Gene Weingarten is being DRAGGED for his article hating on indian food

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never get the humor in his articles. That one was particularly unfunny.

Agree with this. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but I just read the article and it astounds me that this man is paid to write. It is like something from a bad high school newspaper.

Well, being unfunny and/or a subpar writer does NOT equate to being racist and certainly does not require issuing an apology.

Everyone should seriously be worried about free speech. This is ridiculous.

Has a court issued a decree banning Weingarten's column? Didn't think so. So, no, no one should be worried about free speech. The ridiculous thing is to pretend otherwise.

People pay money to read the Washington Post. Those readers are entitled to say that they don't want to read ignorant, uninformed drivel. If Weingarten's "critique" were at least based in fact, then it would likely have received a different response...but it was simultaneously ignorant and offensive, while also drawing upon centuries of racist, reductive tropes. Refusing to hear that and calling anyone who points it out "ridiculous" is what's ridiculous. Would it also be okay for him to compare Beyonce or any other Black musician to a minstrel show?

But it's not like he's the food critic writing a review of a restaurant. He's a humor columnist writing a satirical piece about his own persnickitiness. He's already apologized. You don't like his column, don't read it.

[Anonymous]

I am not a fan of Indian food outside of garlic naan (yummmm), but I would never insult it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never get the humor in his articles. That one was particularly unfunny.

Agree with this. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but I just read the article and it astounds me that this man is paid to write. It is like something from a bad high school newspaper.

Well, being unfunny and/or a subpar writer does NOT equate to being racist and certainly does not require issuing an apology.

Everyone should seriously be worried about free speech. This is ridiculous.

Has a court issued a decree banning Weingarten's column? Didn't think so. So, no, no one should be worried about free speech. The ridiculous thing is to pretend otherwise.

People pay money to read the Washington Post. Those readers are entitled to say that they don't want to read ignorant, uninformed drivel. If Weingarten's "critique" were at least based in fact, then it would likely have received a different response...but it was simultaneously ignorant and offensive, while also drawing upon centuries of racist, reductive tropes. Refusing to hear that and calling anyone who points it out "ridiculous" is what's ridiculous. Would it also be okay for him to compare Beyonce or any other Black musician to a minstrel show?

But it's not like he's the food critic writing a review of a restaurant. He's a humor columnist writing a satirical piece about his own persnickitiness. He's already apologized. You don't like his column, don't read it.

Exactly. WaPo has been giving me a million reasons to drop the subscription, and this one made the decision final. I don't need to pay for a newspaper that chooses to run nonsense like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never get the humor in his articles. That one was particularly unfunny.

Agree with this. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but I just read the article and it astounds me that this man is paid to write. It is like something from a bad high school newspaper.

Well, being unfunny and/or a subpar writer does NOT equate to being racist and certainly does not require issuing an apology.

Everyone should seriously be worried about free speech. This is ridiculous.

Has a court issued a decree banning Weingarten's column? Didn't think so. So, no, no one should be worried about free speech. The ridiculous thing is to pretend otherwise.

People pay money to read the Washington Post. Those readers are entitled to say that they don't want to read ignorant, uninformed drivel. If Weingarten's "critique" were at least based in fact, then it would likely have received a different response...but it was simultaneously ignorant and offensive, while also drawing upon centuries of racist, reductive tropes. Refusing to hear that and calling anyone who points it out "ridiculous" is what's ridiculous. Would it also be okay for him to compare Beyonce or any other Black musician to a minstrel show?

But it's not like he's the food critic writing a review of a restaurant. He's a humor columnist writing a satirical piece about his own persnickitiness. He's already apologized. You don't like his column, don't read it.

Exactly. WaPo has been giving me a million reasons to drop the subscription, and this one made the decision final. I don't need to pay for a newspaper that chooses to run nonsense like this.

WaPo publishes a lot of nonsense. Most of their political reporting and op eds/commentaries are written by highly divisive people, and their new editor has said a lot of nasty stuff too. Why did you wait so long before cancelling your subscription?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I never get the humor in his articles. That one was particularly unfunny.

Agree with this. Everyone is entitled to an opinion but I just read the article and it astounds me that this man is paid to write. It is like something from a bad high school newspaper.

Well, being unfunny and/or a subpar writer does NOT equate to being racist and certainly does not require issuing an apology.

Everyone should seriously be worried about free speech. This is ridiculous.

Has a court issued a decree banning Weingarten's column? Didn't think so. So, no, no one should be worried about free speech. The ridiculous thing is to pretend otherwise.

People pay money to read the Washington Post. Those readers are entitled to say that they don't want to read ignorant, uninformed drivel. If Weingarten's "critique" were at least based in fact, then it would likely have received a different response...but it was simultaneously ignorant and offensive, while also drawing upon centuries of racist, reductive tropes. Refusing to hear that and calling anyone who points it out "ridiculous" is what's ridiculous. Would it also be okay for him to compare Beyonce or any other Black musician to a minstrel show?

But it's not like he's the food critic writing a review of a restaurant. He's a humor columnist writing a satirical piece about his own persnickitiness. He's already apologized. You don't like his column, don't read it.

Exactly. WaPo has been giving me a million reasons to drop the subscription, and this one made the decision final. I don't need to pay for a newspaper that chooses to run nonsense like this.

WaPo publishes a lot of nonsense. Most of their political reporting and op eds/commentaries are written by highly divisive people, and their new editor has said a lot of nasty stuff too. Why did you wait so long before cancelling your subscription?

Examples of the bolded? Not Op/Ed, but divisive political reporters and nasty stuff said by their new editor? This is news to me.

[Anonymous]

The world is going f'ing crazy. How can this honestly offend anyone. The column starts with this description of Old Bay:

Old Bay seasoning. I won’t belabor this because if you read my columns, you know where I stand. I have written that this appalling seafood additive tastes like dandruff from corpses mixed with the rust from around the toilet fixtures at a New Jersey rest stop. I retract none of that. In fact, I hereby double down: They also apparently throw in some dried ostrich guano.

JFC everyone...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know this is a minority opinion but I rather thought he was playing the doofus in a self-aware way. Like, look at me, I'm kind of stupid about this, aren't I stupid?

But I may be wrong about that.

That is how I read it, too, but obviously we are in the minority.

This is obviously how it was written, and is how a good 25% of his columns are written

[Anonymous]

This weekend's column was another batch of calls to customer service. I don't know if he's lazy or if he's trying and this is just the best he can do, but the guy is out of ideas and out of touch.

Is he trying to get fired because there'd be more money in it? Trump always acted like he was trying not to be elected, but it didn't work, and then it turned out that really was just that awful. Maybe Gene has become that hopelessly inept as a writer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This weekend's column was another batch of calls to customer service. I don't know if he's lazy or if he's trying and this is just the best he can do, but the guy is out of ideas and out of touch.

Is he trying to get fired because there'd be more money in it? Trump always acted like he was trying not to be elected, but it didn't work, and then it turned out that really was just that awful. Maybe Gene has become that hopelessly inept as a writer.

Well, last week it was a group that tends to be offended on this very topic.
Not sure about this week's target and their sensibilities.

I like Old Bay!

[Anonymous]

Well because of this thread and my short attention span I just read the column. It was like going back in time. I thought that sort of Andy Rooney-like schtick was done more than a decade ago.

I couldn't get more than a couple of sentences into the customer service rep column.

What a strange set of columns to run in the paper in THESE times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well because of this thread and my short attention span I just read the column. It was like going back in time. I thought that sort of Andy Rooney-like schtick was done more than a decade ago.

I couldn't get more than a couple of sentences into the customer service rep column.

What a strange set of columns to run in the paper in THESE times.

Oh, for Pete's sake. His column runs in the back of the magazine. There are all kinds of hopelessly out of date things that the Post and other papers insist on printing because a certain subset of old-school subscribers will scream bloody murder if they take them out (see, Peanuts and the rest of the comics page).