Well, this will be a very interesting “7 and 7” today, won’t it?
Okay.ย Every Saturday, I’m proud to share seven blog posts from the community and independent blogging team at the Albany Times Union, and then I go to my blogroll and show off seven more blogs from my friends – both those in the Albany community and those in the photography world.ย I’ve added a couple of new blogs to that blogroll, so I hope you have a chance to view their work as well.
As always, let’s start with the blogs from Big Hearst, shall we?
- Fran Rossi Szpylczyn’s “There Will Be Bread” blog, “#metoo.” (Read this first.)
- Sara Rose Wheeler’s “Roaring Twenties” blog, “Me too.“
- Roger Green’s “Information Without the Bun” blog, “‘Banned’ in a functional sense.“
- Susanne Marie Poulette’s blog, “Grief, Compassion, Advice Ignored?“
- Rabbi Matt Cutler’s blog, “Take a breath as some take a knee.“
- Rob Hoffman’s “Hoffman Files” blog, “Quebec – c’est magnifique!“
- Gina Peca’s blog, “GREAT EXPECTATIONS.“
Now let’s check out the blogroll and see what my friends are up to, shall we?
- Rob Madeo’s “Keyboard Krumbs” blog, “On Their Own Terms.” (Read this first.)
- Heather Fazio’s blog, which should go live soon, but for now is hosted here, “#metoo – a guest post by Heather Fazio.“
- Lazygal’s “Killin’ Time Being Lazy” blog, “Culture Vulturing: Three Times Lucky.“
- Stephanie Snyder’s “The Final Edit” blog, “Nailed it: Copy-cat Chipotle tomato salsa.“
- Silvia Lilly’s “DelSo” blog, “Telling the truth – in Albany.“
- J. Eric Smith’s blog, “#ChicagoMarathon.“
- Daniel Berman’s “FUSSYlittleBLOG” blog, “Stocking Up on the Good Wine.“
Have a great weekend, everybody!
Chuck The Writer 
JANGO DAVISโ ZOMBIE BLOG LIST: 250 Words a Month โ Is that too much to ask?
Welcome to an early Halloween special edition of Jangoโs Times Union Zombie Blog list. This week we have a bumper crop of dead blogs brought to you by the courtesy of the lack of work by TU blog uberfrau Tena Tyler.
I started the Zombie Blog list back during Mike Huberโs days, and to his credit he did such a good job he put the Zombie Blog list out of business. Then Mike left and if the saying โcream rises to the topโ is true then folks, we are now at the bottom of the milk bottle. There are no less than 23 blogs that have gone without updates for at least three months, and some for 10 months. For a full list and my pithy comments please see below. This is a pathetic abandonment of editorial responsibility by people getting paid too much for not doing their jobs.
But before we plunge the voluminous examples of the Times Unionโs lack of editorial oversight and control, let me present to you the ANNUAL ZOMBIE BLOG AWARD FOR JOURNALISTIC INCOMPETENCE. This year we have a tie! Oh my God โ who can it be? Envelope please . . . drum roll . . . and the winners are:
Rex Smith and Tena Tyler! What did they do that warranted this rare distinction? It all starts with two words โ two syllables: Me too.
These words began turning up on my Facebook feed at the beginning of the week. Women taking the brave step of admitting publically they were sexually assaulted. Then this turned up on my feed from an old college friend:
MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo MeToo
One woman listing all the sexual assaults, groping, and molestations she suffered and endured. My heart sank. Why? Although I was already aware, it wasnโt until it was someone I knew that it hit me like a ton of bricks. Thatโs the power a good community blog can bring to the reporterโs table. FYI โ for those of you not up to date, โMe Tooโ is a trending response in reply to a rising public awareness of this largely unreported crime that began with President Donald โPussy-Grabberโ Trump comments and culminated with the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
Two brave women and longtime bloggers for the Times Union Heather Rusaw-Fazio and Fran Rossi Szpylczyn stepped forward and told their stories. They did not identify anyone. The descriptions were explicit โ it was crime. Heather wrote F***. The word Penis was used. They were accused of using vulgarities and being pornographic, their blogs โsuspended.โ Denied access to years of their writing (effectively locked and hijacked by the Times Union). The Times Union will say that they werenโt banned nor censored/ They were temporarily โsuspendedโ and the โquestionableโ content removed, but banned and censored is effectively what happened.
Whatโs the problem with saying FUCK in a blog Rex? Is there a law against using the word fuck in a blog before 10 pm? Are you afraid children might read it? Pornographic? Do you think people are getting turned on by this shit Rex and Tena?
Rex Smith will see it differently. He says it was โmiscommunication.โ Heather and Fran werenโt banned โ THEY decided to no longer play on his reindeer games. Itโs all their fault, right Rex? The women MADE you do it. Do you want me to tell you exactly what you sound like Rex? Do I need to tell you or AM I NOT COMMUNICATING CLEAR ENOUGH?
Just a miscommunication? Well, let me communicate clearly Mr. Smith so you understand. Communication is your fucking job. Thatโs all you and Tena Tyler do all day. Fucking communicate. You are by definition, professional communicators. ITโS WHAT YOU DO. As you can see by the list provided below of all the blogs (23 in all) that have not been updated in 3 months, some 4 or 5 months, and some at least 10 months without an update. There are 129 blogs – 17.8% of them are effectively dead blogs. You have FUCKING ABANDONED the Times Union blogs โ but when your FUCKING LAWYER calls you, suddenly you show some interest in the blogs and you and Tena get your collectives knickers in a fucking twist about it.
I also LOVED the way Rex explained โA woman who is the senior editor in charge of engagement โ and thus the supervisor of community blogs โ took the step of protecting Heather and the Times Union from a potential libel claim.โ Oh well, a WOMAN told Fran and Heather they got the boot for revealing one of the most private and embarrassing things that can happen to anyone. A WOMAN was actually protecting them, but hey no worries folks . . . everything is ok . . .the Times Union got a WOMAN to tell them. Well, thatโs mighty white of you Rex. That just freakin makes up for violating their First Amendment rights.
The racist White Supremacist Richard Spencer gets to exercise his right to free speech to spread his hate this week (and the TU reports on it), but two women talk about how theyโve been victims of sexual assault and the 1st Amendment suddenly is AWOL at the Times Union. So there it is folks. Hate speech ok, but accuse an unidentified male of sexual assault and BAM suddenly the Times Union treats you worse than they would treat Nazi because you know if Rex Smith ever landed an interview with Richard Spencer that hate would be spread all across the Times Union โ but only for paid subscribers of course.
Hereโs the thing โ print newspapers, or at least the Times Union, are effectively a dead medium. The only reason the print version of the Times Union still gets published is because old women need to line the bottom of their bird cages and the homeless need something to wipe their asses with. Not only are people almost entirely getting their news primarily through the Internet or TV, but the most successful news platforms have integrated social media and citizen journalists to put trending stories in local perspective and make their communities feel the real impact of the trending story โ in this case the sexual assault of women.
That is not only the future of journalism, it is NOW, and Rex and Tena are simply not doing the job. The blog page has been virtually abandoned. There has been no editorial control asserted until recently, and only because the lawyers took a squat on Rex and Tena. Rex Smith and Tena Tyler do not have the vision to bring the Times Union into this new era of journalism, and they have already demonstrated they lack the ability to exercise editorial control over the blogs. What they did to those two women amounts to yet another assault. It was a violation as personal as the ones they wrote about.
To be fair, I must admit to having met both Rex and Tena in my previous life as an occasional and a very peripheral member of the local media in various capacities. Rex, to his credit, would be a great editor in any time period . . . say any time between 1919 and 1921 โ you know, before that whole โteletypeโ thing took off . . . and Tena โ all I can say is that this most recent scandal confirmed my first impression โ thereโs a desk in a post office somewhere with your name on it.
The victims of President Trumpโs sexual assaults were attacked, humiliated, and dismissed. Bill Cosbyโs victims were derided and diminished with โWell, why was she alone with a married man?โ Harvey Weinsteinโs victims are being accused of lying because the actresses didnโt report sexual assaults that everyone knew about, but no one was doing anything about โ but sure letโs blame the young actress for not having the balls we donโt have either.
So, sorry for this long rant. Does all this sound unfair to you?
Me Too.
Jangoโs Zombie Blog List for October 2017
1. Cardboard Empire: A board game blog LAST UPDATE 6/9/2017: As a board gamer, much sadness and disappointment.
2. 518 Music LAST UPDATE 5/16/2017: 5 months and nothing to report about the music scene in the hip 518 area code. Yep, that pretty much sums it up.
3. Tony Iadicicco LAST UPDATE 5/1/2017 Ah, no one cares.
4. Albany Improv LAST UPDATE 12/27/2016: Honest to fucking God โ Actors โ what a waste of fucking brain cells
5. The Buzz: Business news LAST UPDATE 5/18/2017. No business news in the Capital Region since May? Do you hear me mocking you? Because Iโm mocking you.
6. Dowd on Drinks LAST UPDATE 12/15/2016: Yeah, we get it by now. That was Dowdโs last fucking blog. How fucking long are you going to fucking leave it up?
7. Home Restoration LAST UPDATE 4/27/2017: Well, La Di Fucking Da. Look everyone โ Watch middle-class aspirations die in mediocrity and apathy.
8. Hot Topics LAST UPDATE 3/14/2017 โ Yes, absolfuckinglutely nothing has happened since April. The Times Union โ Once again determined to drag us into 20th Century newsgathering.
9. Carl Strock LAST UPDATE 3/13/2017. I pity you Carl. I really just pity you.
10. The Observation Deck Last Update 2/1/2017: Actually, it has been updated since February only Jay Jocnowitz or Tena Tyler are just too fucking lazy to change the goddamn headline.
11. Ken Screven LAST Update 1/20/2017 The racism from the White House has embolden racists at Charlottesville and elsewhere. NFLers taking the knee. The epidemic of police shootings of innocent black men at traffic stops in 2017 is almost as high as it was over the past two years [http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2017/07/number_of_police-involved_fata.html]. There are LOTS of things for a veteran African-American journalist to put in perspective for us and WHERE THE FUCK IS KEN SCREVEN? Hope we arenโt taking you away from anything more important. Now, Iโm not saying just because you are African-American, and pretty much along with Reece Williams the only African-Americans writing about social issues on the TU blogs, you donโt have to write about social issues, BUT FOR GODโS SAKE WRITE SOMETHING. Write about history, your favorite books, records, films, whatever โ You were a freakinโ journalist for decades Ken. For fuckโs sake just write something or bail and stop this charade.
12. Reece T. Williams LAST UPDATE 1/29/2017: Graduates in May 2016, squeaks out 7 entries between Sept 2016 and Jan 2017 and then heโs gone. Like most college students, they can only maintain attention for about the length of a semester.
13. The Davenport Chronicles LAST UPDATE 3/3/2017: I used to enjoy this, now I just look at it with a mix of pity and disgust.
14. Michael Rivest LAST UPDATE 6/10/2017. Hope the demands of squeezing out 250 words once a month isnโt killing you Mike.
15. Paul Burgdorf LAST UPDATE 1/20/2017: Only five posts altogether. Why do you exist Paul, because Iโm not sure I can think of a reason right now.
16. Mohawk Hudson River Humane Society LAST UPDATE 6/30/2017: Thank you for doing absolutely nothing to promote animal welfare during the active summer season in the regionโs largest newspaper Internet presence. I hope a dog craps on you.
17. Boxing in the Capital Region LAST UPDATE 6/16/2017: Actually, I suppose we should thank you for not promoting a violent blood sport that causes head concussions, does not prepare the athletes for a post-boxing career, and provides marginal personalities picked last in dodge ball the opportunity to live vicariously through the misery of others.
18. Bowling LAST UPDATE 5/9/2017: Actually, no one fucking cares.
19. Soccer as Life LAST UPDATE – 4/24/2017. US Menโs team doesnโt qualify for the World Cup first time in decades. Not a word.
20. House of Hoops LAST UPDATE 2/23/2017: House of Poops is more like it. I have no idea how Mike Medved gets away year after year of doing as little as possible as long as possible. There is something to write about b-ball all year long. High school, college, pro ball. International leagues, drafts, training pre-season. I donโt believe Mike likes basketball at all. Maybe he would be better suited to writing about rainbows and freakinโ unicorns.
21. College Football LAST UPDATE 1/7/2017. Something about college ball goes on all year long . This is just a platform for Sean Martin to drop what shit he canโt fly past the Sports Editor during the regular season.
22. The Bike Blog LAST UPDATE 6/16/2017: Seriously, the entire summer riding season goes by and NOT A SINGLE FUCKING POST?
23. Birding with Richard Guthrie LAST UPDATE 6/7/2017: Seriously, the entire summer birding season goes by and NOT A SINGLE FUCKING POST?
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I’m howling, lol! Thank you for this!
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Jango, that was the best Zombie Blog update ever! ๐๐๐
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Best comment ever.
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