In 1893, Finley Peter Dunne, a journalist-turned-humorist at the Chicago Evening Post, introduced Martin J. Dooley to the people of Chicago. Mr. Dooley, as he was best known, was a thick-accented bartender from Ireland who owned a tavern in the Bridgeport neighborhood. Mr. Dooley became popular among Chicagoans for his rich satire of politics and society. Of course, Mr. Dooley wasn’t real. He was a fictional character created by Dunne. His work included countless sketches and wide-ranging commentary, but he may be best known for his biting one-liner on newspapers, since reclaimed by journalists as central to the profession’s creed: “The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”
The original quote is from Observations by Mr. Dooley, one of several works Dunne produced as the character, in which Dunne specifically satirizes the press’s penchant for trial-by-media. He presented Mr. Dooley through Irish dialect pieces, hence the diction, so the “affliction” quote below has been lightly edited for comprehension:
When anything was wrote about a man ’twas put this way: “We understand on good authority that … is on trial before Judge G. on an accusation of larceny. But we don’t think it’s true.” Nowadays, the larceny is discovered by a newspaper. The lead pipe is dug up your backyard by a reporter who knew it was there because he helped you bury it. A man knocks at your door early one mornin’ an’ you answer in your nighty. “In name of the law, I arrest you,” says the man seizin’ you by the throat. “Who are you?” you cry. “I’m a reporter for The Daily Slooth,” says he. “Photographer, do your duty!” You’re hauled off in the circulation wagon to the newspaper office where a confession is ready for you to sign; you’re tried by a jury of the staff, sentenced by the editor-in-chief, and at ten o’clock Friday the fatal thrap is sprung by the fatal thrapper of the family journal. The newspaper does evrything for us. It runs the police force and the banks, commands the militia, controls the legislature, baptizes the young, marries the foolish, comforts the afflicted, afflicts the comfortable, buries the dead and roasts them aftherward.
That journalists of all stripes have touted a scathing critique of their profession and repurposed it as a mission statement is a textbook definition of irony that belongs on a Roman pedestal behind bulletproof glass in the Smithsonian. What is most vexing about the modern interpretation of Dunne’s quote is that its new meaning is implied to be synonymous with dispassionately seeking truth, which it necessarily is not.
Robert Showah, “Journalism Is Not Activism”, Quillette, 2018-07-05.
October 19, 2020
QotD: Afflicting the comfortable
October 18, 2020
Miscellaneous Myths: Orion
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 10 Jul 2020Look! Up in the sky! It’s a giant! It’s a hunter! It’s Orion!
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From the comments:
Overly Sarcastic Productions
6 days ago
whoops, uh – YES, way back in my Endymion video I DID say that Artemis loved Orion, but in my defense, I was a much less diligent researcher back then, and that little nugget of “common knowledge” was EVERYWHERE I LOOKED. I had to do some serious digging this time to find where it came from and how unsupported it really was. I wasn’t kidding — that interpretation was so appealingly tropey that it eclipsed the MUCH larger body of work that completely contradicted it, and even completely unrelated articles and descriptions will mention “btw Artemis and Orion were totally smoochin” like it’s a Thing. Mythology is fun like that! 😅 -R
October 17, 2020
History Hijinks: Greek Wise Guys
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 16 Oct 2020When I first studied Ancient Philosophy in college I thought it was engaging and interesting to discuss and whatever, but only years later did I come to appreciate the true hilarity of these Wise-Guys.
SOURCES & Further Reading: Plato’s Dialogues (Apology & Republic), Aristotle’s Ethics, Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen, and when direct sources aren’t available, there’s a bucketload of great write-ups from Stanford: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pr…, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/de…, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ar…, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pl…, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/so…
This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
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October 14, 2020
QotD: The frenetic pace of cancel culture
You want to say: Slow down, young’uns! First you seize power and send all your class enemies to the camps or the grave. Then you turn on your own to purge the ideologically wobbly or those who are insufficiently zealous.
But these idiots are eating their own before they have power. Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling? Off to the gulag for believing in biological sex. The New York Times editorial-page editor earned defenestration for believing in free speech. Day after day on Twitter there’s a frenzy of witch-burning and heretic-stoning; the entire platform is like a self-lubricating guillotine.
Then again, it might be seen as a new, efficient model. After you’ve overthrown the tyrants and set up the People’s Committee, you have a new world to build. Even if you devote the morning to inventing a postcapitalist paradigm and spend the afternoon figuring out how to get fresh water and sanitation to your typhus-infested camp, that means you have to spend the evening drawing up proscription lists. Purging is necessary, but who has the time?
So they’re getting it out of the way now, purging the culture and the Twitter lists of people and things that need to be extirpated for the good of all.
Perhaps this is what happens when people who have been bingeing on TV shows for three months with no place to go decide to have a revolution. Instead of watching the shows once a week and pacing themselves, it’s a whole season in one day.
James Lileks, “Twinkling’s Canceled, Little Star”, National Review, 2020-07-06.
October 10, 2020
Miscellaneous Myths: The Minotaur
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 9 Oct 2020Ah, Theseus. Athens’ favorite trash man. Let’s talk about someone a little more interesting — literally anyone involved in this story will do.
Good news, I found the 1080P button! Bad news, the minute differences in image resolution are now threatening my sanity.
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
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QotD: McMansions
“McMansion Hell from A to Z: Part One (A-H)”, McMansion Hell, 2016-09-25.
October 6, 2020
Rowan Atkinson Live – The devil Toby welcomes you to hell
Rowan Atkinson Live
Published 29 Jul 2010In this sketch, Rowan plays the devil, also known as “Toby”, he welcomes new people to hell.
Selected Highlights from Rowan’s stand up tours during the years 1981 to 1986.
Whether mesmerising us with the sheer visual mastery of Mr. Bean, beguiling us with the acerbic wit of Edmund Blackadder, or simply entertaining us as the suave, but rather hapless British Secret Agent Johnny English, you surely won’t have escaped the comic genius that is Rowan Atkinson.
In Rowan Atkinson Live, co-written with Richard Curtis (4 Weddings & a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually) and Ben Elton, Atkinson runs the whole gamut of his remarkably versatile 30 year career, with sketches, mimes and monologue’s that are guaranteed to have you shedding tears of laughter. Performing live on stage alongside “straight man” Angus Deayton, the show features a number of original and familiar routines, including sketches that appeared in the original Mr. Bean series.
October 3, 2020
History Summarized: Hawai’i
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 2 Oct 2020To learn more about the Native Hawaiian community and their culture, visit: https://www.hawaiiancouncil.org/about
This year, to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day, we’re taking a look at the history of Hawai’i, from its early history in the Polynesian maritime culture to its forming a Kingdom to its annexation by the United States. Beyond simply a special case in the story of American expansion, Hawai’i has a deep history that deserves to be better known.
SOURCES & Further Reading: Great Courses Lecture “Lifeways of Australia and the Pacific” by Craig Benjamin, Britannica Hawai’i, “The Navigators: Pathfinders of the Pacific” By Low & Estus, Lonely Planet Hawai’i History, and lots of discussion with a native Islander (see discord section below).
This video was edited by Sophia Ricciardi AKA “Indigo”. https://www.sophiakricci.com/
Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.
DISCORD: https://discord.gg/kguuvvq — Come to the #New-Video-Discussion channel to chat about this video, and ask questions about Hawai’i to my friend Lady Eris#9175, a native Islander!
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September 29, 2020
Modern Classics Summarized: 1984
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 24 Feb 2017It’s the mother of all dystopias! Long before YA dystopia rose to power, before the age of Young Attractive Heroes who Rebel Against The State and Also Find Love, there was just Winston Smith — a middle-aged man in poor health who Rebelled Against The State and Also Found Love. It just ended much less prettily for him.
1984 codified most of the modern dystopia tropes — absolute control of the media, black-bagging people who spoke out, and a lot of popular terms like “doublethink”, “big brother”, and “thought police”. Unfortunately, a lot of those terms got stripped of context and thrown around for the sake of Extra Edge, and as a result they get used a little haphazardly. And there’s nothing Red hates more than misused terminology, so here’s the video outlining the ORIGINAL meaning of 1984!
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September 27, 2020
CHECKMATE, LINCOLNITES! Confederate DESTROYS Yankee with FACTS and LOGIC
Atun-Shei Films
Published 23 May 2019Checkmate, Lincolnites! Debunking the three or four arguments Neo-Confederates always make when they talk about the Civil War.
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#CheckmateLincolnites #CivilWar #AmericanHistory
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September 24, 2020
QotD: Gurkha versus Japanese, mano a mano
September 19, 2020
History RE-Summarized: The Roman Republic
Overly Sarcastic Productions
Published 18 Sep 2020The Roman Republic is a fascinating story all on its own, but it also serves as an excellent object lesson in civics.
This video is a Remastered, Definitive Edition of three previous videos from this channel — History Summarized: “The Roman Republic”, “The Punic Wars”, and “Julius Caesar and the Fall of The Republic”. This video combines them all into one narrative, fully upgrades all of the visuals, and adds extra historical notes and clarifications along the way. Please let me know if you enjoyed this, and are interested in more videos like this. There are many historical miniseries on this channel that would fit neatly into a compilation like this, and I’d be thrilled to make them!
SOURCES & Further Reading: Virgil’s Aeneid, Polybius’ Histories, Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, SPQR by Mary Beard, Rome: A History in Seven Sackings by Matt Kneale, Rubicon by Tom Holland, The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan, (and also my degree in Classical Studies).
Note for 14:15 — I mention Livy’s History Of Rome (“Ab Urbe Condita“) by name, but made the lizard-brain mistake of showing Polybius instead. Poor Livy, first 75% of his work is lost, and now this.
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September 14, 2020
That Time the Ladies of New Orleans Peed on Union Soldiers
Atun-Shei Films
Published 24 Sep 2019In 1862, shortly after the capture of New Orleans by Union forces during the Civil War, General Benjamin “the Beast” Butler issued the infamous “woman order” because the wealthy ladies of the city wouldn’t stop dumping pee on his men.
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QotD: Airportland
Most readers have spent time in Airportland. We know its particular wan light; the general flatness that makes the incline of jetways such a shock; its salty, sugary, and alcohol-infused cuisine; its detached social ambiance; its modes of travel (the long slog down the moving walkway, the hum of the people-moving carts, the standing-room-only shuttles, the escalators, the diddly-dup diddly-dup of roller bags, and — oh, yes — the airplanes); its fauna (emotional-support animals) and flora (plastic ficus); its mysterious system of governance; its language. Now and then, in Airportland, you spot a first-time visitor — confused by TSA rules, late for her flight, burdened by too many carry-ons. If you think the French are rude to those who don’t speak their language, you haven’t been paying attention in Airportland. We Airportlanders give these newbies no quarter. We sigh in exasperation as they’re sent back through security check for all the things they neglected to remove from their person. When they’re wandering Concourse E looking for their plane, because they thought they were in seat E68 (you know, like in a theater), when actually their flight leaves from B12 and their ticket class is E, we may take pity. But we hardly remember being that person, because once you’ve inhabited Airportland a handful of times, you’re a native.
And like native speakers, we don’t think much about the strange lingo we speak in Airportland. Take Gate. Some years ago, flying out of Peshawar, Pakistan, I passed through a dark set of catacombs inhabited by ruthless security guards and intelligence personnel with perhaps five checkpoints all lit by flickering overhead bulbs. Finally, like C.S. Lewis’s Lucy passing through the wardrobe into Narnia, I emerged into what I thought at first was a harshly lit bus station. It had the requisite faded plastic chairs and desultory counter offering stale packaged snacks and room-temperature soft drinks. Then I saw the sign over the doorway leading outside: GATE. I breathed a sigh of relief. Unlikely as it seemed, I had found my way to Airportland. But why Gate? Well, apparently there once was an actual gate, which stayed closed until the propellers of the plane were safely tied down and the passengers were free to pass through and board from the tarmac. (There were, of course, no “Jetways” — once a trademark, now generic — back in the day.)
Other terms of art abound in Airportland. Take concourse. It’s from the Latin, meaning “flowing together,” and outside Airportland it generally refers to an open area where passageways meet and people gather. In French, concours means “contest.” At the airport, the concourses are simply wide corridors, usually designated by letter, but if you like you can think of them as flowing, since they’re usually filled with a stream of humanity, and it often feels like a contest simply to reach the gate without incident.
Lucy Ferriss, “The Language of Airportland”, Lingua Franca, 2018-06-10.
