In honor of baseball: Thirty years ago, a Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher named Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter while tripping on LSD. (Who hasn't been there?) Here's Dock's account, with animation.
Citizen journalism
I'm looking forward to the day when all the information I consume is as detailed and fact-filled as this little warning, passed on to the friends of the friends of an uncle of a Chicago cop "just to keep us all safe for the summer":
Passed along by Police Department & Courthouse
PLEASE READ
Several things to be aware of this year…as gangs and robbers are now plotting different ways to get a person to "stop" their vehicle.
Please send to your friends.
Please note:
There is a gang initiation reported by the local police department that gangs are placing a car seat by the road…with a fake baby in it… waiting for a woman, of course, to stop and check on the baby. Note that the location of this car seat will usually be beside a wooded or grassy (field) area …and the person – woman – will be dragged into the woods- beaten and raped- usually left for dead.
DO NOT STOP. DIAL 9-1-1 AND INFORM THEM…..
IF YOU ARE DRIVING AT NIGHT AND EGGS ARE THROWN AT YOUR WINDSHIELD. DO NOT OPERATE THE WIPER AND SPRAY ANY WATER BECAUSE EGGS MIXED WITH
WATER
BECOME MILKY AND BLOCK YOUR VISION UP TO 92.5% SO YOU ARE FORCED TO
STOP BESIDE THE ROAD AND BECOME A VICTIM OF ROBBERS. THIS IS A NEW TECHNIQUE
USED BY ROBBERS. PLEASE INFORM YOUR FRIENDS AND RELATIVES.
Elements of the Style
So I'm writing this series for the Chicago Tribune and working with a new editor who I like a lot. However, in the first installment I felt a few of my more artful phrases were lost or damaged, and so I gently asked whether, for the next installment, I could be more involved in the "fine-sanding," as I put it.
Just as gently, he defended the first edit, saying, "And while we didn't lose many hard facts in the edit, I do feel we sped up the language—and the reading—by losing so many extraneous appearances of 'the,' for example."
W_F?!
Writing Boots readers, do I use 'the' too much? How could you have let me go all this time without saying something? You call yourselves my friends ….
(Yes, I plan to ask the editor which "the's" he cut out, and what, on earth, he replaced them with. Every day's the school day.)