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A bracing response to right wing critics
from the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

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I know I'm a pain in the butt to buy gifts for, since I'm usually a combination of some spare income and poor impulse control. But this year I held off and was able to reply to Leah Ovoian Leach's "I need ideas for birthday gifts for a 50 year old guy!! Any suggestions" and got what you see here on the left: an old school rotary phone off ebay.

It's not wired to anything (it would be fun to raspberry pi up something to play sounds or respond to the dial - I actually thought a game like "Flappy Bird but with a Rotary controller" would be kinda hip) so for now it's just a big fidget spinner that pairs well with my dad's old typewriter.

I think the typewriter (my dad's, but an antique when got it) is an older generation than the phone, but they pair pretty well together, all that black bakelite and metal industrial design.)

I think my friend Tkoa Hill posted a video about some Gen Z'ers or Gen Alpha's trying to figure out how to use the dial (their biggest mistake was keeping the phone on the hook and planning to lift to talk after dialing.)

So now I can make hanging up and being "off the hook!" all too literal.

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37-3.webp

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