Beans!

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Willful Ignorance 

“The worst illiterate is the political illiterate. He hears nothing, sees nothing, takes no part in political life. He doesn’t seem to know that the cost of living, the price of beans, of flour, or rent, of medicines, all depend on political decisions. He even prides himself on his political ignorance, sticks out his chest and says he hates politics. He doesn't know, the imbecile, that from his political non-participation comes the prostitute, the abandoned child, the robber and, worst of all, corrupt officials, the lackeys of exploitative multinational corporations.” 

—Bertold Brecht (1898-1956), German poet and playwright (Thanks to alert WORDster Bryan Mullins)

• Editorial Comment: Why should I give beans about politics? Wait! damn ObamaCare!!!!

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

What goes with beans? A ferocious weiner (dog)!








PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 
TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Obsession

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Stories as Seeds

“I need to tell a story. It’s an obsession. Each story is a seed inside of me that starts to grow and grow, like a tumor, and I have to deal with it sooner or later. Why a particular story? I don’t know when I begin. That I learn much later. Over the years I’ve discovered that all the stories I’ve told, all the stories I will ever tell, are connected to me in some way. If I’m talking about a woman in Victorian times who leaves the safety of her home and comes to the Gold Rush in California, I’m really talking about feminism, about liberation, about the process I’ve gone through in my own life, escaping from a Chilean, Catholic, patriarchal, conservative, Victorian family and going out into the world.” 

—Isabelle Allende, author, from Maria Popova, “Brain Pickings” 2013 

• Editorial Comment: Growing things.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Elk Head







PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 
TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Selective Perception

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This is your life. Sort of.

“What would history look like if told by newspapers? What does it look like to scroll through 30 years of history on one page?

“To glance at the past from a new perspective — one told by the media — we took one newspaper page from each year for the last 30 years. The newspapers we chose do not reflect our favorite publications nor do they necessarily show the most important story from that year; we just wanted to give a flavor of what each year was like.”

—Catherine Taibi, “The Last 30 Years, As Told By Newspapers,” Huffington Post, March 21, 2014

• Editorial Comment: The first rough draft of history.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Pewetole from Elk Head Trail










PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 
TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Work in Progress

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The Big Lie

“The adage among properly cynical diplomats used to be that they were sent abroad to lie for their country. During the Cold War, as Washington’s sponsored atrocities grew evident, the thought took a turn: Diplomats were sent abroad to lie to their country.

“Consider it a template and apply it to our press folk.

“Correspondents used to be sent abroad to keep the country informed (in theory, at least). Now correspondents go forth to send home a simulacrum of truth, a semblance, while keeping their country misinformed.

“It is no good positing some golden age of spotless integrity, some yesteryear when newspapers, the wires and broadcasters glistened with high principle. There never was such a time. A good press is ever a work in progress, requiring the calloused hands of each generation to make it however good it can, always and by definition short of any ideal.” 

—Patrick L. Smith, columnist, author and former International Herald Tribune bureau chief, “Chomsky’s right: The New York Times’ latest big lie,” Salon, Nov. 16, 2013

• Editorial Comment: Good thoughts for diplomats, journalists and the people of Ukraine this morning...

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Pewetole from Elk Head Trail










PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 
TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Creamy & Delicious Words

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Milk the Cow

“But I also tell [my students] that sometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time. And sometimes when they are writing well, they feel that they are living up to something. It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside them, and they just want to help them get out. Writing this way is a little like milking a cow: the milk is so rich and delicious, and the cow is so glad you did it.” 

—Anne Lamott, writer, from Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, 1994

Image: Ted Pease/PeezPix

• Editorial Comment: Mooooooooving writing.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Home Beach





PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 
TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Lessons from Hollywood

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Popcorn & History

“Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. said, ‘The fact that film has been the most potent vehicle of the American imagination suggests all the more strongly that movies have something to tell us, not just about the surfaces but about the mysteries of American life.’ Today’s movies also tell us a lot about the changing nature of teaching.” . . .

“As long-form journalism retreats, newspapers and television networks consolidate bureaus and the attention span for international news shrinks, the movies are a critical rough draft of history that affects higher education. It is imperative that Hollywood’s best pictures continue to get these stories right, because they lay the groundwork for the next generation's understanding of the world and help inform a basic narrative of our politics and policies for years to come.”

—Zach Messitte, president and political science professor, Ripon College, “History lessons, with popcorn, for America’s undergraduates,” The Los Angeles Times, Feb. 14, 2014

• Editorial Comment: Speaking of infamy, everything my kids know about WWII comes from “Pearl Harbor.”  

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Ted, Leaving Tsunami Zone










PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

The Real News

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Serious Stuff

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds Americans of all ages are charting their own paths across a media landscape that no longer relies on front pages and evening newscasts to dictate what’s worth knowing.

They still pay heed to serious news even as they seek out the lighter stuff, according to the Media Insight Project. The conclusions burst the myth of the media “bubble” — the notion that no one pays attention to anything beyond a limited sphere of interest, like celebrities or college hoops or Facebook posts.

“This idea that somehow we’re all going down narrow paths of interest and that many people are just sort of amusing themselves to death and not interested in the news and the world around them? That is not the case,” said Tom Rosenstiel, executive director of the American Press Institute.

—Connie Cass, Associated Press writer, “Poll: People still seek meaty news on media buffet,” March 18, 2014

• Editorial Comment: They still like us, they really like us! (Or so they tell the pollsters....)

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Ted, Leaving Tsunami Zone










PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Annoying Students

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Growing Their Passion

“We’re annoying. We carry cameras, recorders, and notebooks. We speak using terms like InDesign and ENPS, and we are always strung out on coffee. We’re constantly asking questions, and always want to ask a follow up. We thirst for knowledge; we always want to know more. We read a lot and always watch the commercials looking for new ideas. We’re innovative, editing pictures and videos to tell the story we want. We play jump rope with the truth, either abiding by it completely, or erasing the margins to prove a point. We criticize everything and everyone including ourselves, because even the best isn’t always perfect. We spend hours photo-shopping a picture, analyzing syntax in a article, or editing a video. From the outside communications majors appear to be absolutely crazy, but from the inside, you can never find a more passionate group of people.”

—Carling Mott, Syracuse University journalism/communications major, “This Is What Only Communications Majors Know To Be True,” 2014  

• Editorial Comment: And this is why I’ve been a professor for 30 years.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

I made a pie today*, oh boy.....






* well, it was last week. Gone now...


PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

1,000 Words

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Magic

“Photography is magic. You can stop time itself, catch slivers of moments to savor and share time and again... A photograph is a sharing, it says ‘Hey, look at this!’ It’s a miracle is what it is. And when you’re going good and you get a new picture you love, there’s nothing better. That’s the joy of photography, and the fun.” 

—Jill Freedman, documentary photographer (Thanks to alert WORDster and sharp shooter Scott Sommerdof)

• Editorial Comment: You don’t “take” a photograph—you just borrow it.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Luffenholz Beach








PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

The Art of the Irish

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Write Dangerously

“The important thing is not what we write, but how we write, and in my opinion the modern writer must be an adventurer above all, willing to take every risk, and be prepared to founder in his effort if need be. In other words we must write dangerously.”

—James Joyce (1882-1941), Irish novelist and poet, in Arthur Power’s Conversations with James Joyce (1978)

• Editorial Comment: And a wee dram of the Irish for luck, laddie.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Tsunami Warning








PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

Divine

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WORDmeister Note: It’s Spring Break, so we’ll take a week at St, Mumbles. Back March 17. Try to endure.
 
God/Dog

“So much blood has been shed by the Church because of an omission from the Gospel: ‘Ye shall be indifferent as to what your neighbor’s religion is.’ Not merely tolerant of it, but indifferent to it. Divinity is claimed for many religions; but no religion is great enough or divine enough to add that new law to its code.” 

—Mark Twain (1835-1910), writer/philosopher, from Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain, a Biography (1912)

• Editorial Comment: Well, there’s “Live and Let Live,” isn’t there?

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Lulu’s Goose









PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.

One-Liner Thoughts

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Tweet Trumpets

“[T]oday the media endlessly trumpets tweets as an important form of discourse. Well, you know, people who write in simple one-liners—what we used to call aphorisms—a lot like [author Robert] Fulghum, are they that different that Tweeters? I mean, either a sentence can be serious and invite serious thought, or it can’t. I think most of the culture believes it can.”

—Carlin Romano, philosopher, journalist and author of America the Philosophical, on “To the Best of Our Knowledge,” Public Radio International, March 2, 2014. 

• Editorial Comment: Let’s see: “Fourscore and seven years ago . . ." That’s 29 characters.

PeezPix by Ted Pease 
 

Tuba Tweets?









PeezPix. ted.pease@gmail.com
 

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided subscribers around the planet. If you have recovered from whatever led you to subscribe and don’t want it anymore, send “unsubscribe” to ted.pease@gmail.com. Or if you want to afflict someone else, send me the email address and watch the fun begin. (Disclaimer: I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. But all contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Utah State University, Logan, Utah. ted.pease@gmail.com. (Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

“Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
.