Constant Vitriol

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Life in the Trenches

“All the sound and fury, magnified through the television and the Internet, coarsens the public culture. It makes tempers flare, helps breed distrust. And whether we politicians like to admit it or not, the constant vitriol can wear on the spirit.”

—Barack Obama, author, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, 2008.

• Editorial Comment: Volunteering to be president—that’s audacity all right, of hope, hubris or complete whackitude.


PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Coastal Relief






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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Thar She Blows

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Pure Obsession

“I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.” 

―Herman Melville (1819-1891), who wrote a big book

• Editorial Comment: Take a day in the hammock and read, Ishmael.



PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Surf’s Up





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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Losing Grampa

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Down the Tube

“Let’s call it the Fox News effect. Take sweet, kindly senior citizens and feed them a steady stream of demagoguery and repetition, all wrapped in the laughable slogan of ‘fair and balanced.’ . . . To some people the idea of retirees yelling at the television all day may seem funny, but this isn’t a joke. We’re losing the nation’s grandparents, and it’s an American tragedy.”

—Edwin Lyngar, columnist, “I lost my dad to FoxNews: How a generation was captured by thrashing hysteria,” Salon.com, February 2014  

• Editorial Comment: Gramps and the Thrashing Hysteria would make a good name for a band.



PeezPix by Ted Pease 

October Beach





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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Deja Vu All Over Again

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Lapdogs

“Why has [sic] the media pushed the Obama administration’s war frame instead of playing the role of skeptic by questioning official assertions, insisting for corroboration on ‘anonymous leaks’ and seeking alternative points of view? After years of government lies — from claims of WMDs in Iraq to zero civilian casualties in drone strikes — you’d think the members of the fourth estate would have learned a lesson. But the mainstream US media plays the role of government lapdog more than watchdog.” 

—Medea Benjamin, columnist, “Why are the media playing lapdog and not watchdog – again – on war in Iraq?” The Guardian, Oct. 10, 2014 

• Editorial Comment: Throw the trained seals a fish.


PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Skinny Eggplants







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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Paging Mr. Orwell

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Tweet Readers

“If you take to Twitter to express your views on a hot-button issue, does the government have an interest in deciding whether you are spreading ‘misinformation’? If you tweet your support for a candidate in the November elections, should taxpayer money be used to monitor your speech and evaluate your ‘partisanship’? My guess is that most Americans would answer those questions with a resounding no. But the federal government seems to disagree.” 

—Ajit Pai, member, Federal Communication Commission, “The government wants to study ‘social pollution’ on Twitter,” The Washington Post, Oct. 17, 2014 

• Editorial Comment: Tweeting for Truth.


PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Kayaker










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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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‘I Like Words.’

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Job Letter

“Dear Sir,

“I like words. I like fat, buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, gluttonous, toady.

“I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, precuneus, valedictory.

“I like spurious, black-as-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demimonde.

“I like suave V words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve.

“I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty.

“I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl.

“I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land's-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid.

“I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon.

“I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip.

“I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.

“I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around. I have just returned and I still like words.

“May I have a few with you?” 

 —Robert Pirosh’s cover letter to MGM, which hired him in 1934, read by Shaun Usher, author of “Letters of Note: An Eclectic Collection of Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience,” National Public Radio, Oct. 14, 2014

• Editorial Comment: I like “thesaurus.”

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Bike Rack







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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Enemies List

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Strategy Session

“The press is your enemy. Enemies. Understand that? . . . Now, never act that way . . . give them a drink, you know, treat them nice, you just love it, you’re trying to be helpful. But don’t help the bastards. Ever. Because they’re trying to stick the knife right in our groin.”

—President Richard M. Nixon, on tape in a meeting with Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Feb. 27, 1971, in Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, “Woodward and Bernstein: 40 years after Watergate, Nixon was farworse than we thought, The Washington Post, June 2012 

• Editorial Comment: Is that live or is it Memorex?

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Cache Valley Sunrise





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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Ben Bradlee, 1921-2014

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RIP

“‘He was a presence, a force,’ [Bob] Woodward recalled of Mr. Bradlee’s role during the Watergate period, 1972 to 1974. ‘And he was a doubter, a skeptic — “Do we have it yet?” “Have we proved it?”’ Decades later, Woodward remembered the words that he most hated to hear from Mr. Bradlee then: ‘You don’t have it yet, kid.’”

—“Ben Bradlee, legendary Washington Post editor, dies at 93,” obit by Robert G. Kaiser, The Washington Post, Oct. 21, 2014 

• Editorial Comment: He had it, kid.

Related: NYTimes obit 
 
Washington Post Video:

 

PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Hallow Weinies









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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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GamerGate

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Sexist Temper Tantrum

“There’s a toxicity within gaming culture, and also in tech culture, that drives this misogynist hatred, this reactionary backlash against women who have anything to say, especially those who have critiques or who are feminists. There’s this huge drive to silence us, and if they can’t silence us, they try to discredit us in an effort to push us out. But something about this recent, really intense backlash has gotten the attention of a lot of people who were on the fence about whether the harassment of women was actually an issue. . . . 

“GamerGate is really a sexist temper tantrum. That’s kind of a silly, funny way of putting it, but it’s kind of what it feels like, right? They’re going after and targeting women who are trying to make changes in the industry. They’re attacking anyone who supports women.” 

—Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist pop culture critic who canceled a Utah State University appearance in October after death threats, in Sean T. Collins’s “Anita Sarkeesian on GamerGate: ‘We Have a Problem and We're Going to Fix This,’” Rolling Stone, Oct. 17, 2014 

• Editorial Comment: Well, I guess they’re attacking me now.


PeezPix by Ted Pease 

October Afternoon in Paradise




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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Contagion

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Duck and Cover

“It’s a disappointment to me. I’m pissed off and embarrassed and completely weirded out that a journalism institution that should be seeking out facts and details is basically pandering to hysteria. . . . 

“The most disappointing part of this bad decision is the disservice to the fine journalism students at Syracuse’s Newhouse School. What a missed opportunity to teach future media professionals how to seek out accurate hard facts; backed up with full details about the Ebola crisis. I guess it is easier to pull the hysteria and xenophobia cards.”

—Michel du Cille, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, “Syracuse University disinvites Washington Post photographer because he was in Liberia 3 weeks ago,” Washington Post, Oct. 17, 2014 Image: Michel du Cille from his September Liberia trip/Washington Post

• Editorial Comment: Another teachable moment.


PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Rock Pile











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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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Ernie Pyle

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Typo

“BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Ernie Pyle will be remembered by many as one of America's great war correspondents. And, thanks to a new sculpture outside Indiana University's Media School building in Bloomington, a bronzed Pyle now may be remembered for sporting a patch on his arm with the word ‘correspondent’ misspelled. . . . 

“‘Ernie Pyle would have been amused by the misspelling,’ [observed] Owen V. Johnson, an associate professor at IU who specializes in Pyle’s letters. ‘He never had a sense of self-importance. He probably would have invited [sculptor] Tuck Langland to join him for a drink and then written a humorous column about the whole thing.’” 

—Michael Anthony Adams, reporter, “University statue of famed journalist has typo,” The Indianapolis Star, Oct. 16, 2014 Image: Indiana University journalism department chair Bonnie Brownlee checks Ernie Pyle for typos. Sculptor Tuck Langland is at right.

• Editorial Comment: Get me the copy desk!


PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Fall Squashes







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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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On Campus

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Today’s Lesson

“An email to Utah State University threatened "the deadliest school shooting in American history" if the school did not cancel a lecture by a well-known feminist writer and video game critic Anita Sarkeesian.” —Salt Lake Tribune

Logan—Utah State University students protested the cancellation of a feminist video game critic’s speech Wednesday. But they don’t blame video blogger Anita Sarkeesian for bowing out.

Instead, they criticized the anonymous emailer who threatened their campus with mayhem.

“This is an academic institution,” said biology student Geoff Smith. “Without a free exchange of ideas, we don’t have anything. So for that to be silenced or quashed or anything like that, it’s wrong."

—Benjamin Wood, reporter, “USU students, faculty protest terrorist threats against critic of video games,” The Salt Lake Tribune, Oct. 15, 2014 
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer

• Editorial Comment: A teachable moment as vile threats wake up a university.

Backgrounder:
• “Terror threat against feminist Anita Sarkeesian at USU,” The Ogden Standard Examiner
• “FBI hunts emailer who made death threat against USU speaker,” Salt Lake Tribune
• “Anita Sarkeesian cancels Utah State speech after mass-shooting threat,” LA Times


PeezPix by Ted Pease 

Mill Creek











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, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“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
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