DMN Fail: Pete Sessions and Sam Johnson

This week, The Dallas Morning News made recommendations in the 32nd and 3rd Congressional District races for north Texas. In both cases, the editorials read as if the editorial board struggled to come up with plausible reasons to support what may have been a preordained outcome -- recommending the long-term incumbents Pete Sessions and Sam Johnson. The News simply dismisses the Democratic opponents ("out of sync", "too far left"), with condescension ("well-intentioned") and no serious analysis. Worse, the News didn't even bother interviewing the Libertarians on the ballot or analyze the Libertarian positions. The News just accepts without question the assumption that Sessions and Johnson are for fiscal responsibility, despite decades of history otherwise.

After the jump, two particularly bizarre examples from The Dallas Morning News editorials.

Take the Religious Knowledge Quiz

According to the Pew Forum, "atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new Pew Forum survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions."

Take the quiz yourself. But be careful not to score too high, lest your friends and neighbors mistake you for a Mormon or, gasp, atheist.

I scored 15/15, better than 99% of those surveyed. I guess that's what 12 years of a Catholic education buys one. Or perhaps it's just my nature. One can't be skeptical about something without learning about it first.

After the jump, some theories to explain the poor results in general.

Learning English: Real Test

The headline read, "Campus alert system passes real test." It referred to incident of a man with a gun on the UT-Austin campus. My first reaction was, "That wasn't any test. That was the real thing." Unable to come up with a word the headline writer should have used instead of "test" I was off to the dictionary.

test: the means by which the presence, quality, or genuineness of anything is determined; a means of trial.

This definition of test doesn't require that the trial be performed as a drill or in laboratory or simulated conditions. I had to admit that the event in Austin this week (real shooter, real bullets, real threat) was indeed a test of the alert system. This real life incident certainly was a trial by which the quality of the alert system was determined.

On the other hand, when storm sirens sound when a tornado approaches, the radio or television alert emphasizes, "This is *not* a test." I can imagine that the alerts that sounded on campus this week being communicated the same way, "This is *not* a test."

So, how can something not be a "test" when it's in progress, but afterward everyone look back and be relieved that the system passed the "test"?

In the case of our headline writer, I assume he or she knew of this ambiguity in the meaning of the word test, so "real" was added. Readers will more likely understand that a "real test" is not a simulation. Still, shouldn't English have words to better distinguish these difference cases? How would you have written the headline?

Twitter Tracks: Football, the Election and the End of the World

Twitter tracks from September, 2010:

• 2010 09 01 - Big Ten division split to be announced at 6pm, but most details already leaked. Biggest question remaining? Where will LeBron land?
• 2010 09 01 - Conan debuts Nov 8, that is, *after* the election. Conan misuses his talents by failing to satirize politics.
• 2010 09 01 - Let's see... combat mission in Iraq is over, MidEast peace talks have resumed, ..., I know, let's talk home decorating tastes.
• 2010 09 02 - It's a short step from thinking that mental illness has biological causes to thinking that faith, hope and charity do, too.
• 2010 09 02 - My favorite retort to Stephen Hawking: "Hawking, if God does not exist, how did he curse you? You bitter little wanker." Unassailable logic.
• 2010 09 02 - 2012: The end-of-the-world disaster movie, not the Palin election disaster, although just as catastrophic and even more absurd, if possible.
• 2010 09 02 - Somehow, I doubt Rod Dreher is going to agree. Headline: "Stephen Hawking Settles the God Question Once and For All" http://goo.gl/Uf8q
• 2010 09 03 - Maggie May USA gives lukewarm endorsement to Bill White over Rick Perry: "The dime seems run out." http://goo.gl/6pQ2
• 2010 09 03 - Best quote from 2012, spoken by a woman as California is destroyed by earthquake: "Merrill, I told you. We have to move back to Wisconsin."
• 2010 09 03 - Final. Richardson Pearce 31, Irving Nimitz 35. #hsgt
• 2010 09 03 - Headline: "Ariz. governor says she was wrong about beheadings." I don't which is more embarrassing, when she's tongue-tied or when she talks

After the jump, more Twitter tracks.

The Sun Shines on Cottonwood

From 2010 10 Cottonwood

Saturday, the weather was perfect. The artists amazing. The crowds fun-loving and enthusiastic. I'm talking of course about Richardson's twice annual Cottonwood Art Festival.

And the weather is forecast to be just as perfect for Sunday, the second and last day of the Festival. Jeffrey Weiss of The Dallas Morning News asks, "When was the last time Richardson's Cottonwood Art Festival had two perfect days of weather?" Don't worry about looking up the answer. Just get out and enjoy the weather, the art, the music, the food, the crowds.

For a look at more photos from this fall's Festival, look here.