TIMLENNOX.COM: MMMM # 456 -- The Murphy Affair, Ruin Photos, and FACEBOOK'e experiments.

The Montgomery Advertiser published an exhaustive "behind the scenes" story about the forced retirement of Montgomery Police Chief Kevin Murphy on Sunday, but it was sometimes difficult, for me anyway, to figure out if it was a straightforward news report or an opinion column. Writer Josh Moon got the byline, and he is a columnist, after all. Read this sentence:

The emotions of Kevin Murphy is what caused the most harm between the chief and his police officers. And make no mistake, there were serious, possibly even unworkable issues between Kevin Murphy and many of the officers in his command.

There's the weird "the emotions of Kevin Murphy is" structure, but even more important: here's no attribution, just a statement of--fact? Supposition? Opinion?
The ~~story~~ report does have some fascinating new facts about the lead up to the Murphy/Strange press conference. Read it, if you can get through the paywall.

     During World War II, the Maunsell Forts were built to be small fortified towers in the Thames and Mersey estuaries to help defend the United Kingdom. The sea forts were designed to protect the international shipping channel from German air raids and mine setting.
     Air Forts were used for anti-aircraft defense, shooting down 22 planes and 30 flying bombs.
     The forts were decommissioned in the 1950s, but were re-occupied in the 1960s by British Pirate Radio stations. They are occasionally visited, but mostly remain unoccupied. (from National Geographic)

See sixteen other pictures of ruins, most of them relatively modern,
here in National Geographic.

I favor ruins in my own work, though certainly less grand than the NG photos (-:

And don't miss another National Geographic ruins special, about an Island between The Bronx and Manhattan Island....once a thriving medical facility, now an eerie land being reclaimed by nature. See The North Brother Island photos here.

An old generating Station, N. Brother Island, NYC

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ALSO:

The Montgomery Advertiser and the online entity that the state's largest newspapers have largely become---AL.COM--- won a bunch of awards in a newspaper contest over the weekend. But at what point do those competitions stop being "newspaper" contests? They include video and audio on their websites, and try to be ahead of the rest of the pack in breaking news. At some point there has be an all-news media competition, no?

AND: Facebook has been messing with you. SLATE reports on an