Fort Worth’s most famous writer is well into his 80s, but he hasn’t exactly mellowed with age. The other day, Dan Jenkins raced to his Caligraph after studying a Fort Worth Business Press column that berated TCU for punishing a student who posted dumbass, racist remarks on social media.
“If every student at TCU, or any other university, is going to be punished for what he or she posts on his or her own private Facebook [page] in a conversation with someone, then we might as well be living in Nazi Germany,” Jenkins wrote to the Biz Press. “Free speech in this country should trump everything and, most of all, a dean or professor who wishes to stomp it out in the name of political correctness. Professors and deans who love to hide behind ‘academic freedom’ … to preach their own poison are one of the great dangers to this country. Any educator who wants to force me to live in the ‘global community’ instead of the United States of America should be dismissed and then tortured. I mean severe torture. Like being locked in a room and forced to listen to rap for the rest of their lives.”
Oh, Danny boy. The pipes are calling. They’re calling you an old, rich, white fuddy duddy. Your points about freedom of speech are well taken, but comparing our society to life under the Third Reich might be a bit much. Bashing the global community sounds pretty racist (and elitist), and insulting a genre of music that is strongly associated with young African-Americans also skews strongly toward the racism end of the Jackass-O-Meter. But, as Jenkins said, freedom of speech is what makes our country great. So here’s some for ya. Dan, you ignorant slut …
Star-Telegram Rips Itself
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is sending e-mails with the subject line, “$25 for Opening this E-mail.” Except you don’t get $25 when you open it. You get solicited. The paper’s so-called User Experience Team wants to “talk to you about your experience purchasing individual copies of the newspaper at local stores.” How in the heck does that conversation go? “My experience was, I picked up a paper at a local store, put it on the counter, paid the cashier, and left with the paper under my arm. The end.”
The paper also wants to talk to people who have stopped buying the Star-Telegram completely. That conversation is easy to imagine. “I stopped buying the paper because it kisses up to the downtown elite, the Basses, the gas industry, advertisers, and various sacred cows, and it offers mostly superficial, boring articles, mostly about Dallas.”
OK, so to get that $25, you must attend a 30-minute session, along with a follow-up session, at the paper’s downtown office. And, if you are selected to participate, you won’t get 25 crisp $1 bills. Nope, you’ll get a $25 Target gift card. Make two trips downtown on two different days to talk about the Star-T for a gift card? Really? Is anybody’s life that sad?
The Star-Telegram spends way too much time and money on silly consumer surveys. Seems like every other month they’re changing their layout, coverage, paper size, fonts, you name it, based on the latest survey. Here’s some free advice. Write interesting stories. Impact society. Ask tough questions. Take pride in your product. Stop sucking so much. You’re welcome.
Weekly, you are such a group of hypocrites. You have the nerve to criticize the S-T about what they publish, and you are 100% right about them, but your on paper has not posted an article of any real substance recently. Once upon a time the Weekly and Betty Brinkley wrote about the wrongs done daily at the FWISD but since she passed away they have been few and far between and in recent months have disappeared all together. The corruption that Betty reported is still there. The S-T won’t write about it and now you don’t either. Why not? Are mismanagement, bullying, nepotism, excessive pay for under qualified employees, and the cover up of adult sexual assault of students not hot enough topics for you to write about or too much a challenge? If you would do the leg work and investigate these things not only would you benefit but so would the city of Ft. Worth and the students and employees of the FWISD. Trust me there are FWISD employees that will talk to you. Please return to more substantive reporting on the FWISD.
Here’s the deal fed-up….Betty was a Saint, an on the square, walking, talking, stand-up Angel straight from heaven. She worked like a sled-dog for not nearly what she was worth. She did this, on the square, for not much compensation because she was driven to leave Fort Worth & the world better than she found it, and clearly she did. If you know one person in your lifetime to equal Betty Brink, you’re one in a million. I have an idea that might work and I would like to visit with you and discuss it, but I don’t know how to arrange it. What do you think?
No thanks Benny. All I want is for the Weekly to go back to reporting the corruption in the FWISD like they used to. There is so much material there that they could easily print a story a week if they would get off of their lazy rear ends and do some real reporting instead of the fluff they criticized the S-T for.
Look Fed-Up, The guy that owns the Weekly canned the best editor in Texas, and I expect the Southwest. What does this say about him giving a tinkers dam concerning doing God’s work? His interest is what does he take to the bank every month. This is not at all unusual with any business and is the way to bet on each and every business that anyone owns any where. I suspect the guy resented his splendid editor refusing to allow him to call the shots on his own newspaper if he wanted her to remain editor so after the Weeklys success all these years he, in my opinion, could not allow her to demand calling the shots any longer, so he canned her. I hate it, it’s uncertain what the future holds for the Weekly, but clearly the bum is unenterested in doing the Lord’s work any longer. He’s in it for the money and there you have it. It’s no surprize to me, and I suspect he will do O.K. in the future because he has a good business plan, seems like good people to me, and hells-bells, he GIVES the paper away. I’m convinced people will continue reading it if it goes to Hell, but I don’t think it will, but it damn well will not be what it used to be after canning that sweet, splendid lady. It simply can not be, sad but true. Another thing, I suspect the guy doesn’t give a rat’s ass if every schoolhouse in Fort Worth burns to the ground tomorrow if his take monthly and yearly is not affected, and why should it be? Doing the Lord’s work doesn’t pay that good unless you choose to howl at the moon in a circus tent and pocket the take each night or get on TV and have morons mailing you barrels of money. In my opinion, doing the Lords work cleaning up the rotten, stinking, Fort Worth School System won’t make the guy an extra dollar. He gives the paper away. I don’t believe he worries much about getting to Heaven either. How many people do you know that even think about it, or truly believe in an after-life? What’s in it for him? If you don’t much care about our schools and our children because it doesn’t pay anything to care…why give a flip? Whats new here? Whose on first?
Holland, you sanctimonious snot. You’re just another lib calling for a business owner to ignore the bottom line and do “God’s work” at a loss. Maybe he could abandon any profit motive and just publish the Weekly and build homeless shelters. Meanwhile, you’ll continue to grumble that the Weekly’s not as good as it once was.
Kiss it Stouty! It is impossible to lose doing “God’s Work” dick-head. Ask anyone that reads it, no big secret, they still read it. I suspect the guys take remains the same. Folks that buy ads still buy ads, folks read it because it remains well worth reading, but lower quality, can’t be anything else. This is as clear as black and white, just the way things is. Fool. Tea-Bagging half-wit. Grow up, get a job. Money isn’t everything, Baggers know this, they just choose to be Rats. They don’t care, take an honest look at you’re own self,,, butt-wipe.
Dan Jenkins is correct. If schools start punishing kids for every dumb@ss thing they say, there will be no students left. Dan has made a career of skewering the Fort Worth good ole boy, so he is very familiar with the TCU student mindset.
I am sorry that political correctness is alive and well at the FW Weekly. Maybe a visit from the Needham brothers will straighten you out. Better yet, read Dan’s books and get a better understanding of Fort Worth.
I don’t know Jenkins at all, however I have sipped on a cold beer a couple times at Massey’s in his presense. I liked the guy. He is a much better grade of Peckerwood than average. However, a Peckerwood is a Peckerwood… what else can they be? I say we should steralize each & every new-born, male or female, at birth or prior to puberty, who is unfortionally the product of either one or both parents living with that hairy afflicion. Yes, it will take some time, but imagine…think of it…. Fort Worth and Texas and the planet some-day, rid of Tea-Baggers and ass-wipes!!!! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!!
You jackwagon punk. Your importance to the written word will allow you to dumpster dive for your food and live under the freeway the rest of your insignificant life. You just had your 15 seconds of fame and that is where it ends for your insignificant life.
Surprise, surprise, nothing new to submit from the self-entitled Peanut Gallery. Get over yourself, you baggers are incapable of decorous debate, nothing new to see here. You losers shine like a bottle-rocket at pitching but are stone childish at catching. My bird dog Roxy smells better and is more generous than the lot of you louts. You shut our precious country down so that it could not pay it’s debts or old folks their pensions. You’re shiftless, black-hearted louts & your breaths stink.. Our jail-houses are holding thousands of more decent folks than any hammer-head Tea-Bagger.Fool. Grow up, amount to something.
You need to get back on your meds, Benny.