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Pulitzer Prizes 2024

 




Click here for the full list of this year's Pultizer winners: https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-year/2024

One of my pet peeves is a matter of pronunciation, the common mispronunciation of the word "Pulitzer". whether used of a man, and corporation, or a prize. It is often slaughtered into "pule-itzer" where the first syllable rhymes with "yule" or "mule".  That is wrong, though, The word is pull-it-sir, as if a titled gentleman had just asked you "how do I get this cork out of this bottle"! 

Anyway: I wish to draw your attention specifically today to one of the two National Reporting Pulitzers. Both of the National Reporting awards went to the "staff of" major news organizations for their work on a big ongoing issue.  One went to staff of WaPo for its "sobering examination of the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle." The other? to the staff of Reuters, my old stomping ground, for stories of Elon Musk's automobile and aerospace businesses. 

Let us (no pun intended) drive on a bit further here: https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/staff-reuters.

A series of articles on this subject were specified. The first of these appeared (or "went out over the wire" as the cliche goes) on March 2, '23. It involved a Musk plan to test brain chips in humans. The whole plan was of such staggering arrogance it recalls the chief culprit in every dystopian nightmare novel or movie. 

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/neuralink-musk-fda/

Deep into that story one finds this description of Musk's "bold vision":

"Both disabled and healthy people will pop into neighborhood facilities for speedy surgical insertions of devises with functions ranging from curbing obesity, autism, depression or schizophrenia to web-surfing and telepathy. Eventually, Musk has said, such chips will turn humans into cyborgs who can fend the threat from sentient machines powered by artificial intelligence."

The whole thing reminds me of the satirical movie BRAIN CANDY (1996), in which a pharma company discovers the key to eternal happiness, which involves messing with brain chemistry in a way the allows them to fixate on their happiest memory. People become SO thoroughly fixated they end up with a dumb smile on their face and in comatose stillness. 

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Comments

  1. HenryMay 15, 2024 at 6:30 AM

    Christopher, "Let us (no pun intended) drive on a bit further here" should be "Let us drive (no pun intended) on a bit further here." The way you wrote it, you said that no pun was intended on "Let us," and that got me wondering why readers would think of "Lettuce" when you hadn't mentioned a salad. I also wondered why you had italicized "drive" (which I see no way to do in a comment). Part of the reason that I didn't see right away that the italics were to indicate that "drive" was the word you did not intend to pun on was that "automobile" is four words back from the end of the previous sentence, and one does not drive an aerospace business. But all is well; I've figured it out, and I hope in the future that you'll put "no pun intended" after, not before, the word on which you intend no pun.

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  2. HenryMay 15, 2024 at 6:39 AM

    I thought of another reason that one should put "no pun intended" after, not before, the word on which one intends no pun. If one intends no pun on a word, then one would notice the pun only after writing, or at least thinking, the word, and, at that point would state that he or she intended no pun.

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