I am not sure where today went. I’m going to blame the emails, literally hunders of them, that I wrote today. Also there was reading materia. Reading my material and then reading for a class I’m teaching. Somehow the day disappeared.
So, here, have some interesting links.
As ESPN Debated, Manti Te’o Story Slipped Away:
Some inside the network argued that its reporters — who had initially been put onto the story by Tom Condon, Te’o’s agent — had enough material to justify publishing an article. Others were less sure and pushed to get an interview with Te’o, something that might happen as soon as the next day. For them, it was a question of journalistic standards. They did not want to be wrong.
Bless those hearts full of integrity. What’s that ESPN? Yet another bizarre update in the bizarre story? OK:
A source close to Te’o gave ESPN’s Jeremy Schaap documents that the source says are Te’o’s AT&T phone records from May 11 to Sept. 12, the date that the woman was supposed to have died. The logs are not originals, but spreadsheets sent via emails, and could not be independently verified.
They re-wrote it, but I recorded the original passage on Twitter. The earlier version said “Their veracity couldn’t be independently confirmed, but the source insisted they are genuine.”
The source insisted. In a story about hoaxes. Journalistic standards.
Jobs: Recession, Tech kill middle-class jobs:
Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over.
And the situation is even worse than it appears.
Most of the jobs will never return, and millions more are likely to vanish as well, say experts who study the labor market.
On the other hand, Lowe’s is hiring 54,000 and 9,000 permanently. And union membership is down in Alabama.
Finally, A 1951 home recording from Hazel Street. Kim and Herb are celebrating 25 years, and all of their friends recorded a message on a Wilcox-Gay Recordio.
That’s via James Lileks. And since he didn’t, I’ll wonder why it is that this recording fascinates in ways 60 years from now that nothing we produce on Instagram or Pinterest or anywhere else won’t in 2075.
Here’s Bill Wagner, a coal man, who — think about this — was about to hear his recorded voice for the first time ever.
Here’s a raucous group sing:
Here’s evidence that teenaged girls have giggled for generations. This song is from 1935, the first country song by a female artist, Patsy Montana to sell more than one million units. So maybe this was recorded by amateurs now lost to history in the 40s or 50s.
Here Albert is recording a message in California for friends or family back home in the midwest during World War II:
Those were all thrift store finds. This one is a family heirloom:
There are at least several dozen of these on YouTube. I could listen to them all day.
That is not where my day went.
