The You Are Dumb blog sets its sites on Strib commentors, and finds them, well, to be pretty dumb. Specifically, the blog’s author looks at responses to the recent tale of Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who was detained in Newark as a result of having his name on a watch list, which is approximately the equivalent of Julia Roberts being detained in China for being a possible terrorist. Strib commentors, however, don’t really seem to grasp the tale, so the blog clarifies: This is clearly, in the annals of airport security snafus, a minor incident. He wasn’t removed from a plane, he didn’t miss a flight, and he only lost a couple of hours. On the other hand, this is also clearly an issue of a broken system abusing an innocent traveler for no societal benefit, and only coming to light because the innocent traveler being abused has a certain amount of fame, power, and/or pull. And once we leave the land of Clearly, we enter the murky, confused world of the Strib commenters, who proceed to describe a whole other planet.
Star Trib Commentors: Almost Tooo Easy
Aug 18 2009 — 6:14am
16 Reader Comments
6:33 am
I was hoping for a more thorough and exacting indictment.
6:48 am
That’s fair treatment. People just blow off steam in that comment section. Rather see them do that than kick the dog.
It serves a purpose, kinda like pro wrestling.
8:04 am
I always pegged the majority of commentators on the Strib website to be over 60 and retired. After all – who still reads that paper anyways?
8:11 am
We just started getting it delivered. Thought we should support local journalism. You know, buy local, right? That’s what all the hipsters say you’re supposed to do.
11:28 am
I read Strib comments on a story exactly once. It was horrifying. These people are my neighbors, my co-Twin Citians, my co-Minnesotans??? The same species?
So now I keep the door tightly closed on that awful part of humanity.
12:14 pm
I like the consistency of Strib comments. If there’s an article on crime, there will be comments on race. If there’s an article on hockey, somehow it will contain racial comments. If the weather had comments turned on, you’d understand that sunshine is a conspiracy by the coloreds to burn the white man.
12:51 pm
Also, I’d be willing to wager that 82-year-old grandmothers have, in our nation’s history, killed more Americans than Muslim extremists ever have…
dim witty
1:08 pm
^^
That’s a dumb thing to type on a website accusing others of being dumb…
1:38 pm
I’m it is factually true that 82-year-old grandmothers have killed more Americans than Muslim extremists if you count only deaths on American soil, and you don’t require that they have committed their murder at age 82, but instead sometimes during their life; it’s still a perplexing thing to say unless you go into a little more detail.
1:50 pm
I find the Julia Roberts comparison a bit tortured, too.
He should limit his comments to the Comments Section.
1:54 pm
Yes, max, but he did not specify that. For being critical of commenters and picking apart their statements (however dumb they truly are), he certainly did a sloppy job. I would say overall, FAIL.
1:59 pm
I find the Julia Roberts comparison a bit tortured, too.
Cheney-Rumsfeld endorse your view, Rat. The torture bit, at least, regardless of whom against it is applied.
Better than JR would be someone like George Clooney, a known anti-American terrorist, probably born in Kenya, who prefers to live in Italy. Plus, his gender matches that of Khan.
KHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
Sorry. Had to do it.
3:33 pm
For the record, Julia Roberts was Max’s analogy, not mine.
As for 82-year-old grandmothers, “killed” and “murdered” are not synonyms. Once you realize that, the nature of the joke becomes clear.
3:58 pm
I would say Shah Rukh Khan is arguably more famous than Julia Roberts. Newsweek named him one of the 50 most powerful people in the world. Why do you find it tortured?
4:27 pm
Who?
4:32 pm
not only is he more famous, he’s far less coltish. plus he fucked richard gere in real life, not just in a movie.