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Joe Horton's avatar

C’mon, guys…it’s the ~FREE~ press for a reason: it’s a marketplace for ideas. Nobody wants to buy everything in a market. I don’t disparage a meat market because it sells liver; I just don’t buy it.

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mark wells's avatar

This. I really had no interest in Burning Man news, so I didn't read it. Simple.

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RMac's avatar

The subject matter is absolutely fine, but it didn't do justice to the annual event nor did it educate or enlighten.

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Robert Moore's avatar

Or tripe, or "chicken paws", or beef tongue, all of which sell out in my Georgia town!

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Joe Horton's avatar

Beef tongue sounds terrible but is, in fact, the tenderest beef cut there is. Why? Because the tongue is unique in having muscle fibers oriented perpendicularly to one another. Think: x, y, and z-axes—tongues have muscle fibers oriented in all 3 directions. Yes, really. It’s why we can talk intelligibly (even if often not intelligently).

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Timothy G McKenna's avatar

I’ll have to try it - I just thought it was tough ham. Still better than Billy Crystal’s mutton, lettuce, and tomato from “The Princess Bride”!

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Joe Horton's avatar

Ah yes, the famous "MLT sandwich, when the mutton is nice and lean....But that's not what he said! He said 'to blave,' which means 'to bluff....' "

Anyway, have fun storming the castle!

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Michael Kelly's avatar

Stop at the Taco Truck at the gate to the dump—yes they're the best. They'll have a meat called 'la lingua', lambs tongue; its the best. The taco truck mainly serves the gardeners dropping off garden waste; surprisingly, those guys are quite discriminating about quality food. They won't stop for anything poorly prepared.

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Cal's avatar

To take your comparison a bit further, one might “subscribe” to a “market” because there was an industrious and eloquent chef working there who always served all the best cuts of steak. You went to the market in hopes of getting one of those steaks, or at least a half decent pork chop or something. After all, that was on the menu when the market opened, and it was a hell of a lot better than what other folks were serving. Over time though, the quality of the steak waned and in some cases disappeared. You still go to the market for the steak, even if it’s over-cooked. Today though, there is only liver...or maybe chitlins. Intestines, masquerading as wholesome eating. Lately, The Free Press has been heavy on liver and chitlins, with the occasional choice steak. Incidentally, I enjoy eating liver more than I enjoyed reading this article. I reckon I’ll be back again tomorrow though.

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Michael Kelly's avatar

The quality has fallen greatly. I'm beginning to debate my subscription.

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Bruce Miller's avatar

Sure it was silly but most of us know little about Burning Man, other than the obsession of the rest of the media with that bacchanal of banality. So it was worhwhile.

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yelnan's avatar

Just because we don’t know a lot about it, doesn’t make the knowledge worthwhile. I found this article pretty vapid.

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Bruce Miller's avatar

Yeah, it wasn't great but but Bari's batting ways over .750, which makes her a superstar in any league.

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Dean R.'s avatar

I agree. We all needed a day off the comment wars anyway lol.

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NCMaureen's avatar

Until this year I had never heard of Burning Man. I think I could have lived a good life having never heard of it.

Maybe Bari could have someone do a story on punkin’ chuckin’. Halloween is coming, maybe y’all would like to hear about pumpkin catapult contests in the south. A bunch of hillbillies gather in a big field with their homemade contraptions and a pile of huge pumpkins.....No?

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KTonCapeCod's avatar

I would...with video...and I am not kidding...I would!

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LonesomePolecat's avatar

Hey, don't disparage pumpkin chunkin'.

It takes a lot of time and skill to build a trebuchet. Also think of the cultural value of throwing a pumpkin a couple of hundred yards. It's God like!

I've never been to one but I thought I'd just throw that out there.

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NCMaureen's avatar

Oh, not disparaging at all. The engineering feats these folks come up with are amazing!

There was a TV show on punkin chukin on some channel like Discovery years ago.

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LonesomePolecat's avatar

NC, I was being facetious.

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Timothy G McKenna's avatar

I’d love to see a day of trebuchets throwing whatever, followed by a great big old cookout, and then a really fine evening exhibition of said trebuchets flinging flaming balls of whatever into a big lake, or even the ocean.

Yeah - do it on the beach in August, late one night with the Perseid meteor showers in their full glory. Yep - that’d do it for me - anybody up for it?

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LonesomePolecat's avatar

Sounds great!

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Timothy Kaluhiokalani's avatar

Great idea. I'd move the date to post labor day when the beach crowds diminish and the weather cools a bit. Maybe they could aim the trebuchets at a few of the massive wind mills they're planning to install off the Jersey coast. They could also do a sort of Viking funeral for the dead whales and dolphins that are washing up on the beach in record numbers from the sonar mapping they're doing.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

I just finished an article that off-shore wind development has hit a snag. Seems that inflation has resulted in higher costs and interest (who could have anticipated such a thing?) so they need to be subsidized 50%. Several companies have reportedly surrendered their leases.

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Skinny's avatar

Or perhaps a follow up on Joe Kennedy, the coach from Bremerton High School who has now been forced to resign because of retaliation. This after the SCOTUS ruling reinstated him after he was fired for praying of all things.

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Bill Cribben's avatar

Kennedy hints at retaliation but doesn’t elaborate. The slothful press ( AP News , Seattle Times) as expected belittle Kennedy and the court that ruled in his favor. It is hard to believe anyone saw this as more then a symbolic victory. Who moves 3,000 miles for a 5,000$ part-time job? No players , parents, coaches or teachers are quoted. The reports only spout pre approved platitudes and hint at Kennedy being a Christian nationalist( white supremacist). If your hope is to be uninformed the MSM is the place for you.

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Chris's avatar

I remember the days when the P-I was still around and the ST was being accused of being conservative....sort of like Lenin being right of Stalin.. They do toe the downtown/corporate line though remarkably well though.

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Robert Moore's avatar

I haven't seen this report. What source?

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Cal's avatar

Yes. This.

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Bruce Miller's avatar

In fact, I would. Now that sounds like real fun.

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NCMaureen's avatar

The content has gotten rather lazy lately.

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ABDS123's avatar

They take guest submissions you know, you can try your best to write something you deem worthwhile!

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Bruce Miller's avatar

Cut them a break. Summer is back with a vengeance and who wants a heavy lift on days like this.

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steven t koenig's avatar

Well, it's not free, so there's always that. And I take "press" to mean something more substantial than People Magazine

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Joe Horton's avatar

Would you have preferred that they not publish a blog today?

“Free” means unconstrained, not gratis.

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Sep 7, 2023
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Michael Kelly's avatar

The essay does come off as the nerdy kid who has to tell everyone—after his first experience—'he's had sex, with an actual girl.'

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RMac's avatar

Burning Man Mission Statement:

Burning Man Project’s mission is to produce the annual event known as Burning Man and to guide, nurture and protect the more permanent community created by its culture. Our intention is to generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society.

We believe that the experience of Burning Man can produce positive spiritual change in the world. To this end, it is equally important that we communicate with one another, with the citizens of Black Rock City and with the community of Burning Man wherever it may arise. Burning Man is radically inclusive, and its meaning is potentially accessible to anyone.

The touchstone of value in our culture will always be immediacy: experience before theory, moral relationships before politics, survival before services, roles before jobs, embodied support before sponsorship. Finally, in order to accomplish these ends, Burning Man must endure as a self-supporting enterprise that is capable of sustaining the lives of those who dedicate themselves to its work. From this devotion spring those duties that we owe to one another.

We will always burn the Man.

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JoAnne's avatar

Does positive spiritual change begin with picking up your trash?

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AyaLou's avatar

Translation: "do drugs, get naked"

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yelnan's avatar

A word salad of culturally approved expressions.

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QX's avatar

"Radically inclusive". Yeah, sure. Unless you say something factual like a man is not a woman.

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Joe Horton's avatar

Ever hear the expression, “a slow newsday”? This was an example.

Perhaps think of it as something that makes us appreciate the good stuff even more. I agree that today’s was, well, weak. But the comments here still make me smile, even if the blog itself didn’t do much for me.

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Evans W's avatar

How on gods green earth could there be "a slow newsday" in 2023? The entire planet is a complete sh*tshow on the hour/every hour.

I think it's more like "I'm Bari's friend and she's giving me a chance to publish a fluff piece".....which is fine, but lets at the very least be honest and call it what it is.... :-)

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