User talk:SusanLesch/Archives/2022/April

WNBA

Regarding the discussion at WT:ITN, 2017 WNBA Finals wouldn't be posted even right now due to quality issues with the lack of prose on the individual games. Then it'd face the usual ITN cries of too much sports and too American-centric. Then we get to some inevitable gender bias. Some of the same people who push (male) sports from small countries, crying for equal representation, are the same ones who will argue popularity against the WNBA. Not to mention some are stuck in a time warp on gender issues, not to mention thinking the dated WNBA jokes from 10–20 years ago. At least the page content and quality are within editors' control. Good luck. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 05:48, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Mpls. pic.

Stumbled across this pic. while looking for others from old Mpls. Is that the old Honeywell building, 4th Ave. & 28th St. (where my Dad worked for decades)? – Sca (talk) 16:17, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

It's the old Sears Roebuck store on Lake Street, not that far from old Honeywell. What did your Dad do there? I seem to recall it's Wells Fargo now. The place was always a mystery (grew up on Park Av & 31st). -SusanLesch (talk) 17:21, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

Oh yeah, guess I asked you about it once before & forgot. Oops.
At Honeywell, Dad was an electrical engineer. In terms of interests, alas, Dad and I didn't have a lot in common. →

When I was at the 'U' I used to frequent the ol' Triangle Bar. Nuff said. – Sca (talk) 17:44, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

If your Dad worked on that thermostat he's in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (pretty notable). Good for you for frequenting the Triangle. I'm a year too young to know much about it, and am more of a Mama Rosa's and Hard Times Cafe patron. I worked at Rarig Center on CC-TV. -SusanLesch (talk) 21:03, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

I remember the Mama Rosa's of the late '60s. A student refuge.
"A year" -- ? -- Sca (talk) 13:14, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Not precisely. Too young for Koerner, Ray & Glover or antiwar rallies. I missed the 60s by a year or so. So were you a biker? Some of those guys called it pretty close on Cedar. -SusanLesch (talk) 23:37, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

As in motorcycles? Oh, heavens no. I was, for a time, kind of a weekend hippie (who nevertheless managed a decent GPA most of the time). -- Sca (talk) 13:33, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

So what were you in the mid- to late '60s, Susan? -- Sca (talk) 13:34, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

On scholarship at a fancy prep school, sheltered in a wealthy high school, later wasted in high school. What were you studying? -SusanLesch (talk) 13:20, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Journalism was my major, but I had more credits in history and humanities. I had to petition the School of J director to get my BA, as I was 3 journalism credits short.

Breck, maybe?

Wasted? -- Sca (talk) 14:54, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Well this conversation certainly does bring me back a few years. The first word my girls learned to read was SEARS. Daughter Jane went to kindergarten at Longfellow, walking a mile each way with her little friend Patty. These days they would have us arrested for child abuse. Sectionworker (talk) 15:40, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Well, I walked a mile-plus to Ramsey Jr. High (no longer exists as such). -- Sca (talk) 17:57, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Sectionworker, I walked to Sears alone a hundred times. I'm still waiting for you to finish your contributions to Minneapolis.

Sca, my sister went to then-Ramsey. Yes we all started at Breck. They took girls through third grade and was a military academy at the time.

But do you happen to know what happened to journalism? This morning on the web, I found a 4-year program at San Diego State, but nothing at UCSD. What happened to it? It disappeared in a Communications snowball. I support BLM and AAPI; but newspapers don't even get a mention? (Two faculty members did mention "journalism.") -SusanLesch (talk) 20:23, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

Journalism has been ravaged by technology for the last three decades. Many papers have ceased to exist, others are mere online shadows of their former selves. I'd guess the number of journalists in the U.S. is one-tenth (or less) than it was in the '80s.
Looks like they tore down Murphy Hall, the UM journalism building -- where there used to be an AP Teletype machine clattering away in the hallway. Replaced by a parking ramp, of course. Sad.
At least old newsies like me can play a small role at ITN. But I miss the smell of moist newsprint (go to 1:25:55). – Sca (talk) 14:04, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Maybe not the press, but I can name names. When the University of California, San Diego's Department Chair, Brian Goldfarb neglects to mention journalism in his bio, we have a personnel problem. Beautiful, thank you. "Gabel: What's that noise? Bogart: The press, and there's nothing you can do about it." -SusanLesch (talk) 14:56, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Classic Bogie. Heavily romanticized & cliché-ridden flick, a' course, but who cares?
Long ago, when I worked for the ol' Mpls. Star, I'd go down to the pressroom and get a few fresh copies off the conveyor for the copy desk. (A relic speaks.) -- Sca (talk) 15:20, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Well done. The Minneapolis Star Tribune is the country's 7th biggest newspaper by circulation. (WP says 3rd largest daily?) You know who else is doing a good job? The news agencies. The Associated Press does wonders: said in black and white that Trump lost the election. Today that Russia bungled their war. I think AP and Reuters stories can be breathtaking. (And some days Al Jazeera behaves like a news agency.) -SusanLesch (talk) 15:50, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

AP (for which I once worked in MP) – with 3,300 employees and countless stringers – still is the gold standard. The Strib ain't what it used to be, IMO. Nor the PP. (The old Star, BTW, was a PM.) – Sca (talk) 18:23, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Before I let you go, do we stand a chance Democrats & Republicans fracture and give us another political party or two? MP=Minnesota? PM=p.m.? -SusanLesch (talk) 19:14, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

No idea. Haven't lived in MN for a long time. -- Sca (talk) 12:59, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

I meant we have polarization in the country (rather than in one state) and asked if we stand a chance. Also, what did the initialisms in your penultimate response mean? (My guesses were: MP=Minnesota? PM=p.m.?) -SusanLesch (talk) 15:20, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

MP was the old abbreviation for Minneapolis on the AP's internal message wire, and also for the Minneapolis AP bureau, which was across the street from the hulking Star-Tribune building at 5th & Portland. There was actually a pedestrian tunnel under Portland from the bldg. that housed both AP and UPI to the basement of the Star-Tribune.
Yes, p.m. -- the Star was an afternoon paper, of which few if any exist anymore. (The old Trib was an AM, a morning paper.) -- Sca (talk) 12:41, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Sca, thank you very much for your answers. The Star Tribune runs AP stories all day now mixed with their own reporting, and they aren't too shabby either (Star Tribune won a Pulitzer last year). AP does a magnificent job. -SusanLesch (talk) 17:32, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Precious

Seven years!

Precious anniversary

--Gerda Arendt (talk) 07:13, 24 April 2022 (UTC)