April 22, 2012

"As his guy Scott Walker might say, while the rest of us were in church on Sunday, that's what Meade was up to."

The forum administrator over at Isthmus — "jjoyce" — starts a thread called "Meade being Meade," which (so far) mostly appears to be an attempt to defend the Isthmus's last-blogger-standing, Citizen Dave (who was once Madison's Mayor Dave (Cieslewicz)), who strains to crank out enough prose to suffice as the only blogger left . (They kicked out the brilliant but conservative David Blaska after a couple liberal bloggers left.)

Meade tends to comment — often as the only commenter — on Mayor Citizen Dave's blog — e.g., here — and Dave never responds. I guess he needs to crank out the next blog post so that whole blogging thing can appear to continue to be something that keeps happening at Isthmus, but as a result, you've got these belabored columns blog posts about some damned thing like Mayor Citizen Dave losing his luggage and then there'll be one comment, and it's Meade. Like Meade is the last word on everything Dave ever says.

Why doesn't anyone over there — e.g. Dave or Dave's presumably at least slightly numerous readers — pick up the thread? Why does the conversation go nowhere? Even jjoyce won't go there. He's got to start a separate thread in the forum to discuss the Problem of Meade. It's like Dave's is the lunch table no one will sit at.

31 comments:

Moose said...

Meh. Meade could have done something more pithy than to invoke 9/11 about a crappy airline experience.

Sorun said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sorun said...

Brilliant bloggers say everything important there is to say, so few want to comment lest they look stupid and banal by comparison. Maybe that explains the crickets in Dave's blog?

Joe Schmoe said...

An inability to interact with all kinds of voters gives me insight as to why Citizen Dave is no longer Mayor. Apparently he only feels the need to interact with like-minded people.

If Citizen Dave were smart, he'd have some fun with Meade. That, however, would require a massive humor transplant, which his lefty soul would surely reject.

rcommal said...

Except for Meade. Makes me think of that that TV PSA about kindness, wherein Meade is the earnest girl who goes and sits with the other girl whom everyone else pointedly abandoned when she ( the latter she) tried to join their bunch in the cafeteria.

edutcher said...

That's the stuff.

Show 'em no mercy.

And you'd think a politician could write something more significant than a humor piece on luggage

Ann Althouse said...

"Meh. Meade could have done something more pithy than to invoke 9/11 about a crappy airline experience."

Do you understand why United is the crappy airline it is today? Do you perceive any cause and effect?

Wally Kalbacken said...

That was a sweet blast.

rcommal said...

Here it is: reaching out: PASS IT ON

Anonymous said...

"Do you understand why United is the crappy airline it is today? Do you perceive any cause and effect?"

Maybe a worse airline, but it was quite bad in '98. Distinctly remember comparing worst Canadian airlines to worst US airlines at a Toronto conference. Consensus was United.

Used to fly United in the 80s. A much, much better airline in the 80s and early 90s.

Automatic_Wing said...

United is the worst, especially the overseas flights. The flight attendants are all about 60 (union tenure, doncha know?), hate their jobs and and take it out on the passengers. Worst service ever, and you're stuck with them for 13 straight hours!

Wince said...

Meade tends to comment — often as the only commenter — on {Mayor} Citizen Dave's blog — e.g., here — and Dave never responds.

"DAVE'S NOT HERE!!!"

Anonymous said...

one last United story. Came into Denver late on a United plane. Needed to stay over night & a voucher. In the terminal United employees ran--ran! away from the passengers attempting to line up for help.

It was pretty funny to see people actually run to shut down their desks and escape our de-boarding plane.

Mike Tanis said...

If Meade wasn't there to comment perhaps the blog never really existed?

Quaestor said...

Note to Citizen Dave, in case he reads Althouse (doubtful, no evident humor, no evident curiosity): Most automated response systems will direct you to a living human being, even if there is no explicit option for same if one simply replies firmly and clearly AGENT to an arbitrary question. Example:

AutoHelp: Say MAIN MENU to hear the options again.

Ciitizen Dave: AGENT

AutoHelp: I'm sorry, I didn't understand. (A dodge, the system does understand, but it's programmed to make you repeat your demand in hope of keeping you interfaced with the very cheap to operate Mr. AutoHelp as long as possible) Please say MAIN MENU to hear the options again.

Citizen Dave: Agent

AutoHelp: I understand you wish to speak to a customer service representative. Is that right?

Citizen Dave: Yes.

AutoHelp: Please hold while I connect you...

PaulV said...

Dave needs sock puppets and plenty of them

leslyn said...

Oh, aren't you proud!! Let's take a picture.

lemondog said...

During the '80's would fly United weekly out of Chicago.

Isn't United employee owned?

It went into bankruptcy at one point.

Pity.

Mary Beth said...

Do they think churches only have one service per week, 10:00 am on Sunday? I know it's just stupid snark but it seems to illustrate the inability to understand that other people have different ways of doing things.

I don't fly United often but I've never had a problem with them. Also, they treat my son well when he flies with them, at least they do when he's in uniform

traditionalguy said...

I admire Meade for his willingness to help out the local Rag's lack of any interesting commenters.

Today's instalanche should wake them up. All traffic is good traffic.

Joan said...

What's with the status titles over there, "forum god/goddess"? If commenting requires being tagged with a designation like that, it's no wonder so few people comment.

Freeman Hunt said...

Our church service is over by that time.

Moose said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Moose said...

Professor, I'll admit a lack of brilliance here. I don't understand what United's shitty service had to do with 911. I thought it had to do with deregulation and high fuel prices, but clearly that's wrong. could you explain?

crosspatch said...

I used to fly United a lot in the 80's and 90's but since I moved out of the USA to California, I mostly use Southwest.

somefeller said...

If the claim here is that the terrorist attacks in 2001 are the reason for United's bad service in 2012, there needs to be some support provided for that claim other than bare assertion. It's been over a decade since the 9/11 attacks, so the argument that 9/11 has led to United's current lack of quality as an airline seems a tenuous one at best. 9/11 may have changed a lot of things but it didn't eliminate the need for the airlines to provide good customer service.

Curious George said...

"Why does the conversation go nowhere?"

Liberal thought fits on a bumper sticker. It has no depth.

MadisonMan said...

there are plenty of comments on the ex-Mayor's columns on his facebook page.

Eric said...

Our church service is over by that time.

At my mother's Catholic church they have services at 7:30, 9:00, 10:30, 12:00, and 5:00. Plus there's an additional mass at 9:00 in Vietnamese in the gym.

But these are Catholic services. One hour... less if Notre Dame is playing that day. None of that three hour Protestant stuff.

rcommal said...

But these are Catholic services. One hour... less if Notre Dame is playing that day. None of that three hour Protestant stuff.

Or even that 1 hour, 20-25 minutes stuff proffered by those Anglicans(/Episcopalians), depending on which service you're talking about. Not to mention the Christian ed/formation offered, often enough (depending on the congregation), in addition to the service.

Regularly, all of that, and this, is what you make of it.

; ) : )

Methadras said...

Isn't suppressing of commentary grand. Little Miss Sullivan has been way ahead of the curve. She never allowed it.