DOWN THE TWITTER | Chicago Sun-Times Edition
In what must be some weird monthly tradition dreamed up by the folks at The Chicago Sun-Times (or "the other paper", for those who prefer Chicago's primary bastion of urban journalism, The Chicago Tribune), the newspaper has listed via Twitter its top five online stories for the recently ended month of August. The inaugural tweet was posted shortly before 6 PM EST/5 PM CST, magnificently stating, "We've rounding up the top five stories for August." The first one is particularly interesting and I had a lot to say. (or perhaps after writing about the first one, I was just too distracted and bored to bother with the rest - you'll never know!)
[links to articles via images]
#1: 30 people shot in 3 hours of overnight gun violence
I'll admit math isn't my strong suit, but I had one math teacher in high school whose classes I enjoyed because we got to learn about the sort of "math" that involves imaginary numbers, infinity symbols, and differential physics, i.e. the kind of math that isn't so much math as it is philosophy, made accessible to a room of pretentious 17-year old friendless nerds.
As you can probably guess, this math teacher was also the type to lead seminars (ostensibly "open to all", but essentially reserved for a certain group of baby geniuses) on esoteric film directors, fandoms, and a less obvious word for "indie music". I think it was "Underground Subcultures", but feel free to use any word combination that portends Michael Azerrad on a required reading list.
There was one lecture in the music course for which Mr. O. requested students bring printed song lyrics—"any song!", terrifying words—to be dissected and analyzed in minutiae, with painstakingly historically accurate detail. I stayed up way too late the night before, simply trying to choose an appropriate song for class—nothing too "smart" (simultaneously nothing too mainstream); nothing too recently covered by Pitchfork (gross! right guys?) or VICE (this was back when VICE was still a counterculture magazine with some pretty good album reviews, not whatever it is now); nothing that could be considered equivalent to laptop MIDI dribble, i.e. equating obscurity with quality was (still is) a big NO; nothing too "classic", except maybe in an acceptably ironic way, etc. (e.g. NO to any song by Nirvana, most likely already analyzed to death by the print/online music literati, even in 2006— Abba's "Fernando", however, is historically and musically interesting and therefore probably more appropriate.) I finally ended up bringing Tom Waits' "Dirt in the Ground" but it didn't matter anyway because the entire 90-minute class was ultimately spent on one song by Jello Biafra.
Anyway, I did moderately okay in the math class (NB: just because you enjoy something doesn't mean you're good at it) and because everything learned in high school most surely becomes of use later in life, I can state with as much certainty as possible that "equal to or more than"—the underlined 270-degree-rotation "v", for those who prefer reading in Wingdings—does not mean "one more than". An "n" that is "greater than or equal to" 3 could be 3, 4, 5, 6, 128, 420, or any other whole number (since we're counting people) that's, well, greater than or equal to 3. Although we know that "n" cannot be equal to 0, 1, or 2 (again, counting people - so no negative numbers) there's a real possibility that "n" simply equals 3.
According to the Sun-Times journalist (or copywriter), five separate shootings occurred within a single three-hour time span. I'll assume some, uh, creative license was taken in declaring all five "mass" shootings, since five mass shootings in a single city - let alone a single day - would most likely literally make global headlines and warrant a mobile alert on citizens' smartphones, which this did not. I also take issue with the loose use of "mass" to emphasize the number of victims, since deciphering the headline's subtitle leads one to believe that either 3 people or 25 people were shot across all five of these not-mass shootings.
One would hope that aside from shootings not occurring in the first place, as few victims as possible arise from such incidents. Given the choice, I'd hope that the number of shooting victims in Chicago during this fateful evening more closely numbered 3 than 25, but then I remember that such a small number would not make a very good headline - certainly not good enough to be #1 for the month of August. So let's go with 25 people collectively shot, across all five shootings. This leads to a 1:5 k/d ratio (shot means killed), which is a better number for both player XP and news headlines.
Even after two paragraphs of advanced math, however, I remain unsure how the (copy)writer arrived at their thirty figure. As I read it, it seems entirely plausible that:
- five (5) shootings took place in Chicago, presumably at separate locations and within three (3) hours
- each shooting resulted in at least 3 but no more than 13 shooting victims (fact: had any one shooting resulted in 14 victims, it'd be impossible for the other four to have "3 or more" given the double fact below)
- though the exact number of victims from each of the five shootings is apparently unknown, the total number shot across all five incidents has somehow been calculated and it equals 25
- a FaZe clan tournament took place in Chicago during this three-hour time period and five (5) FaZe members got savage trickshots to the head
- 25 + 5 = 30 people shot in 3 hours of overnight gun violence
- at least 5 were also n0scoped
#2: Beyonce and Jay-Z — the power couple delivers plenty of music and [drama]
(creative liberties were also taken with the word "story")
#3: Colt Cabana sues CM Punk over legal fees
I...don't know what to say about this one? I'm mostly concerned that the Sun-Times photo staff either forgot or didn't know they had to include keyword "angry" when searching Getty Stock for "man with arms crossed"
#4: CTA employee charged with fatal shooting in Fuller Park
Just thought I'd add that CTA stands for Chicago Transit Authority ("the El"), aka public transportation, for those unfamiliar with the acronym. Not sure this helpfulness will be appreciated since un-CTA-aware people probably just moved on, eager to learn from a newspaper that Beyoncé and Jay-Z are married musicians.
#5: Dear Abby: I don't want sex, but boyfriend says, 'Get over it'
Don't feel guilty if this is the one article of the five which you actually considered clicking. Surely there was purpose behind announcing items of a ranking list in descending order.