In general, good journalistic practice is to be clinical and wordy.
INCORRECT: “Jeff Bezos took off in a dong-rocket.”
CORRECT: “…rocket that was much like a piece of male genitalia in appearance, and to be specific, not the testicles; we’re talking about the penis here.”
ALSO CORRECT: “…rocket that some have said looks exactly like a penis but others have said ‘oh we refuse to see a penis in that’ and it is good and correct to represent both of these points of view anyway we explore this debate tonight at 10.”
ALSO ALSO CORRECT: “Facebook is refusing to take down posts that say the rocket does not look like male non-testicular genitalia, but IS putting out a lot of information on why exactly the rocket DOES look like said genitalia, and is hoping that drowns out those other posts.”
…which is perhaps trivializing because hey a dong-rocket isn’t threatening all our lives so anyway I look forward to the political candidates who firmly believe it’s not a penis rocket and who run on that firm contention.
No I didn’t mean to use the word “firm” twice there.
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I think I think about this chart like once a day at this point. It just explains 95% of American partisan politics right now.
I have helpfully highlighted the relevant portion. 1/
There aren't a lot of fiscally conservative, socially liberal people.
But...there ARE a lot of fiscally liberal, socially conservative people. Dennis from 30 Rock is EVERYWHERE, America, and you had no idea. 2/
Why are Culture Wars over trans kids in sports and (TOTALLY FALSE) calls for less beef consumption a big Thing on the right? In part, because this. Because of that quadrant. Go for the theoretically gettable social conservatives. who aren't firmly in that upper right area. 3/
The thing I hate most about Washington just might be the mistaken idea that we are the only people on the planet who ask other people what they do for 8 hours a day.
It turns out that it’s a fine but also very crude and imperfect shorthand for “hey what are you interested in” or “hey what are you good at” or “hey tell me about your life.” And then often we ask other questions! It’s wild!
I have tried approaching people at parties with “hey show me the most vulnerable depths of your very soul” and anyway i now have 7 restraining orders against me so....
*and I understand there are complicated issues there that need/needed to be resolved and I get that and also it’s just one of my flipping favorite podcasts and I hope they can fix what needs fixing ok.
Anyway podcast-makers: there’s a huge market for shows with senses of humor that are also informative and narrative/highly-produced. Please make them!!!!!!
OK, so. I couldn't help myself and did a count of the overruns.
Keep in mind this is based on our initial quick and dirty transcript BUT my initial count:
Pence's overruns totaled somewhere around 748 words.
Harris's: 390 words.
To be clear, this is based on me going over our transcript and counting the instances where Susan Page tried to interrupt and the speakers kept going. It DOESN'T include anything after Page said "Ok 15 seconds" or something like that.
Again: this is based on very quickly established criteria (established by me) but it at least gives a first stab at showing an unevenness that showed up on stage tonight.
Now i do have an obnoxious quibble and it’s that wealth and income are not the same thing but honestly.
I get it I get it that it’s expensive to live in SF or NY or DC. But framing it as “actually this family is middle class” seems less truthful than “you have to be making a crazy high income to support a family and plan for the future in these cities.”