a post, the first place I look for background is my own archives. Until recently, I could put Smith's name into the search box on my "All Posts" page -- something you don't see -- and, presto!, I'd have every post I'd ever done in which her name was mentioned.

Recently, though, Blogger messed this function up. Now, searches only go back four years or so. Well, Smith may have run unsuccessfully for a subcircuit seat in 2010; that datum might be relevant to my current post. She might have been appointed to a seat in 2012; I'd have a biographical sketch in the post about her appointment that I could update for my new post. But Blogger's search was no longer producing these results.

The first time I noticed this, after some time-consuming work-arounds, I dutifully pressed the "send feedback" button (see below) that resides in the lower right hand corner of my screen when I create a post.

I sent my feedback -- hey you've made it impossible for me to properly search my archives! -- and resumed my daily activities. I didn't expect to hear back from anybody at Blogger -- and I didn't -- but I harbored some small hope that my concern might be addressed and my search function restored.

It wasn't.

Today I wanted to pull up information about persons receiving appointments -- I knew I had a lot of background in my archives on at least two of the three appointees -- but all the stuff I wanted predated 2014 and so was left out of the search results. Once again, I figured out how to work around my problem -- but it took a lot of time that I shouldn't have had to waste.

Blogger has no customer service number -- no 800 number for bloggers to call -- and I suppose I understand that no one would be eager to volunteer to field calls from little old ladies who can't figure out how to publish videos of their adorable kittens playing with yarn. Or from 'political theorists' living in their mothers' basements who would just accuse the call-taker of being in on the conspiracy anyway.

But an email address might be nice. So there could be a paper trail. And maybe even an eventual response from an actual human.

I did try and peruse the "Official Blogger Blog" to see if I could puzzle something out. I learned more changes are coming -- but I can't tell if they'll create new problems for me -- I don't think so -- but nothing about why the internal search function was rendered useless.

I could push the send feedback button again, of course. But, as Einstein didn't say, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

I probably won't hear from Blogger now either. But my grousing about this has already made me feel better. And maybe someone from Blogger will see this -- something about 'spiders' searching web pages -- and fix the problem. Which is all I really want anyway.

Paying for journalism -- and refusing to pay -- and why

I am obviously in favor of writers getting paid for their work.

What writer would be, could be, against that?

But, when it comes to newspapers, I have a problem.

For 30 years I was a loyal subscriber to the Chicago Tribune. I could pick it up off the front porch and read it on the train going to work. Sometimes I had more to read going home.

But, one day, some years back, when finances were unusually tight at home, even for me, I got mad. I stopped paying for my subscription.

I'd just received a bill for my annual renewal. The Tribune wanted $400 I didn't have. (If that's not the actual amount, it's close -- whatever it was, I didn't have it.)

Now anyone who is not a billionaire knows that sometimes, even when one doesn't have the funds, if the object is of sufficient import, priorities will be arranged to find a way to pay. As I was scheming about how I'd come up with the scratch for Mother Tribune.

But then one day my wife came home from school (she's the Spanish teacher at the parish grade school) and told me what her colleague had done to resolve her big renewal bill from the Tribune. Catholic grade school teachers can teach 40 years and never make what a rookie CPS teacher does. So, as pressing a problem as 400 smackers was for me, it was an even greater problem for my wife's colleague. And my wife's colleague did something about it, too. As my wife recounted the story, her friend called the Tribune subscription office and complained about the price -- and, lo and behold, she got it knocked down by more than half.

In hindsight, I've come to realize that my wife was telling me the story so that I, too, might call and complain and knock down the price. But, at that moment, I could only see red. This is how the Tribune treats loyal customers? I'd paid cheerfully and without complaint for all these years, despite the real sacrifice that the subscription cost required, when all I really had to do was beef loud enough and get the price knocked down by more than half? How much money had I wasted over the years?

If the price of a subscription is something that can be bargained for, like a piece of cloth in the bazaar, what was its real value? How could I know that I was not getting swindled at $200? At $150?

So I refused to pay the bill and I refused to call and barter.

I made do for awhile, picking up the Incredibly Shrinking Sun-Times at the L station in the morning -- by this time, the Tribune had stopped, or was just about to stop, selling on the street -- but, eventually, even the Sun-Times stopped selling through street vendors. Over time, I've gotten news increasingly from online sources -- the Tribune included -- but the erection of pay walls and monthly article limits has made this an increasingly difficult challenge. Instead of reading a newspaper -- the product of an industry that I am highly motivated to support -- I am ruining my eyesight reading Twitter posts on my phone.

The Tribune is desperately marketing its online product -- but still with fluid pricing. Why the heck should an 'introductory' subscriber get one price, while a returning customer must pay more -- and perhaps considerably more?

Another paper that allegedly covets my online subscription -- the Washington Post (the illustration here is from a recent email I received) -- apparently uses the same seemingly random pricing method.

And I am resisting. Why is it OK for me to pay $80 if the next guy has to pay $100 for the exact same product?

I sometimes fantasize about trying to make a living off my own writing. And I know I'd have to find a way to get paid in that case. As I said at the outset, I'm entirely in favor of writers getting paid for their work. Meanwhile, newspapers, with their subscription by negotiation policies, are vanishing like the dodo. I wonder if, in the years to come, when historians ponder the decline and fall of the newspaper industry, they will agree that arbitrary pricing was a factor in the industry's extinction.

Lost in the translation?

I tweet out links to most of my page one posts. It seems to have helped build traffic on my site and, apparently, some blog readers get alerts when I tweet; that way, they know for sure when they click over there will be at least one new post to read. I don't understand how any of this works, really; then again, my ignorance of how the Twitter-realm works is unlikely to trigger a nuclear exchange with North Korea. So I've got that going for me.

But then there are mornings like this one. I put up a post. I lined up the next couple of posts that must go up soon -- just as soon as I do a little legal work -- and I answered a few blog-related emails and put up the tweet that you see in the above image.

I thought the tweet was rather straightforward and written in plain, if pedestrian, English.

Twitter, apparently, thought otherwise. That can be the only explanation for the "Translate from Danish" button thoughtfully added by the folks at Twitter. I didn't have the heart to see what the 'translation' might be. All I can say is uff da!

Recovering lawyer posits plausible reason for nasty anonymous comments

For the cartoon-challenged, the above is yesterday's installment of Pearls Before Swine, drawn by recovering lawyer Stephan Pastis, a cartoon which runs in about half the newspapers left in the country, including our own Sun-Times.