Abridged Daily News Columnists

Stu Bykofsky: Stu, who I believe covers the “cute ‘n’ cuddly” beat for the paper, writes about the local SPCA chief, who resigned Wednesday. He also notes the SPCA, which just recently got the animal control contract from the city, hired a spokesman from the “high-profile Bellevue Communications Group” to answer questions about the resignation. Good use of money there, fellas!

Elmer Smith: I am always up for a column making fun of the number of commissions the mayor puts together to pretend to address problems. (Street was a big fan of commissions, too.) I particularly liked this part of Smith’s column today, “We created a whole category that could be called ‘commissions to appease the often overlooked.’ You had your Mayor’s Commission on Native Americans, the Mayor’s Commission on Latino Affairs and the Mayor’s Commission on Women, not to be confused with the Mayor’s Commission on Sexual Minorities.” Do you think there’s a Mayor’s Commission on Native Americans in Cleveland, and do you think they spend all their time on Chief Wahoo?

Jill Porter: On the witness stand yesterday, Vince Fumo did not look all-powerful, since he’s facing a (de facto) life sentence if he’s convicted. Porter also writes, “I like Fumo and respect the government.” The former? Certainly defensible, I suppose. The latter? No way, especially in Pennsylvania.

Christine Flowers: This is a column comparing different Italian operas to Vince Fumo’s life. But wait, Flowers writes! “Ironically, though, the opera that most closely tracks the destiny of South Philly Vince isn’t even Italian.” Move over, Alanis. Somebody has used ironic in a way worse than you did.

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Jill Porter: Aw, cute, a couple had their wedding photos taken at the Broad Street Subway’s Walnut-Locust stop. Here’s the gallery. Dude has got to lose that mustache, though.

Elmer Smith: Still no arsonist caught in Coatesville.

Christine Flowers: Yes! It’s Christine Flowers on Women’s Studies programs! Turns out it’s pretty boring, actually, as she drops the topic immediately to complain about something else. It ends with a nice strawman, though.

A tough Roe to hoe

Some unhinged woman gets a bunch of docs to implant her with eight embryos so she can impersonate Mother Goose. Critics are in an uproar because no one stopped her from making her own reproductive choices.

Kind of ironic, isn’t it?

Ha, ha, get it? Because people in favor of abortion rights occasionally make this argument, and other people are making this argument in this different case! And maybe they’re on opposite sides of the argument! We don’t know, of course, because Flowers doesn’t give any examples of pro-choicers saying the state should have forcibly aborted those babies or stopped the embryos from being implanted or whatever wacky solutions people have come up with. It might be an argument if Flowers wanted to call an individual person on his or her hypocrisy, but instead it’s just a pointless attack of “critics.”

Oh, yeah, and there’s also this hilariously bad/awesome letter to the editor in today’s Daily News about a recent Flowers column. And it’s headlined “A trip into the dark soul of Christine Flowers.”

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Christine Flowers: Christine Flowers is sad that the Eagles didn’t make the Super Bowl. Hey, we agree on something!

Jill Porter: The best (worst) part of this story is how school administrators never contacted the family of the kid beat up at his high school. Good job, guys!

Elmer Smith: Oh, no, the analog TV switchover wasn’t pushed back! But now it’s going to be pushed back anyway, probably next week!

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Michael Smerconish: First point in today’s Smerconish column, which is about Sunday’s inaugural concert (topical!): “Sasha and Malia will provide significant insulation and political cover for whatever rocky times might come to their father’s administration.”

Elmer Smith: First reality TV show references made today by Elmer Smith: “Ozzy Osbourne or Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown.” Last time either of these shows aired: 2005.

(Oh, yeah! We’re finally getting public access! I predict within 2 or 3 months, Philadelphia Will Do will be doing nothing but posting clips from this.)

Christine Flowers: First point made in Christine Flowers’ column today: “We non-Obama voters shouldn’t be bullied into supporting our new president.” A…greed, I guess? I have no idea how one could be bullied into supporting Obama. Did Barry open the conservative capitalist gulags yet?!

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Christine Flowers: What’s so amazing about Bush’s presidency is the best “success” of the Bush administration Christine Flowers can come up with is — I shit you not — he kept us safe from terrorism. You know, because nothing happened after that one huge terrorist attack, it means we’re all warm and fuzzy and safe now. Because all we had was one huge terrorist attack. Thanks, President Bush!

Elmer Smith: Wow, did Bernie Madoff steal money from Elmer Smith directly or something? Oh, no, I see, he’s really mad at Madoff because employees in Fairfield, Conn., might lose their pension. Yeah, that sucks for them, but, um…

Christine Flowers: WTF???

The image at right is the lovable father from That 70s Show. And why am I posting an image of Red saying “Dumbass!”? No, not because I caught a first-season episode the other day and Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis and Topher Grace were all so young and oh it was so cute. I’m posting it because it’s the fifth result when one does a google image search of noted Daily News columnist Christine Flowers.

The other images that come up are pretty awesome, too. And, hey, look! Image number two is from a Philadelphia Will Do post from 2006, about a hilarious Flowers column celebrating the closing of Club Kama Sutra. There’s also a horse’s ass and some other people named Christine Flowers (or Flower). (Searching my name brings up things like photos I took for the summer version of my college newspaper. As well as some incredibly old photos.

Anyway, I was searching for Flowers’ name because of this letter in today’s Daily News from Dan Larkin, clearly a brilliant man with a certificate in Recognizing Daily News Columnist Bullshit. (I teach this small class, at University of Phoenix. Eh, it’s okay, you know, but I’m looking to start a program and get tenure somewhere else.)

Larkin noticed a few words in Flowers’ Friday column about John Pryor, the Penn doctor killed serving in Iraq. He was only 42. It’s a sad story, and Flowers actually does a pretty good job on the standard eulogizing-someone-you-don’t-know column.

Then, at the end, she just can’t resist. Penultimate sentences:

Some lives are expendable. This one was not.

Yeah, I know: “This from someone who’s a pro-lifer???” But it’s more than that. It’s that in her column about a doctor who died serving in Iraq, she just can’t resist writing about how she just wants some people to be dead. How sad. How pathetic. How absolutely offensive to John Pryor. I hope Flowers has to explain that one in the afterlife: “Yeah, sorry I couldn’t just eulogize you there, I needed to add in a dig about how I like it when certain people die at the end there. You’re down with that, right?”

It almost makes you so angry you just want to make an image macro of Dan Ackroyd from Weekend Update.

Christine M. Flowers: A hero in scrubs [Daily News]
Letters: Whose life is ‘expendable’, anyway? [Daily News]

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Christine Flowers: How many times will the Daily News allow Christine Flowers to write that the Boy Scouts do not have a policy of no gays when they do, indeed, have a policy of no gays? I dunno. Whatever.

Jill Porter: What’s awesome is in a column criticizing people for praising the guy who shot another person at the Riverview Movie Theater, Jill Porter doesn’t criticize him, only the gun he used.

Stu Bykofsky: The Mummers parade was shorter this year!

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Jill Porter: Someone sure did something nice for the subject of this column.

Elmer Smith: Hmm, I dunno, maybe the Fort Dix Five should get a fair trial, but I’m not really sure. (That’s really a thought in this column.)

Christine flowers: Yes, Christine Flowers on Caroline Kennedy! Let’s take a look:

ABOUT A YEAR AGO, Neil Diamond finally revealed the inspiration for his song “Sweet Caroline.” He of the impressive sideburns said that it was while looking at a picture of Caroline Kennedy in the ’60s that he was moved to write his signature song.

Aside from the slightly creepy aspect of a grown man taking a prepubescent teen as his muse

Get that, Caroline Kennedy? You can’t be a senator because Neil Diamond is a pervert, maybe!

There’s also some stuff about how Caroline Kennedy doesn’t even use her law degree, OMG, and man, we don’t even really know what she does and we surely can’t look it up or anything.

It doesn’t matter, though, I’m pretty sure Caroline Kennedy is already a shoo-in for the senate seat.

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Christine Flowers: This column is about Plaxico Burress. She’s writing about football (okay, kinda) for the second straight week! Your new Daily News sports columnist, Christine Flowers.

Jill Porter: Yeah, Ed Rendell was just tellin’ it like it is, that woman really does have no life! Side note: I — gasp! — enjoyed this column. Good quote choice, not over the top, even thoughtful. Also, it noted this, which I somehow missed before:

The open microphone on Tuesday apparently also caught Rendell saying of Sarah Palin:

She’s “not a genius, but she has very good political instincts,” he said, according to a political Web site.

Oh, Ed Rendell, I hope you never change.

Elmer Smith: This is about the bailouts, and it uses the “we can put a man on the moon, but we can’t” argument. But, eh, again, it’s a perfectly fine column. I can’t even really find anything to hate in Christine Flowers’ column today. Welcome to Bizarro World, people.

Abridged Daily News Columnists

Ronnie Polaneczky: “The healthy heart of a community - the bricks-and-mortar embodiment of its best, most hopeful and egalitarian self. Close a library and you still a neighborhood’s beating heart.” What? Are you going to tell me the beating heart of Logan Circle is the Central Library and not the giant heart in the Franklin Institute?

Christine Flowers: Here’s my favorite part of Flowers today:

Some judges think we should not elevate their deaths above “the rest of us,” those without the bulletproof vests and the shields. Some citizens think that color excuses criminality, or that poverty is an explanation for antisocial behavior, or that grief is misplaced for those who willingly enter a dangerous profession.

These sentiments are heard in the streets, seen in the courtrooms, read on the letters page.

But they are wrong. Decent people understand it. The rest are irrelevant.

When using a strawman argument, you’re allowed to tear it down a little better than, “Well that’s wrong BECAUSE I SAID SO!”