If it sounds like writing ...

"Iconic Detroit novelist" is a properly formed Elongated Yellow Fruit, sure, but "iconic" needs an analytic category all its own. Especially when you have two of them in the first five lines of a blurb about a movie, and double-especially when it's about the writer who would have advised you to "leave out the parts that readers tend to skip."

The "iconic" plague is persistent in these parts. We seem to have trouble writing about Buddy's Pizza without it. Here's Dec. 5:

 And Dec. 7:

If we could summon him with an eight-square Buddy's and a six-pack of Stroh's, Elmore Leonard might remind us that if an institution is genuinely iconic, you're wasting time to remind people. But he might just file that under the broader admonition that if stuff sounds like writing, you should rewrite it.

Today in supporting the cops

It must be reassuring for "our great men and women in blue" (as the president puts it) to know that the entire administration, and its pet media, have their backs. Until one of them gets out of line:

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo is being criticized this week after he ripped into Senate Republicans, accusing them of delaying legislation for the benefit of the NRA, this* after one of his officers was killed in the line-of-duty** over the weekend while responding to a domestic abuse call.

... “We all know in law enforcement that one of the biggest reasons that the Senate and Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn and Tex*** Cruz and others are not getting into a room and having a conference committee with the House and getting the Violence Against Women’s Act is because the NRA (National Rifle Association) doesn’t like the fact we want to take firearms out of the hands of boyfriends that abuse their girlfriends,” Acevedo said.

How dare he!

“And who killed our sergeant? A boyfriend abusing his girlfriend. So you’re either here for women and children and our daughters and our sisters and our aunts or you’re here for the NRA.”

Acevedo was referring to a bill aimed at helping victims of domestic and sexual violence that has stalled in the Senate due to a provision which ends the “boyfriend loophole” and makes it easier to take away guns from violent offenders, even if they are not a spouse or domestic partner.

Imagine, a police chief criticizing political actors for placing officers in danger. You'd think there was still a black guy in the White House or something. Good thing somebody's criticizing him -- though you'll need to hang on for the 12th graf of a 14-graf story to find out who and how:

Joe Gamaldi, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, said in a letter obtained by KTRK that the chief owes the public an apology for using the tragedy to make a “political statement.”

"The fact that Chief Acevedo chose that moment to make a political statement on guns is nothing short of offensive and inappropriate,” he said in the letter.

Because it's always too soon to make a political statement when there are still thoughts and prayers to offer.

Attention should be focused, properly, on Fox's bizarre attempts to rescue the FBI investigation and stack the deck for the one that's REALLY gonna get 'em. But it's worth logging the occasional observation that even on the little things, Fox takes its orders from a higher master than the journalism gods.

* High-quality editing by the Fair 'n' Balanced Network
** Yep
*** Same

Elongated yellow tape

OK, fine. I've complained about the infamous yellow crime scene tape before -- but if it's between another round of Elongated Yellow Tape and repeating the same old police-lights photo at the top of the page, I'll take the tape.

Of course, there's always the option of a map. Or, you know, a photo of the scene. Or almost anything.

I think that I shall never see

Well, if you've already said "longleaf pine" once, what would you call it?

Aiken has a new national champion.

It’s not a basketball squad, a golf team, a horse or even a boxer.

Instead, the latest No. 1 with local ties is a tree – a longleaf pine that stands in Hitchcock Woods.

Based on three measurements and a points system, the woody perennial plant is the largest of its kind in the United States.

Won on points, did we?