The worst newspaper columnist, ever
My friend Scott is absolutely correct: Mark Morford, of the San Francisco Chronicle, is the worst newspaper columnist in the history of the typeset word. San Francisco, you have my condolences.
Scott pointed out Ma-Mo's most recent bombastic screed as a key example of this columnist's general tendency toward spittle-flecked incoherence, and I have this to say. Mark Morford, you are a pox on journalism (not to mention, liberals). I present you with the following study questions about today's column, in the hope that you will take a hard look at addressing your rhetorical disability, for the sake of your fellow San Franciscans.
1) First things first: there is no such thing as a fuzzy beach ball.
2) "As soon as people begin realizing there's more to this brief little slice of existence than hate and war and the constant drumbeat of fear, there's always resistance" hints at broad, eye-rolling cliche. Consider revising.
3) "Authority" is not capitalized, even if you think It Imparts Meaning to do so.
4) It is possibly weak journalism to acknowledge that your strained comparison of "Brokeback Mountain" to the Alito nomination in no way resonates with any living human, and yet to continue, bulldozerlike, with the comparison. You might take this up with your editor, who curiously overlooked it in this piece.
5) What is "deep, curious sighing"?
6) Based on your description of bigotry and intolerance as having a knobby little head, I am sort of picturing Dobby, the House Elf, from Harry Potter book 2. Am I getting warm?
7) Do you really, no, --really-- think that Samuel Alito's true career aspirations are "to do everything in his power to keep America's spiritual, humanitarian and sexual progress locked in the ironclad box of anti-women, anti-gay, power-uber-alles conservative thinking"? Let's get out a picture of Alito and take a good look. Right. Take a long look at the picture. Hmm. Could you possibly be overstating your case?
8) Is it possible that you have some weird mixed religious metaphor going on with the bit about the gasping and the ropes? Sort through some Wikipedia summaries of the major world religions and get back to me with specifics. It sounds like some sort of S&M sect of Catholicism to me as it stands, which may confuse a few people.
9) I tried to picture Dick Cheney "beating his chest and screaming his resistance as the mystics and the masters" but the image wouldn't come. I just kept seeing King Kong. Perhaps a King Kong with a neocon spiritual death wish, but King Kong all the same. I am concerned that your affection for Hollywood imagery may be having a deleterious effect on your powers of description?
When you are done with the study questions, please put your pen down and never pick it up, ever again.
Scott pointed out Ma-Mo's most recent bombastic screed as a key example of this columnist's general tendency toward spittle-flecked incoherence, and I have this to say. Mark Morford, you are a pox on journalism (not to mention, liberals). I present you with the following study questions about today's column, in the hope that you will take a hard look at addressing your rhetorical disability, for the sake of your fellow San Franciscans.
1) First things first: there is no such thing as a fuzzy beach ball.
2) "As soon as people begin realizing there's more to this brief little slice of existence than hate and war and the constant drumbeat of fear, there's always resistance" hints at broad, eye-rolling cliche. Consider revising.
3) "Authority" is not capitalized, even if you think It Imparts Meaning to do so.
4) It is possibly weak journalism to acknowledge that your strained comparison of "Brokeback Mountain" to the Alito nomination in no way resonates with any living human, and yet to continue, bulldozerlike, with the comparison. You might take this up with your editor, who curiously overlooked it in this piece.
5) What is "deep, curious sighing"?
6) Based on your description of bigotry and intolerance as having a knobby little head, I am sort of picturing Dobby, the House Elf, from Harry Potter book 2. Am I getting warm?
7) Do you really, no, --really-- think that Samuel Alito's true career aspirations are "to do everything in his power to keep America's spiritual, humanitarian and sexual progress locked in the ironclad box of anti-women, anti-gay, power-uber-alles conservative thinking"? Let's get out a picture of Alito and take a good look. Right. Take a long look at the picture. Hmm. Could you possibly be overstating your case?
8) Is it possible that you have some weird mixed religious metaphor going on with the bit about the gasping and the ropes? Sort through some Wikipedia summaries of the major world religions and get back to me with specifics. It sounds like some sort of S&M sect of Catholicism to me as it stands, which may confuse a few people.
9) I tried to picture Dick Cheney "beating his chest and screaming his resistance as the mystics and the masters" but the image wouldn't come. I just kept seeing King Kong. Perhaps a King Kong with a neocon spiritual death wish, but King Kong all the same. I am concerned that your affection for Hollywood imagery may be having a deleterious effect on your powers of description?
When you are done with the study questions, please put your pen down and never pick it up, ever again.
posted by Strikethru at
3:32 PM
4 Comments:
I really wish Mark Morford could read this royal ass-reaming you gave him; it might shame him into choosing a new career.
Actually, he seems like the kind of guy who spends hours every day Googling his own name, so hopefully he has already stumbled across it.
I completely agree. He's totally bombastic and incomprehensible.
Off with his head!
Morford doesn't claim to be a journalist. Plus, I've always read his columns both as cultural commentary and as poetry. His columns are especially enjoyable when one has an imagination to help one out. He should be on NPR.
Post a Comment
<< Home