There's a reason people wrote to Dear Abby January 17, 2013 2:20 PM Subscribe
AskMe gets a shoutout in NPR's MonkeySee blog.
Hey neat! Thanks NPR!
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:52 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:52 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Hurrah! Two great tastes that taste great together!
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:20 PM on January 17, 2013
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 3:20 PM on January 17, 2013
John Prine on why/what people wrote to Dear Abby.
posted by dancestoblue at 3:26 PM on January 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by dancestoblue at 3:26 PM on January 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
LindaunderscoreHolmes is clearly the best Mefis Own semi-celeb. She posts a heck of a lot, and well.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:27 PM on January 17, 2013 [9 favorites]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:27 PM on January 17, 2013 [9 favorites]
Thank god they got that IANAL abbreviation right.
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:35 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Devils Rancher at 3:35 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Was that a sponsored article?
posted by desjardins at 3:54 PM on January 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by desjardins at 3:54 PM on January 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
Ha. Sponsored by MAH BRAIN, the most devious sponsor of all.
Thanks, y'all.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 4:00 PM on January 17, 2013 [63 favorites]
Thanks, y'all.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 4:00 PM on January 17, 2013 [63 favorites]
Hurrah! Two great tastes that taste great together!
So, you're saying we should eat them?
posted by pompomtom at 4:15 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
So, you're saying we should eat them?
posted by pompomtom at 4:15 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Where can I buy Linda_Holmes's Brain (TM)? Because it seems superior to my current brain in so many ways. I have Asked My Grocer, but he was no help.
posted by Sidhedevil at 4:33 PM on January 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
posted by Sidhedevil at 4:33 PM on January 17, 2013 [4 favorites]
it's like i'm impressed with myself for something i haven't done. how odd
posted by angrycat at 4:42 PM on January 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by angrycat at 4:42 PM on January 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
oh it's because I am with the cool kids holy fuck who would have thought
posted by angrycat at 4:43 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by angrycat at 4:43 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
AskMetafilter: Quite a bit of firm kicking in the behind.
posted by Lutoslawski at 4:59 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Lutoslawski at 4:59 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
That's it, we've jumped the shark. Everyone go home now.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:05 PM on January 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by dunkadunc at 5:05 PM on January 17, 2013 [2 favorites]
Do we really want everyone on NPR* to know about MetaFilter? I only tell certain people about it, kind of like the password to a speakeasy.
* - Better than everyone on Fox News knowing about Metafilter
posted by double block and bleed at 5:39 PM on January 17, 2013
* - Better than everyone on Fox News knowing about Metafilter
posted by double block and bleed at 5:39 PM on January 17, 2013
Too late now :)
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:55 PM on January 17, 2013
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:55 PM on January 17, 2013
Oh, it's only people who read my blog when I write about Dear Abby and, in this case, get all the way to the end of a bloviating post that could have been shorter if I'd had more time to write it. I could have written "BLAH BLAH BLAH I'M NOT TOUCHING YOU" at the end of that piece and I would have gotten, like, three e-mails from people who even saw it.
I only wish it were everyone on NPR. I would be incredibly powerful and would enforce my will on the entire building. As it is, I am in charge of The Department Of Things That People Often Don't Think NPR Does But It Actually Does.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 5:56 PM on January 17, 2013 [14 favorites]
I only wish it were everyone on NPR. I would be incredibly powerful and would enforce my will on the entire building. As it is, I am in charge of The Department Of Things That People Often Don't Think NPR Does But It Actually Does.
posted by Linda_Holmes at 5:56 PM on January 17, 2013 [14 favorites]
double block and bleed: "* - Better than everyone on Fox News knowing about Metafilter"
Only marginally. I've got a bit in my profile about Metafilter and the problems of having an NPR understanding of the world.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:16 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Only marginally. I've got a bit in my profile about Metafilter and the problems of having an NPR understanding of the world.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:16 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
Was that a sponsored article?
"Native Ad"
As in Linda_Holmes is native both to MeFi and to NPR.
posted by notyou at 7:09 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
"Native Ad"
As in Linda_Holmes is native both to MeFi and to NPR.
posted by notyou at 7:09 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
The confluence of NPR and AskMe is causing me to get rather giddy.
posted by arcticseal at 7:12 PM on January 17, 2013
posted by arcticseal at 7:12 PM on January 17, 2013
dunkadunc:
Only marginally. I've got a bit in my profile about Metafilter and the problems of having an NPR understanding of the world."
I read that quite a while ago and walked away wondering if you were serious or if there was something wrong with my usually excellent bullshit detector.
posted by double block and bleed at 7:18 PM on January 17, 2013
Only marginally. I've got a bit in my profile about Metafilter and the problems of having an NPR understanding of the world."
I read that quite a while ago and walked away wondering if you were serious or if there was something wrong with my usually excellent bullshit detector.
posted by double block and bleed at 7:18 PM on January 17, 2013
AskMe is great, but I don't get why people feel compelled to overshare about their personal lives when they're answering legal questions. You know, I'm sure it's very open-minded of you, and I understand it's the popular thing these days, but I just don't see how that's relevant to my landlord-tenant dispute.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 8:47 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by strangely stunted trees at 8:47 PM on January 17, 2013 [1 favorite]
People like to be asked for help. People like to give help. It makes them feel important. And if they're important, they are allowed to overshare. QED.
posted by scratch at 8:49 PM on January 17, 2013
posted by scratch at 8:49 PM on January 17, 2013
Abby and Ann Landers were twin sisters!?
It gets weirder. Ann Landers' daughter wrote for Slate's Dear Prudence.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:49 PM on January 17, 2013
It gets weirder. Ann Landers' daughter wrote for Slate's Dear Prudence.
posted by elsietheeel at 8:49 PM on January 17, 2013
(I often don't see how it's relevant either, actually.)
posted by scratch at 8:49 PM on January 17, 2013
posted by scratch at 8:49 PM on January 17, 2013
Abby's daughter took over when Pauline became too incapacitated. IMO Jeanne is nowhere near as good as her mom.
.
posted by brujita at 9:47 PM on January 17, 2013
.
posted by brujita at 9:47 PM on January 17, 2013
Margo Howard (Ann Landers's daughter, former Dear Prudence) now has a "Dear Margo" column that is fun and salty as hell. I don't know how widely it's carried outside the Boston Globe, but it's one of my favorite things in that paper.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:23 PM on January 17, 2013
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:23 PM on January 17, 2013
I don't know if Ann Landers coined the term but I heard it from her first:
"All things in moderation including moderation."
I almost quit huffing nitros-oxide altogether before I heard that. Now I just do it a once or twice a week, a little more often over Christmas.
posted by philip-random at 1:41 AM on January 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
"All things in moderation including moderation."
I almost quit huffing nitros-oxide altogether before I heard that. Now I just do it a once or twice a week, a little more often over Christmas.
posted by philip-random at 1:41 AM on January 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Having now read Linda's bioblurb, I want to see Television Without Pity-style recaps of particularly memorable AskMe threads.
posted by drlith at 3:21 AM on January 18, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by drlith at 3:21 AM on January 18, 2013 [5 favorites]
One thing I'm enjoying about growing older is that when NPR does a story about Dear Abby, they make sure and mention the Dead Kennedys' song.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:26 AM on January 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:26 AM on January 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
Margo Howard (Ann Landers's daughter, former Dear Prudence) now has a "Dear Margo" column that is fun and salty as hell.
My god, what's with their genes in that family. Can you imagine Thanksgiving dinner around that place with Dear Abby telling Ann Landers the turkey was too dry and Dear Prudence telling them to stop drinking so much wine?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:28 AM on January 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
My god, what's with their genes in that family. Can you imagine Thanksgiving dinner around that place with Dear Abby telling Ann Landers the turkey was too dry and Dear Prudence telling them to stop drinking so much wine?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:28 AM on January 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
I actually had occasion to write a very similar essay for my old writing gig (I wrote the program notes for a theater company in Scranton, PA) when they did a play about Ann Landers; it was more like a "history of the advice column" rather than a "why do people ask strangers for advice", but I mentioned a lot of the same contemporary advice-givers Linda does here (Sarah Bunting in particular, as well as AskMe), so this sort of feels like confirmation that I hit the right high notes. Thanks, Linda!
(I also had to provide photos for my editors to use as well, and I asked and received permission from the mods to submit that group portrait of the mods where Cortex is wearing that "butts lol" t-shirt [can't find it otherwise would link]. My editors actually used it, which pleases me greatly.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:27 AM on January 18, 2013
(I also had to provide photos for my editors to use as well, and I asked and received permission from the mods to submit that group portrait of the mods where Cortex is wearing that "butts lol" t-shirt [can't find it otherwise would link]. My editors actually used it, which pleases me greatly.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:27 AM on January 18, 2013
I don't know how widely it's carried outside the Boston Globe, but it's one of my favorite things in that paper.
I'm not sure if it's exactly the same column, but you can find Dear Margo on the wowowow (I think? man, that's a difficult name) site she was involved in founding. She used to be somewhere else--Yahoo!, maybe?--and I remember following her when she moved to the new site because advice columns are my crack.
posted by librarylis at 7:14 AM on January 18, 2013
I'm not sure if it's exactly the same column, but you can find Dear Margo on the wowowow (I think? man, that's a difficult name) site she was involved in founding. She used to be somewhere else--Yahoo!, maybe?--and I remember following her when she moved to the new site because advice columns are my crack.
posted by librarylis at 7:14 AM on January 18, 2013
For the record, everybody always has permission to use any photo of me in my butts lol t-shirt for anything.
Also, this reminds me of the recent plot of Mary Worth in which Mary takes over Wilbur's gated community newspaper advice column because Wilbur is otherwise distracted writing a memoir of surviving the catastrophic crash of a cruise-liner; what seems like a primo meddling opportunity for Mary seems in the end only to induce a state of depression in her, and she writes some pretty damn glum answers to reader questions.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:42 AM on January 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
Also, this reminds me of the recent plot of Mary Worth in which Mary takes over Wilbur's gated community newspaper advice column because Wilbur is otherwise distracted writing a memoir of surviving the catastrophic crash of a cruise-liner; what seems like a primo meddling opportunity for Mary seems in the end only to induce a state of depression in her, and she writes some pretty damn glum answers to reader questions.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:42 AM on January 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
It's a little known fact that Mary Worth is Ann Landers/Dear Abby's illegitimate half sister.
posted by notyou at 7:57 AM on January 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by notyou at 7:57 AM on January 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
Not to correct a mod in MetaTalk, but to clarify, Mary took over for Wilbur as "Ask Wendy" before he even went on the ill-fated cruise. And got depressed almost immediately (even before her good friend and his depressed daughter nearly died in an Italian cruise disaster)
"Fun" side fact: The story of the cruise was basically a re-telling of the Costa Concordia wreck told with Mary Worth characters (Italian cruise, left from the same port and everything, dialogue lifted from this Vanity Fair article) six months later. So basically Mary Worth is sometimes like that Aaron Sorkin show Newsroom -- except with a faster turnaround. (Making it surely the first time anyone has ever accused things on Mary Worth of moving quickly, unless we're comparing it to Apartment 3G, where it is currently still either New Year's or Christmas.)
Okay, I have a meeting in 15 minutes and if I don't stop talking about soap-opera continuity strips, I will embarrass myself in real life as well as here.
Having now read Linda's bioblurb, I want to see Television Without Pity-style recaps of particularly memorable AskMe threads.
If she posted this on her NPR blog, I think my media world over the last 15 years would collapse on itself. Especially if she mentioned Mark Trail.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:15 AM on January 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
"Fun" side fact: The story of the cruise was basically a re-telling of the Costa Concordia wreck told with Mary Worth characters (Italian cruise, left from the same port and everything, dialogue lifted from this Vanity Fair article) six months later. So basically Mary Worth is sometimes like that Aaron Sorkin show Newsroom -- except with a faster turnaround. (Making it surely the first time anyone has ever accused things on Mary Worth of moving quickly, unless we're comparing it to Apartment 3G, where it is currently still either New Year's or Christmas.)
Okay, I have a meeting in 15 minutes and if I don't stop talking about soap-opera continuity strips, I will embarrass myself in real life as well as here.
Having now read Linda's bioblurb, I want to see Television Without Pity-style recaps of particularly memorable AskMe threads.
If she posted this on her NPR blog, I think my media world over the last 15 years would collapse on itself. Especially if she mentioned Mark Trail.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:15 AM on January 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
I was gonna tell ya you could find Dear Margo on Wowowow.
I corresponded with her once while she was on Slate (regarding one of her posted letters.) She's pretty cool.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 8:17 AM on January 18, 2013
I corresponded with her once while she was on Slate (regarding one of her posted letters.) She's pretty cool.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 8:17 AM on January 18, 2013
Not to correct a mod in MetaTalk
Oh, but you are totally right. The fact that things contrived to allow Mary to continue writing the column is part of the weird entitlement substrate that runs through the Worthiverse, so it's a detail worth noting.
And in any case all is forgiven because it's enough to just know I'm not alone in this.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:02 AM on January 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
Oh, but you are totally right. The fact that things contrived to allow Mary to continue writing the column is part of the weird entitlement substrate that runs through the Worthiverse, so it's a detail worth noting.
And in any case all is forgiven because it's enough to just know I'm not alone in this.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:02 AM on January 18, 2013 [3 favorites]
Having now read Linda's bioblurb, I want to see Television Without Pity-style recaps of particularly memorable AskMe threads.
*ponders registering "metafilterwithoutpity.com", assumes Brandon Blatcher will beat me to it.*
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:03 PM on January 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
*ponders registering "metafilterwithoutpity.com", assumes Brandon Blatcher will beat me to it.*
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:03 PM on January 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Shouldn't metafilterwithoutpity.com just re-direct to MetaTalk?
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:05 PM on January 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
posted by MCMikeNamara at 12:05 PM on January 18, 2013 [6 favorites]
That photo is great, and does not at all remind me of the publicity still for a Spin Doctors cover band.
posted by psoas at 1:53 PM on January 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by psoas at 1:53 PM on January 18, 2013 [2 favorites]
Two Princes and a Queen
or
Little Mods Can't Be Wrong
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:02 PM on January 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
or
Little Mods Can't Be Wrong
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:02 PM on January 18, 2013 [1 favorite]
Not to correct a mod in MetaTalk
THAT IS THE LAW. ARE WE NOT MEN?
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 7:42 PM on January 18, 2013
THAT IS THE LAW. ARE WE NOT MEN?
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 7:42 PM on January 18, 2013
We are Devo...
Dangit, Harvey Kilobit, I couldn't help it!
posted by MuChao at 11:23 PM on January 18, 2013
Dangit, Harvey Kilobit, I couldn't help it!
posted by MuChao at 11:23 PM on January 18, 2013
I found the photo! Huzzah.
Ain't no party like a mod party because butts lol.
posted by maryr at 10:25 AM on January 21, 2013
Ain't no party like a mod party because butts lol.
posted by maryr at 10:25 AM on January 21, 2013
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posted by gingerest at 2:38 PM on January 17, 2013 [7 favorites]