Writes one commenter on the Washington Post article "Liberal media critic Eric Boehlert dies in bicycle collision."
It's strange to put "Liberal" in the headline like that. For one thing, it's ambiguous. It could mean that he was liberal — which is correct — but it could also mean that he was a critic of liberal media.
But also, it's odd to put someone's political persuasion in the headline, especially when the newsworthy event is so vaguely and confusingly described. Did 2 bicycles collide? No. We learn in the third paragraph that Boehlert was riding a bike, and he was hit by a train.
Condolences to his family.
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69 comments:
But also, it's odd to put someone's political persuasion in the headline
It’s only odd for now.
The Thing With Trains, is that they Seldom travel Very far from where they've been before..
AND, they leave conspicuous tracks. So, the trick to NOT having a train collide with you is:
STAY OFF THE TRACKS!!!
Trains are Big! and usually Brightly Colored.. With Lights And Horns.. They WANT you to know where they are
how do you get hit by train while riding bike?
headphones/earplugs prevent hearing horn?
Ann is right. The headline is very ambiguous. WaPo can’t get the simplest thing correct.
Just browse the guy's Twitter. He was a crazy lefty who thought 15 cents off the gas price from last month was a huge Biden victory. He was not criticizing the Dems.
I suppose the WaPo editor put his political persuasion in the headline to signal to their readers that they should mourn his death and not dance on his grave.
Sad for his family, but the guy was a jerk. Not a big loss to REAL journalism. Activism...yes.
Here's where I discuss something he wrote about me that I was not happy about.
Probably distracted peddling. Maybe listening to music or something. Not far from where I live a kid waited for the train to pass, shot across the tracks, and got hit by one coming the other way.
Ah...the good ole days of JournOlist. They don't need to be a secret cabal today. Today they are just referred to as 'the media'.
Trains and bikes are the green fascists go to transport modes.
Not wishing death on anyone but if a fascist has to die, this is epic karma.
John LGBTQBNY Henry
“Not far from where I live a kid waited for the train to pass, shot across the tracks, and got hit by one coming the other way.”
I was just going to say I saw a YouTube video of a near miss that happened in that situation.
Awful. Very sad for his family and friends.
My cousin(&I’d never met him) was killed biking in DC. Claim to fame was working for the CT critter- can’t recall his name.
I’ve prayed for his soul and family since.
An only child:0(
It's strange to put "Liberal" in the headline like that. For one thing, it's ambiguous. It could mean that he was liberal — which is correct — but it could also mean that he was a critic of liberal media.
Except for WaPo there is no "liberal media." There are only hardworking journalists.
Looking over Boehlert's Twitter, I don't see anything that could be taken as a criticism of "lazy journalists" when they are on the progressive side. Indeed, he often encourages their laziness. The idea that Hunter's laptop is a "non-story" was something he kept coming back to.
Like Iowahawk (mentioned in the 2010 post) says “Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”
I remember Pattirico having catfights with this gentleman.
Riding a bicycle at night on train tracks? Sounds like an Engineer Bill-assisted suicide to me.
I had to Google to find out if he was a critic of or for libtards. Hillary tweeting sympathy was a clue.
It's quite a sad story that happens every day in America. The laws of physics always prevails when you mix bikes with trains and automobiles.
We need more bike paths.
If he'd been a conservative, his political orientation would of course be in the title, and no one would think anything of it. The fact that it seems odd here is the product of a long tradition of the media treating the left as the default and the right as "other."
From USA Today: A release from NJ Transit on Tuesday reported that a train on the Montclair Boonton Line struck and killed an adult male on a bicycle Monday evening between its 8:59 departure from Hoboken, New Jersey, and its scheduled arrival in Hackettstown, New Jersey, at 11:07 p.m.
It looks like the sun set around 7:30 PM so the light of the train would have been an additional warning. Could it have been suicide? .
I give credit to Ann for not speaking ill of the dead, but what an exchange in 2010. Althouse dunked all over him and the rest of those liberal media hacks who don't know shit about the law and don't care.
Sad demise but an apt analogy for the Dems in the upcoming midterms.
I almost got hit by a train while bike commuting. I was on a bike path and a car was crossing the tracks next to me, but there was no place for it on the other side of the tracks because traffic had backed up all the way to the tracks. So the driver ran up onto the bike path, completely blocking it, causing me to crash into her car. The train missed me by a few feet.
Trains are amazingly silent since most of the noise, except for the horn and bell, goes to the sides and behind. My wife teases me that I can hear a train almost anywhere, which I can, but you have to know what to listen for. The approaching sound is easily masked by other noises until you hear the horn. 'Quiet zones' are accidents waiting to happen.
Howard said...
We need more bike paths.
Huh? Like the chicken, a bike path has to cross the tracks same as a road.
But typical, propose a solution to a problem that doesn't solve a darn thing but advances a liberal goal.
"Liberal media critic Eric Boehlert dies in bicycle collision"
I (and many others) have long noted a great deal of sloppiness in the composing of headlines. Long a fertile field for comedians, one would think that those who make their living by writing would be more skilled at this basic task. Was he a "Liberal" media critic or was he a "Liberal media" critic. And the 'bicycle collision'. Was he walking along when someone riding a bicycle collided with him? Was he riding a bicycle when he collided with another bicycle rider? Was he driving his car when he collided with a bicycle rider, causing him to careen off the road, down a cliff in a fiery ball of flame? Did they even need to mention bicycles in the headline?
How about this: 'Eric Boehlert, noted Liberal and media critic, dies.' Or if you want clickbait: 'Eric Boehlert, noted Liberal and media critic, crushed under wheels of train.'
"it's odd to put someone's political persuasion in the headline"
Why? Trannies aside, it's the main identifier now, and the main thing progs need to know. How else will they decide if someone deserves mourning or needs a little post-mortem vilification?
Years ago my son and his his friends were visited in their high school by the New Orleans police after being recorded being too close to the train tracks by a passing train—something about post 9/11 terrorism security rules. They were brought to the police station and given a stern reprimand.
I do not think crossing the train tracks in the dark a smart way to pass the time for a 56 year old liberal media critic.
It doesn't dishonor him; it's accurate. He wasn't a media critic in general. He was a media critic specifically focused on what he thought were media slights to the left.
----
You die, and your Twitter feed stays. Something to remember.
Dying in a bicycle accident is not something that liberal media commentator Brian Stelter ever has to worry about.
Conservative figures are ALWAYS described as 'conservative' or more often 'right wing.'
Lately 'alt-right' has become a descriptor.
Even when they are fairly moderate.
I'm not sure how you can ride a bicycle, and get hit by a train.
I understand that liberals are ALWAYS missing the elephant in the room, but suicide is intentional.
One problem with trains and crossing tracks is that you do not hear a coming train, especially if the speed is high. The sound is mostly following it. My wife was crossing the tracks below our house, taking our daughter to the beach, when she looked and the train was right there ! Fortunately, she had not begun to cross.
I mean more separate bike paths no where near roads except when crossing. Like the Minuteman Trail from Concord through Lexington to Boston.
I know this is upsetting to the couch ridden pro fast food obesity army of the deplorables. You people think health and fitness are virtue signals because nonhacker cucks don't have the discipline to be lean and mean staying ready for the call up of the Militia.
“Long a fertile field for comedians, one would think that those who make their living by writing would be more skilled at this basic task.”
Thanks for the chuckle!
'Not far from where I live a kid waited for the train to pass, shot across the tracks, and got hit by one coming the other way.'
Almost got killed in London doing that.
It took about a month of living in Tokyo to reflexively look to the right first before stepping off the curb...
i looked up the google maps where this guy was supposedly hit and the tracks are vey wide and obvious. Since people are rarely hit by trains while biking, I assume the guy was just careless and paid with his life.
One reason people get hit by trains is that large objects seem to move slower than small objects. So,someone used to judging speed by looking at cars, will underestimate how fast a train is going.
in this case, it was at night, so maybe the guy didn't see the headlights. There should have been a road-train crossing warning signal, and he either ignored it, or tried to take a non-road shortcut over the tracks. where i live, people used to walk accross the railroad tracks as a short cut, but eventually the Railroad fenced it all off for miles due to sucides.
Finally, if you go back you'll see that this jerk was chortling over the death of Brietbart like matt Ygliseis. So, long pal, i'm very sad you died. very sad indeed.
Someone studied the safety of the light rail system that was put into the Twin Cities. There are 8 times as many deaths per passenger mile for light rail as for automobiles. Of course it's not the people on the train who die.
If Jeff Bezos says he was a liberal, he was a liberal. I don't know why he allows some penniless nobody of a "commenter" to contradict him. I wouldn't, if I had paid good money for that reeking shitrag.
I'm not a professional writer and maybe this would be easy for a professional. It's hard to make this unambiguous and also graceful.
"Liberal media critic Eric Boehlert dies in bicycle collision"
Eric Boehlert, media critic with liberal outlook, dies in bicycle collision with train.
Kludgy, but clear.
The thing about trains is, they run on tracks. So it's not like they lie in wait and spring upon you unawares.
The WaPoo commenter is laughably wrong about Boehlert. I am guessing the commenter thinks the WaPoo and NYSlimes are right wing news organizations, too.
"Here's where I discuss something he wrote about me that I was not happy about."
I can see why.
Did they mention where he's going to be buried?
This was either a suicide, or more likely, Boehlert wearing headphones while riding.
Last week while on a walk here in Oak Ridge, I was preparing to cross a T-intersection on a city street- there was no traffic coming down the street to my left or coming down the street in front of me, and I didn't hear any traffic behind me that might turn into the cross-walk. I glanced back over my right shoulder anyway just as I stepped off the curb, and was shocked to see an automobile slowing easing forward to turn into the crosswalk after I would have cleared it- it was an electric car, and I couldn't hear it running. No more assuming there is no traffic if I can't hear it!
Prof A @ 4/7:7:47: Your link to the 2010 event is a great force multiplier. Someday you need to share your system for tagging stuff.
Howard @ 8:40: "We need more bike paths." Sure. A good place for bike paths is on disused railroad rights of way. Maybe you can get Green activists to demand that NJ transit shut down the offending Montclair Boonton line and rebuild it as the Eric Boehlert Memorial Bikeway.
Michael K @ 9:55: "...The sound is mostly following [the approaching train]." Not that I spend much time on RR tracks but I've noticed that they tick and click metallically as an approaching train puts stresses into the track. Maybe not consistently; maybe not with enough lead time to act; but it's one additional cue that you are in a bad place.
"Eric Boehlert, Democratic Activist, Hit and Killed by Train" is the accurate headline.
Another reason people continually turn to the Bible.
The thing about trains and people in NJ. There's so many of them. So many interactions. Just a matter of time. I've had the experience of being stranded by a fatal collision up ahead. Havoc with the timetable.
I welcome it. Democrat propagandists put far-right whenever the name of a Republican is uttered. We should put far-left in front of every democrat mentioned.
Keep in mind, that headline was written by someone who spent a lot of money to "study" journalism and writing and presumably knows grammar. Then it went past an editor who also spent a lot of money to do the same.
Writing is not my thing. I suck at it. I'm more math inclined. 1 year of "college".
Even I would have put a big red circle around it.
Our media, bless their hearts.
The problem is not trains. The problem is bicycles. Ban them.
And meanwhile, bicyclists, please get the hell out of my way. You do not own the road.
There are NO headphones that could prevent you from hearing a train horn. Hell, complete deafness would not prevent you from "hearing" a train horn. You would feel it in your bones.
Electric cars = the silent assassians
Boehlert died as he lived. ignoring the obvious, he tried a shortcut, and failed miserably.
Headline you'll never see:
"Liberal Journalist dies in Car race"
Or
"Liberal journalist dies protecting strangers from Gunman"
He was run over near the train station I use … There are crossing gates so something out of the ordinary happened.
Didn’t Althouse recently comment on the figures in the Dumb Ways to Die video? That was an ad intended to reduce train-people collisions.
He was the liberal's liberal: divergent, and that is a grave sin.
It's not as shadenfraude inducing as "Conservative Antivaxxer Radio Talk Show Host Dies of Covid After a Month on a Ventilator"
Leftist Collides with Train. Train Wins.
Concise and to the point.
I have witnessed a cyclist being killed by a train. Everyone who hasn't seen that should be very thankful.
In that case, it was someone wearing headphones who was impatiently waiting for a commuter train to pull away from the intersection and he went under the gates to get a jump on the traffic - pulling behind the departing train just as a train going the opposite direction came through.
I had gotten off the train and was waiting to cross too, however growing up near train tracks made me very respectful of them.
We need more bike paths.
Or fewer railroards.
Mortuis nihil nisi bonum
My sympathies to the person/people driving the train.
It's odd that so many people are hit by trains. You would think that it would be easy to just not be on the tracks when a train is approaching. But perhaps he was wearing headphones so he couldn't hear the train. (But that would also suggest that someone would want to be extra careful on a train track because they couldn't hear the train approaching.) Perhaps, it's just that there is a certain personality type that tunes out the outside world when they exercise. (Including the dangers.)
It's odd that so many people are hit by trains. You would think that it would be easy to just not be on the tracks when a train is approaching. But perhaps he was wearing headphones so he couldn't hear the train. (But that would also suggest that someone would want to be extra careful on a train track because they couldn't hear the train approaching.) Perhaps, it's just that there is a certain personality type that tunes out the outside world when they exercise. (Including the dangers.)
“I've had the experience of being stranded by a fatal collision up ahead. Havoc with the timetable.”
How far did you run when fleeing the scene? Did any of your passengers make it out?
It reminds me of those folks falling into open manholes while walking along, staring at their phone screens. Perhaps he was checking the train schedule to see when the next one would be coming along.
"And meanwhile, bicyclists, please get the hell out of my way. You do not own the road.."
Other drivers are the problem on roads, not cyclists. Drivers, whether on the highways or secondary roads, don't obey traffic laws. The road in front of my house is posted at 25, and no one drives at less that 40. Drivers tail gate at 70 MPH on highways, they weave in and out of traffic at high speeds. Why don't police enforce traffic regulations?
I do think cyclists and runners should pay attention and be aware. Cyclists should obey traffic laws. But municipalities should install bike lanes or generous shoulders for bikes and runners. There's a cost benefit. Active people put less strain on the health care system and cost less.
“Perhaps he was checking the train schedule to see when the next one would be coming along.”
Ha! This asshole had to be on Twitter. A fitting end…
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