Marcy, it’s everywhere

Uhm.......

Now that I’m pretty-much caught up with my blogging — my August 2014 Monthly Calendar-Report was finished two weeks ago — I worried I’d have nothing to blog about.
But something always appears, fulfilling my advice to Marcy there’s always utter madness to blog.
Marcy is my Number-One Ne’er-do-Well. We worked in adjacent cubicles at the Messenger Newspaper. She was the first I sent stuff to. She thought them so hilarious she began filing them in her computer.
They were just stuff I was filing on my family’s website. Now my vaunted Ne’er-do-Well e-mail list comprises maybe 20-25, and what I blog is not always madness.
Marcy was also the one that got me into BlogSpot blogging. My family’s website tanked, so now my stuff only flies on BlogSpot.
As I say, madness is everywhere; all I have to do is see it, then blog it.
One time Marcy asked how I had so much insanity to blog about: “Marcy, it’s everywhere!” I shrieked.
Perhaps a week ago a solicitation came for me to financially support some effort to memorialize WWII female aviators (WASPs)
They’re apparently building a museum at an airfield in Texas.
The envelope has a so-called “bird’s-eye view”of a proposed hanger-extension — illustrated above.
I wondered if that bird could fly.
Obviously the viewing bird was still on the ground; the “bird’s-eye view” appeared to be a side-elevation.
Every “bird’s-eye view” I’ve seen before was from up in the sky looking down.
I know I’m picking nits. But I worked for a newspaper, and right-wing extremists were all-too-happy to point out our mistakes, especially grammatical errors.
“Well, you know what they meant” wasn’t good enough for the extremists, unless it was their mistake.
They’d loudly claim we were too liberal and therefore stupid; that they could do a better job.
Often they sent us Letters-to-the-Editor we’d have to clean up. They’d go ballistic we did that, and phone to castigate our publisher (the head-honcho).
We had to make them say what they meant.
We should have published ‘em as is.
I remember once getting a phonecall from some lady screaming about “freedom-of-the-press.” All because we had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to doctor her letter so it said what she meant — that we were too liberal and therefore stupid. What press freedom had to do with her beef we had no idea. She was doing a Rush Limbaugh imitation. She was soaking her telephone’s mouthpiece just like Limbaugh soaks his gold-plated microphone.
Sometimes they’d copy/paste directly from the Limbaugh website. We could tell because such letters were cogent and well-written. Obviously someone was ghosting for Limbaugh.
Once an extremist called and started angrily haranguing our City-Editor. He got her crying. Our Executive-Editor had to take over and shut him down. Extremist-dude called back, and we put him on infinite hold.
So some underpaid graphic-artist imports the architect’s side-elevation onto his envelope template.
And then labels it a “bird’s-eye view.”
And the overpaid mavens don’t catch it.
Well, we know what they meant.
It wasn’t us, the dreaded media, a newspaper (GASP).
So therefore it doesn’t matter — unless it’s a newspaper.

• A picture of “Marcy” is in this blog at Conclave of Ne’er-do-Wells.
• The “Messenger Newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired almost nine years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years (over 11 if you count my time as a post-stroke unpaid intern [I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I recovered fairly well]). (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)