November 24, 2011 in City

Doug Clark: But what will Mayflower Mary put on her turkey?

Doug Clark The Spokesman-Review

Tags:Doug ClarkholidaysProfessor PilgrimThanksgiving

Gather round, gobblers. It’s time again for the Thanksgiving tradition that is even more ubiquitous than congealed gravy and indigestion.

Welcome to the sixth installment of Ask Professor Pilgrim.

The nation’s foremost expert on Thanksgiving has returned to address all of our Turkey Day concerns.

Before we tap into the professor’s wisdom, however, we have been asked to announce the following closures:

The post office, the courthouse and Rocky Treppiedi’s chances for continued employment at the Spokane City Attorney’s Office.

Let the holiday bash begin!

Q. Professor Pilgrim, do you plan to watch the Macy’s parade in New York?

A. I’m too busy studying Internet reruns of that cop who maces peaceful student activists in California.

Q. Despicable, wasn’t it?

A. Those kids don’t know how lucky they were.

Q. Lucky?

A. Yeah. Think what would have happened had that campus cop been Karl Thompson Jr. Forget pepper spray. Ol’ Karl would have clubbed those kids into baby seal pulp.

Q. Point taken. Do you think Thompson should have been let out of jail until sentencing?

A. Not after what he did to Otto Zehm. But it does explain Thompson’s obsession for free-range turkeys this Thanksgiving.

Q. Really?

A. Yes. Thompson doesn’t want to be near anything that has been near a cage.

Q. Speaking of menu tips, what’s the best way to know when a bird’s getting overheated and overcooked?

A. That red vein popping out on Joe Shogan’s forehead is a dead giveaway.

Q. I was talking about turkeys, Professor Pilgrim.

A. So’s Professor Pilgrim.

Q. There you go getting political again. I suppose you even know what Spokane Mayor Mary Verner will be serving today.

A. No. But after losing the mayor’s race, it’s a sure bet that she’s issued a ban on condon-ments.

Q. Boo! That joke’s about as awful as it gets.

A. You’re welcome.

Q. Is Professor Pilgrim having guests over this Thanksgiving?

A. Well, I was going to invite a batch of those “Occupy” protestors.

Q. What happened?

A. Found out most of them have something against using deodorant, too.

Q. Are you a big holiday football watcher, Professor?

A. Not really. Although for the last few weeks I’ve been quite focused on the personal fouls being committed at In-the-Penn State.

Q. Do you think Joe Paterno deserved to be fired?

A. No. I think Paterno deserved to be carved and quartered like a freshly cooked Butterball.

Q. Will you be joining the madding mass on Black Friday?

A. No. Professor Pilgrim doesn’t even go to Mass on Good Friday. I’ll just hang around with my best friends.

Q. Jack Daniels and Jim Beam?

A. No. My liver had a falling out with those boys. I’m back to the Gallo brothers, Ernest and Julio.

Q. Do you have any Thanksgiving wisdom that you’d like to impart to the world before leaving?

A. Yes, I’d like to extend a one-finger salute to greedy shopping mall executives who now bring Santa into malls days before Thanksgiving instead of the traditional day after.

Q. There’s a term for that sort of crass commercialization, isn’t there?

A. Yep. Bah! Humbug!

Doug Clark is a columnist for The Spokesman-Review. He can be reached at (509) 459-5432 or by email at dougc@spokesman.com.

34 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

NWAI on November 24 at 8:31 a.m.
Congratulations on another piece of garbage journalism. Not only is not funny, it’s just plain ignorant. Find something new and original to write about, the Thompson jokes are just lazy not to mention lame. Would it kill you to show a shred of gratitude for the police department that goes to battle for you day in and day out? I guess that wouldn’t be inflammatory enough to make a good headline though, huh?
Jethro_toll on November 24 at 8:44 a.m.
NWAI quit crying in your giblet soup and tuck that head back under your feathers.
misjustice on November 24 at 10:37 a.m.
This article was an over cooked, dry, tasteless turkey…
reservedparking on November 24 at 10:51 a.m.
And next to Doug Clark, the State Farm pop-up gracing multiple pages of this website is about the most annoying thing ever. Not in the market for insurance anyway, but State Farm would be off my list now.
reservedparking on November 24 at 10:53 a.m.
And next to Doug Clark, the State Farm pop-up gracing multiple pages of this website is about the most annoying thing ever. Not in the market for insurance anyway, but State Farm would be off my list now.
reservedparking on November 24 at 11:19 a.m.
Apologies for the duplicate post. To err is human, to really screw things up takes a computer. This one’s the turkey today.
misjustice on November 24 at 11:54 a.m.
I agree, reserved, about the annoying ads on the SR pages; I won’t patronize any bidness that choses such an annoying means of advertising. Got that, SR and bidnesses?
Huppins is off my list for their similar ads…and the side ads near the scroll bar on the right handed side of the screen have forced me to scroll on the left side of the screen; NO ONE wants to hear that ANNOYING tool sound, trust me!
pjc on November 24 at 12:05 p.m.
A couple of things:
1. With all this great material, this piece fumbles and manages to be really unfunny. It could have been a good one but Doug Clark wrote it.
2. Misjustice wrote:
I agree, reserved, about the annoying ads on the SR pages; I won’t patronize any bidness that choses such an annoying means of advertising. Got that, SR and bidnesses?
I hope you are enjoying the free S-R website. How do you suppose the S-R offers this free website for your viewing?
By the way, Huppins is a locally owned business and so much for the sentiment of keeping money local.
MrBloggy on November 24 at 12:52 p.m.
Q. Is it true that *Doug Clark* is actually an old Commodore 64 in a cryogenic vault with a BASIC program that recycles the same four jokes?
A.
10 FOR B=99 TO 1 STEP -1
20 GOSUB 100
30 T$=T$+” OF VERNER ON THE WALL”
40 PRINT T$;”, “;T$
50 PRINT “TAKE ONE DOWN AND PASS IT AROUND, ”
reservedparking on November 24 at 12:53 p.m.
Let them advertise all they want - just not via all the annoying pop-ups!
detroitdude on November 24 at 1:12 p.m.
This website is actually very well put together and organized if you have a halfway decent pop up blocker in your browser.
Pigrobin on November 24 at 1:14 p.m.
Thanks Bloggy I had forgotten how much I missed basic computer language.
misjustice on November 24 at 4:01 p.m.
Yeah. tomato hands. I’ll keep money local but not with Huppins; thanks for askin’….
I’m no idiot; I’ll read the SR for FREE!
misjustice on November 24 at 6:33 p.m.
Oh, my, not for free tomatoes….I’m sure that you will pay for my ability to get not premium news content..thanks, sucker! As if this content is “worth” payin’ for?
Heck, I don’t even “pay” for content of real newspapers like the NYTimes, the LATimes, and the Boston Globe…why should I pay for this rag??????
Get with it!!!!!
Free is where it’s at!
liveinfearoftheSPD on November 24 at 8:55 p.m.
That has to be the worse piece of drivel I have ever read.
pjc on November 26 at 1:14 p.m.
misjustice - you are a local treasure.
pjc on November 26 at 1:30 p.m.
Jeez misjustice, for someone who has posted 7936 comments on the S-R website since March 2009 you have a funny way of showing that the content on the S-R website is bad.
I’d hate to see the number of comments if you thought the content was good.
misjustice on November 26 at 2:20 p.m.
I KNOW! pjc…just think!
I didn’t say it was bad, just not worth payin’ for.
; )
BlondeSquawker on November 26 at 3:32 p.m.
I don’t know what she put on her turkey…I just know my turkey put 5 extra pounds on me!
mmspowaus on November 26 at 3:38 p.m.
PJC is 70 % right…she should have posted”
MissJustice is a loco trasher
========
The content of the SR is worth every penny you pay MissJustice…
Traveler on November 26 at 4:29 p.m.
(heavy sigh)
misj, my opinion of you has just fallen considerably.
I know several people at the S-R. Over the last few years, they’ve seen two-thirds of their co-workers laid off, endured pay cuts and furloughs, and face an ever-dimmer future (because more and more people think “free is where it’s at”), but they still put their heart and soul into their work every day.
I subscribe to the print version, even though I like the online version better, because it seems the honorable thing to do. I also watch local TV news, and the S-R’s coverage is far and away better than anything else around here, for both depth and variety. Even with their reduced staff, they’re still the biggest news-gathering outfit in the Inland Northwest. One of the reasons you post so many times here is because there are so many stories of interest here, ya know.
And you’ve boasted several times about how your employer keeps throwing money at you, yet you won’t even pay the couple dollars a week or so to support something you use nearly every day, all day? And even worse, belittle the people who offer this site by telling them it’s “not worth payin’ for”?
You may have a beautiful mind, but you also have a miser’s heart. When this “rag” finally folds, will you miss it?
pjc on November 26 at 5:18 p.m.
56traveler - I was with you up to the first part of the second to last sentence.
Traveler on November 26 at 6:31 p.m.
pjc: Well, at least I had you through 90 percent, eh? That’s a better percentage than most of my posts get around here, it seems. ;-)
And “beautiful mind” is misj’s self-description, which I often agree with (I have learned several things from reading her posts), but sometimes I don’t. This, obviously, is one of those latter times. :-(
misjustice on November 26 at 7:05 p.m.
Well, traveler, you make an excellent argument for the fine folks that work for this paper. I still won’t pay for the content. They generate plenty of revenue or they still wouldn’t be in business. Perhaps the owners need to tweak their business model?
I also read several other on-line “papers”, as stated above; establishments that feature great writers on staff. And I don’t pay for those either. Call me a cheap miser, if you will. That’s fine.
I do pay to read Mother Jones, The Nation, and other print media that I have subscriptions to. But those tend to offer out of the main stream content that I can’t get for free elsewhere.
But enough about ME!
What about this turkey of an article by Mr. Clark?
; )
Jethro_toll on November 26 at 7:21 p.m.
The Spokesman became the Inquirer when Bill Morlin and Karen Dorn Steele left. Steve Smith had an unhealthy fetish for Jim West and thought he was God’s Gift to Journalism (not). He pimped all the Oregon reporters and when he left they scattered like cockroaches in Doug Clarks lunchbox.
Clouse, Brunt and Cunliff have done a great job, but the editors are sandbagging them. The spokesman is just the Republican Mouthpiece and fails to regulate itself in a neutral and non-partisan manner.
Its doomed to become a weekly soon and a second place newspaper next to the Inlander..and thats pretty low.
If it wasnt for Doug Clark and the papers lining many a bird cage, it would have folded with the first Kevin Coe story.
Traveler on November 26 at 8:19 p.m.
“They generate plenty of revenue or they still wouldn’t be in business.”
Not necessarily. As I understand it, they’re still bleeding money — like the entire newspaper industry (v.s. “free is where it’s at”) — but they’ve managed to stanch the flow to a trickle.
“Perhaps the owners need to tweak their business model?”
You mean like cutting the workforce? They’re doing that in spades. If you have a better idea — say, some way to get people to actually pay for stuff they produce — I’m sure the remaining staff would love to hear about it.
“But those tend to offer out of the main stream content that I can’t get for free elsewhere.”
I give the S-R (including Doug Clark, who, admittedly, is an acquired taste who has certainly fired more than a few duds in his time) nearly complete credit for breaking the Otto Zehm story and keeping at it until the feds came in and did what nobody in this city would do: Put his killer in jail. Where are you gonna get that kind of content for free elsewhere?
Jethro, I agree that several of the S-R’s columnists wear their political slant on their sleeves, but I’ve learned to get past the bias in pretty much everything else I read, so this stuff isn’t all that different, nor is that evident in the reporters’ (i.e., the ones who don’t get their picture included with their article) work. I’m curious: Where do you go for completely unbiased news? And as I said earlier, it’s still the biggest, deepest news source in the region.
It seems to me the S-R is damned if they do and damned if they don’t. I remember a poster commenting that he’d never subscribe because of a religious columnist they publish once a month in the features section. That always seemed like a pretty flimsy excuse to me, and I suspect that even if they were to drop the columnist, the poster would just find another reason. Personally, I find nearly every Michael Ramirez column highly offensive, and they run his stuff a couple times a week. I just shake my head at the “diversity” they’re trying to offer. It’s gotta be hard to find a clever conservative cartoonist — I mean, how lame is “Mallard Fillmore”?
Jethro_toll on November 27 at 7:12 a.m.
56..It would behoove the Spokesman to take some polls to determine just exactly why people buy it and what content they value? While it would fine tune its non-existing business model, it does have a civic commitement (buried somewhere beyond all the drivel content) to provice rapid, unadulterated news to the public.
During the Karl the Klubber’s trial, they did attempt to tweet, twit, belch, and pass gas on the proceedings. Albeit it was some kind of Rube Goldberg procedure. I noticed the lack of a courtroom artist. Judge Van Sickly did allow the direct feed of a motionless camera pointed at an unimportant corner of the courtroom with hardly any audio of quality to the Spokane Federal Court.
I often attend the City Council meetings and am surprised by the lack of the Spokesmans information as to the agenda and proceedings. I go home expecting reporting on what transpired and often wonder if Brunt was in the same room as everyone else.
I wonder when Doug Clark retires how much their circulation will decrease. When Paul Turner retires I wonder how much it will increase.
misjustice on November 27 at 2:50 p.m.
Yah know, traveler, since you called me out I’ve given a considerable amount of thought to the fine folks that are the worker bees here at the SR….
And I can’t help but conclude that they chose their profession. And with that choice goes all the attended baggage, including the current jobs market. At least they are working in their chosen profession; which is more than I can say.
They chose a career in journalism. I did not choose to become a cog in the corporate wheel. I could not get a job in my chosen field; so I made a great argument as to why I could use the skills set that I had to do the job that was paying a lot less than I negotiated to do the job for. I took my skills set, my drive, my degree and applied it to a field that I truly would rather not be working in. And I made a great argument as to why I should be paid more, a lot more, than the starting salary. So hate on me for that!
Given the current jobs market, however, I made lemonade from lemons, transferred my skills to a field that I detest, and I took the freakin’ money.
Money that does not begin to make up for my lack of job satisfaction but it will ensure that I can save enough dough to leave this cow town…and leave you and your friends at the SR to languish in this gawd forsaken mecca of can’t do, can’t progress, and can’t understand why…
Any who how, do not detest me for being able to play the game that has been foisted upon regular folks…I merely used the skills that I have to progress my ultimate goals. Very American and not to be disdained. Isn’t it all about the Benjamins?????
; )
Traveler on November 27 at 4:20 p.m.
Jethro, I don’t know about the S-R’s lack of artists; the only drawings I’ve ever seen are the watercolor-type things they use for feature stories. I don’t know if they ever had any staff artists, but they certainly wouldn’t now, during their budget crisis. As for the courtroom/city council coverage, they certainly lost a lot when Morlin and Steele left, but Brunt is still young and he’s done some good stuff. Presumably he’ll get better as he gets more experience.
misj, I never slammed you for making lots of money — more power to you, in fact. I was just disheartened to see you call the S-R a “rag” and say that nothing they do is worth paying for. I disagree strongly, and think what you said was rude. I’ve seen you chide other posters, but you downright insulted the people who work at the S-R. Frankly, I always thought you were better than that. Even now, after “considerable thought,” I see no contrition; you just say their lot is their own fault and then get defensive.
My only quibble with your earnings was that you apparently make so much but won’t spend a penny to support something that you use daily. Hell, I spend more than my subscription on my weekly United Way donation, and I’ve never used anything they offer, and hope I never will.
And as for their willing choice to go into journalism, and the job insecurity that comes with it, aren’t you glad someone is willing to put up with that? Obviously you wouldn’t. I think journalists are a VITAL part of democracy, and as important to our country as teachers (another underpaid, underappreciated career). If everybody was all about the Benjamins, all we’d ever get would be corporate press releases.
BlondeSquawker on November 27 at 9:38 p.m.
I lovya, MisJ, and I’m very proud of your accomplishments. Bravo, sister!
misjustice on November 27 at 10:26 p.m.
And the SR is not corporate, traveler? A corporation owned by the Cowles with their multiple holdings, land/realestate, a paper milling company, KHQ6, as well as the SR??? This is not independent journalism…Just sayin’…
I do admire folks that can do the work of journalism and that can find a job in their chosen field. Not everyone can be so fortunate in this economy, to do the work that brings them a level of satisfaction despite the lack of financial rewards. I would gladly work in my field for less money than I am making if I could find a position. But due to circumstances beyond my control I have been forced to find employment outside of my field of expertise.
No worries…I still think that Clark’s turkey article was a stinker and not worth payin’ to read.
I used to subscribe to this rag. And then, a few years into my subscription, they cut down the size of the paper; literally making the paper smaller in dimension AND smaller in content. And they cut loose some great writers.
And then, well, there was no longer a perception of value for
me; what I received for the money spent was not worth the cost. So I cancelled my subscription and started reading the content that I wanted for free at the library on campus. And then I started reading on-line; getting all of the content I wanted for free. So why pay? I have never been compelled to go back to being a subscriber to the hard copy of the paper. Maybe the SR should examine why they lost past subscribers?
The Inlander has always been free and has managed to stay in business. They even can afford to offer content from syndicated authors like Hightower and Borowitz. Additionally, somehow, they manage to do in depth reporting on local issues and many times surpass the quality and range of the writers here at the SR.
Maybe the Cowles need to rethink their business model and make their paper one that people like me (and many others) will WANT to pay for? How can they do that? I’m not really sure. But I do agree with the post upthread that things like the City Council meetings should be afforded more coverage; and not just when Shogan is a jerk. And I’m sure that others have areas of interest that don’t get column space.
Sure, I make a lot of posts on this site, it’s what I like to do to unwind after a hard day of detached mindless drone work in the corporate hell that consumes my daily life. I like reading what other posters have to say and enjoy interacting with them. I do appreciate the opportunity to do that and the forum that the SR provides.
I benefit from the ability to interact with others in the community and the SR benefits from the “hits” that an article gets; and any drummed up controversy, like the one on this turkey of an article, gets more folks to hit a page/story which creates more revenue for the SR from the advertisers that have their adds on a page. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
At any rate, I’ve droned on for far too long…but you have made me think, traveler, and for that I thank you. I’m still a cheap miser that likely won’t subscribe again but you’ve forced me to examine why that is and I will likely continue to mull over in my beautiful mind why I have an aversion to payin’ for content that I can get for free.
Maybe it’s a character flaw or maybe it’s a sign of the times or maybe it’s a generational thingy… or perhaps I can blame it on my liberal political ideology or my college education or on the fact that I was bottle fed as an infant????? Who knows for sure? But you got me thinkin’ all because you challenged my throw away comment…
; )
brianrbreen on November 28 at 5:04 a.m.
It’s a character flaw! :)
misjustice on November 28 at 10:43 a.m.
You’re probably correct, Brian!
; )
Traveler on November 28 at 1:45 p.m.
misj, my last thoughts on the subject:
I know that for any newspaper, the online version is a loss-leader or marginal source of income (usually less than 5 percent), so all the hits these pages generate don’t make much difference. Still, I suppose they’re grateful for whatever they get. And they gotta offer it free because everybody else does, plain and simple.
And as for your desire to get for free what’s offered for free, I think your second two suggestions are more likely the source (I like you too much to think of you as having a character flaw)*. I’m old enough to actually have bought music, at a store, and I remember being ribbed by my younger co-workers when Napster was at its peak: “You actually paid for that song? That is so ten minutes ago!” Most musicians nowadays make their money from concerts, which I don’t really care to go through the hassle of attending. If more people start thinking like me, more musicians will starve for their art (but at least then, we won’t be able to question their motives).
I don’t know where this death spiral for art and information will take us (not just the country, but the world), but I find it a worrisome trend. Whether or not it’s free, it’ll be worth what we pay for it.
*I was breast-fed as an infant, so there may be something there …