Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

The Atlanta architect known for his ‘Jesus moments’ – when visitors would look up and exclaim ‘Jesus!’ – remade his home town in ways few get to

Ah the old Guardian sub-heading brain scratcher. I eventually figured out the astounding revelation that few people get to remake their home towns.

that's quite magnificent tbh

no reason you'd write like that if you wanted to be understood but as a crossword fan theres.... something.....there

in marble clothed, he leaves the city

Shooting Harrisses in a barrel, but:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/23/rock-music-survive-testosterone-guitar-female

Heard of the cars (best friend's girl is a tune) but not the leather trousers

The leather trousers s/d?

'what if rock, but girls?' ponders veteran cultural commentator john harris in a visionary column published today

Why is he so painful to read? Does he even want to write about this subject? Does he even enjoy writing? Or music? It's like reading someone's media studies essay.

"It is much more noble and easier to write condescending fuckwit copy about female rock bands than write about legit concernism in the provinces" old Harissian proverb.

At least we know he's never heard Springsteen.

line breaks in the mobile version made me do a double-take:

the still overlooked genre-
cum-upsurge known as riot grrrl

fp'd for making me think about john harris' cum upsurge

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/24/truth-british-soldiers-northern-ireland-troops

QTWTAIY?

god that really made me think

If it's good enough for the IRA it's good enough for the British Army, sez the Guardian.

i have a soft spot for Priestley but dear god he is the all-time champion of DO YOU SEE? middlebrowcore

also interested to identify the "we" in that headline

That Manchester E.N. story is brutal. That poor woman.

The Maybot has appointed a minister for suicide prevention, so everything is OK now.

https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/27/blind-date-tom-catherine?__twitter_impression=true

Would you introduce him to your friends?
Probably not. Tom has never been to Surrey, which wouldn’t go down well.

Guardian core readership revealed.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/02/guardian-editorial-response-transgender-rights-uk

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/nov/03/pina-colada-song-improbability-data-journalist-crunches-numbers-james-ball

rupert holmes' autocuckoldry classic

i managed a couple of skimmed paragraphs of that before gently murderous rage made me stop

And this particular track – a US No 1 on its release in 1979 (although it recharted in 1980, making it the only pop song to hold the top spot in different decades)

bollocks

Didn’t hack comedians mostly stop doing the “go line-by-line thru a song taking it literally” bit 20 years ago?

Awards: Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, Paul Foot Award
Nominations: Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain’s Social Evils

lol these awards are clearly fucking worthless.

xp

that sounds like standard R4/Edinburgh fringe comedy gold that has people dying from broken spleens etc.

men who look like old lesbians

https://duaw26jehqd4r.cloudfront.net/items/3w1741021r2f021a0y20/IMG_8797.jpg

Jfc

Saw that the other day and it crashed my brain.

Here are the nominees for 2018 #TheTrashies Awards. Strangely some of them seem to appear on the @CommentAwards #EiCA18 shortlist too ¯_(ツ)_/¯

— The Trashies (@TheTrashiesUK) November 5, 2018

congrats to the Graun for managing 10 trashie noms this year!

https://amp.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/nov/13/coming-out-as-working-class-difficulties-gay

Dear oh dear

You really have no idea what it’s like for Americans from single-parent/working-class homes who manage to get to very selective tertiary education, do you? I thought he nailed it.

It's based on flawed logic - he admits it to students at Vanderbilt, who he assumes none of which are from working class backgrounds, so that high school kids in blue collar areas can be told it'll be ok. There's no thread there at all.

Did you read the last paragraph?

Yes, that's why I referred to it.if that's his goal then telling non-working class students (his own assumption) in 'very selective tertiary education' (to borrow Suzy's phrase) doesn't go any way to achieving it.

Alternatively, if publicity in general is an aim, what's the Guardian's standing in the sort of communities that only have a "tiny, rural high school, where there was no college counselor, no one to expose the children of sharecroppers to options after graduation beyond working on a farm or in a factory"?

It's a start. He himself went to Vanderbilt before getting hired there, so clearly not all of their students come from privileged backgrounds. Some of them could indeed contribute towards that long-term goal back home if exposed to this kind of discourse. Not ambitious enough? Perhaps. But that's a different matter.

The article is uber simplistic. Maybe it grates because who needs another white working class article. Ugh.

The more articles about the working class, the better. Though I do agree that the tendency to reserve this term to white people in the US is infuriating.

And how is he that banal, dry of a writer for teaching creative writing?

xpost I though this was written by a brit at first and was interested.

I just looked up the college profile data for Vanderbilt from 1999-2000. ~40% of the predominately white undergrad class received need based financial aid. The article was a missed opportunity.

Again: are any posters (who aren’t me) sharing their opinions on this guy the former recipients of full financial aid (tuition and accommodation) at a US college/uni of the calibre and expense of a Vanderbilt?

I went to UVa so that was public. And my mom was a chinese restaurant waitress and dad in navy, I didn't qualify for need based financial aid.

xpost I though this was written by a brit at first and was interested.

Like that would happen, amirite uptheworkers etc

Yeah, I kind of wanted to know if britain has the same fetishization of the (white) working class. I am approximately the same age as this guy and I always assumed a large enough amount of people attending universities all over the US came from a working class background, especially based upon the age/generation of parents "Coming out" as working class as a thing to overcome seems counterproductive to changing what makes most of america (education, healthcare, fresh food, housing) unaffordable for the majority. I could've and wanted to attend several elite private universities but thought it was an unnecessary, bad financial decision when I had cheaper options.