Scary

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What Scares Stephen King?

“[W]hat really scares me is Alzheimer’s or premature senility, losing that ability to read and enjoy and to write. And you do it, and some days maybe aren’t so good, and then some days, you really catch a wave, and it’s as good as it ever was. So, it’s tough to imagine giving it up.” 

—Stephen King, novelist, “Stephen King wants to reach out and grab you — with his writing,” PBS Newshour, Oct. 6, 2016.

 

• Editorial Comment: Keep those 1,100-page doorstops coming.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Real-Life Terror, Fort Humboldt, Eureka, California


















Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Golden Age

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The New Normal?

“You need not be a media historian to notice that we live in a golden age of press harassment, domestic propaganda and coercive efforts to control political debate. 

“The Trump White House repeatedly seeks to discredit the press, threatens to strip broadcasters of their licenses and calls for the firing of journalists and football players for speaking their minds. 

 

“A foreign government tries to hack our elections, and journalists and public speakers are regularly attacked by vicious, online troll armies whose aim is to silence opponents.” 

—Tim Wu, Columbia University law professor, author and columnist, “How Twitter Killed the First Amendment,” The New York Times, Oct. 27, 2017.

• Editorial Comment: So what’s your point?

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Elk X-ing









Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Cutting Through the Crap

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Garbage and Gasbags

“There’s so much garbage being disguised as fact and so many gasbags posing as sages; somebody has to cut through the crap. That’s the job of reporters, and their job will be more important than at any time in history.” 

—Carl Hiaasen, columnist and author, “Carl Hiaasen on Human Weirdness,” Smithsonian Magazine, 2010.

• Editorial Comment: Which would be a good name for a band.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Good Dog












Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Bad News

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Delegitimizing the Press

“The practice of journalism has rarely been more critical — or at greater risk — in the United States. Never before has a president of this nation so aggressively attempted to delegitimize and even threaten established news organizations that produce stories that undermine the narrative he is trying to create. Public distrust of the media did not begin with the election of Donald Trump, but his constant drumbeat of ‘fake news’ and claims of fabrication have only galvanized it.” 

—John Diaz, editorial page editor, “The world gets more precarious for press freedom,” The San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 20, 2017.

• Editorial Comment: Crucial times.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Sky












Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Stir Craziness

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Treating Writer’s Block

“A writer’s job is isolating by its nature, and breaking up my day helps to stave off stir craziness. I can visit strange places on impulse, and try new things — falconry, axe-throwing, canoeing, etc. Any of this might turn out to be research.” 

—Frances Hardinge, British author, on her writing regimen, “I can try axe-throwing or canoeing and it could be research,” The Guardian, Oct. 14, 2017.

  • Editorial Comment: Then there’s slack-lining. And macrame.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

The New Ford Dragon









Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Fruity News

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This Is Not a Banana

“It’s come to this. Nine months into Donald Trump’s term, a major news organization has produced an ad aimed at the president and his lies. And the fact that CNN feels it needs to fight back says volumes. Trump’s strategy is working. Blaming the press for all his problems, saying facts are fake, raging against the media for making up stories — which are true — is unfortunately resonating in parts of our country. It’s a clever ad, but a sad day for America.”

—News & Guts, newsman Dan Rather’s media company, “dedicated to insightful coverage and conversation,” in a Facebook post, Oct. 23, 2017. Click here to view the CNN ad. It’s funny. And sad.

  • Editorial Comment: Fake fruit.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

A Woman’s Place









Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Freedom to Be Foolish

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It’s a Learning Process

“[F]ree speech is what makes educational excellence possible. ‘It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears,’ Louis Brandeis wrote 90 years ago in his famous concurrence in Whitney v. California.

 

“It is also the function of free speech to allow people to say foolish things so that, through a process of questioning, challenge and revision, they may in time come to say smarter things.” 

 

—Bret Stephens, op-ed columnist, “Our Best University President,” The New York Times, Oct. 20, 2017.

 
• Editorial Comment: We can only hope.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Watch Dog







Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Ye Olde College Days

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Liberal Learning

“I speak of these matters here at Yale because of the self-evident truth that a great university is always enlisted against the spread of illusion and on the side of reality. 

“No one has said it more clearly than your President Griswold: ‘Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones.’

“Your role as university men, whatever your calling, will be to increase each new generation’s grasp of its duties.” 

—President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963), commencement address, Yale University, 1963

 
• Editorial Comment: I’d say we’ve lost our grasp.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Low Tide







Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

The Picture Is Bleak

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Covfefe?

 

“Words are but pictures of our thoughts.” 

 

—John Dryden (1631-1700), England’s first poet laureate

• Editorial Comment: Not a pretty picture.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

I’m thinking about cookies













Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard

Dumbing

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Down

“The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

—Carl Sagan (1934-1996), scientist and author, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, 1995

 • Editorial Comment: “Slow decay”? This is kind of quaint, really.

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Paul’s Squashes








Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email every weekday morning during WORD season. This is a free “service” sent to the 2,000,000 or so misguided subscribers around the planet, to infinity and beyond. If you have recovered from whatever illness 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.) #tedsword
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff, Trinidad, California. (Be)Friend The WORD

“I don’t think writers are sacred, but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard