The Klingons could kick butt in Baghdad

Phillip Blanchard · **Posted:** Sun Jul 11, 2004 7:56 pm

I've been meaning to remind everyone to strongly resist any attempt to compare or contrast real events with fictional events from movies, television shows or novels.

hound · **Posted:** Sun Jul 11, 2004 7:58 pm

I'm not a journalist, but I had a dream once where I played one on TV.

SusanV · **Posted:** Sun Jul 11, 2004 10:35 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by blanp:
I've been meaning to remind everyone to strongly resist any attempt to compare or contrast real events with fictional events from movies, television shows or novels.<hr></blockquote>Send this memo to the sports desk, wouldja please? One of the pieces today about Michael Phelps (the swimmer) carried this to a ridiculous extreme.

SusanV · **Posted:** Mon Jul 12, 2004 10:59 am

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by slummingreporter:
Why not? Is it just because these sorts of fantastic similes sentimentalize and distort to the point where people become unable to distinguish between fact and fiction? Is that all?<hr></blockquote> Sometimes it's just plain stupid and adds nothing.Here is the sports article I was referring to (just the offending part excerpted). Note this is the lede. "The journey will be eight days over an uncharted realm, alien to prior human endeavor, through extremes of pressure and a potentially hostile and toxic atmosphere.

"It will require resilience, patience and power. No one knows if it will succeed. But the voyager has been tested, stressed and analyzed, and years of training and science have been brought to the mission by experts from across the nation."A journey to the outer limits of sport will be taken during next month's Olympics by one man, a 19-year-old swimmer from Maryland named Michael Phelps. Yet it is also a cosmic test of how far the human body, even one as finely tuned as his, can be pushed."This week, especially Monday night, as the U.S. Olympic swimming trials draw to a close here, coaches and sports scientists will get a better idea of how Starship Phelps may fare in Athens, 'boldly going,' as his coach puts it, where no swimmer has gone before."I am sorry, but I think that is just absurd.

DominEditrix · **Posted:** Mon Jul 12, 2004 12:02 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by SusanV:
"The journey will be eight days over an uncharted realm, alien to prior human endeavor, through extremes of pressure and a potentially hostile and toxic atmosphere."
<hr></blockquote>From this description, one must surmise that the Olympics are taking place on Jupiter.
<blockquote>quote:<hr> I am sorry, but I think that is just absurd.<hr></blockquote>I couldn't agree more. At least he didn't say "Team me up, Scotty."D.

TheWalrus · **Posted:** Tue Jul 13, 2004 8:45 pm

The over-writing would be excusable at my community paper until he renamed that swimmer Starship Phelps. It did make me chuckle though ... because it's stupid; because it's really stupid.

Guest · **Posted:** Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:20 am

"In a criminal complaint that reads like a plot line from an Elmore Leonard novel ..." ***No, it doesn't***http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/nyregion/14kushner.html

TheWalrus · **Posted:** Wed Jul 14, 2004 9:43 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by Coyote Refugee:
"In a criminal complaint that reads like a plot line from an Elmore Leonard novel ..." ***No, it doesn't***http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/nyregion/14kushner.html<hr></blockquote>Well, maybe it does a little bit (Mr. Paradise) , but then so would a vice-squad report, or anything else that cites prostitution.

greinerb · **Posted:** Thu Jul 15, 2004 11:38 pm

At first I was going to say the Phelps stuff didn't bother me, but I suppose the problem with this kind of over-writing that if the subject is truly remarkable - which it is - you ought to be able to sling hyperbole in context without resorting to outrageous comparisons.

TheWalrus · **Posted:** Fri Jul 16, 2004 11:27 am

This topic was fresh in my mind when I read this nonsense in the LA Times Calendar section yesterday:
"After a two-hour tour through an emotional terrain next to which Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' can seem like a cruise through Disneyland ..."
Stupid and poorly written.

ADKbrown · **Posted:** Fri Jul 16, 2004 2:44 pm

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by TheWalrus:
This topic was fresh in my mind when I read this nonsense in the LA Times Calendar section yesterday:
"After a two-hour tour through an emotional terrain next to which Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' can seem like a cruise through Disneyland ..."
Stupid and poorly written.<hr></blockquote>*The horror!*

Guest · **Posted:** Tue Jul 20, 2004 8:47 am

ELIZABETH, N.J., July 19 - In the film "Being John Malkovich," a journey into the portal of Mr. Malkovich's brain ends with a fall from the sky onto an embankment of the New Jersey Turnpike. It is a cinematic moment that can pull smiles from viewers who have never even been to New Jersey or zipped down its leading highway. To consider the turnpike as anything more than a conveyor from point A to point B seems laughable. A destination it is not.http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/20/nyregion/20elizabeth.html***Stop.***

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