Clowncar

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Crazy Roadtrip 2016

“Even if you don’t give a damn about what’s happened to the once-storied free press, consider the consequences to a once-storied political party. The main reason that Republican politicians sound so crazy of late is because they get their information, and validation, from the twisted world of partisan media outlets.” 

—Timothy Egan, op-ed writer, “Beat the Press,” The New York Times, Nov. 13, 2015

• Editorial Comment: That’s one Grand Old Party.


PeezPix by Ted Pease

Coloring Kit











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. 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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How to Blow Up a Blimp

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Note: Kurt Vonnegut would have been 93 this week. One can only imagine — or can’t, really — what he might have made of that.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Vonnegut

“Novelists have, on the average, about the same IQs as the cosmetic consultants at Bloomingdale’s department store. Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time.”

—Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), writer, thinker and free spirit, from Palm Sunday, 1981

• Editorial Comment: Sometimes I think, though, “I should have picked a smaller blimp.”



PeezPix by Ted Pease

Cumulus














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. 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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New-Fangled

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HOW COOL IS THIS?

Mark Twain bought his first “new fangled writing machine” in Boston in 1874, and tried it out for the first time with the help of someone named Susie in this letter to his brother, Orion. Which raises a number of unanswered questions. This Remington No. 1 typed ONLY IN CAPS. In 1883, Orion’s brother delivered the first-ever typewritten mss. to his publisher, Life on the Mississippi. We’re assuming that by then, Remington had developed lowercase. In whatever case, pretty cool.

— Shaun Usher’s Letters of Note

• Editorial Comment: Susie the research assistant? And did you hear about Sam and Orion’s secret sister, Kryptonia?

PeezPix by Ted Pease

Parker Creek to Prisoner Rock

















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. 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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The Veterans’ Day Edition

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Ernie Pyle’s View of War

When Pyle died on Ie Shima in 1945, “In his pocket was a half-finished column describing what he’d seen in the war: ‘Cold dead men scattered over the hillsides and in the ditches. . . . Dead men in such familiar promiscuity that they became monotonous. . . . Dead men in such monstrous infinity that you came almost to hate them.’ 
“He didn’t mention democracy or fascism or attempt to explain the meaning of the carnage. He didn’t think that was his job.”

—Peter Carlson, historian, “Encounter: Ernie Pyle stumps Arthur Miller,” HistoryNet.com, 2014 (Thanks to alert WORDster Owen V. Johnson)

• Editorial Comment: Amen.

• New book: At Home with Ernie Pyle, by Owen V. Johnson, new from Indiana University Press.


PeezPix by Ted Pease

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. 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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Letter to the Editor

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Creative Editing

“Dear Sonny, The copy-edited text of A Turn in the South came yesterday; it is such an appalling piece of work that I feel I have to write about it. This kind of copy-editing gets in the way of creative reading. I spend so much time restoring the text I wrote (and as a result know rather well). I thought it might have been known in the office that after 34 years and 20 books I knew certain things about writing and didn’t want a copy-editor’s help with punctuation or the thing called repetition . . . .” 

—V.S. Naipaul, Nobel Prize-winning author, in letter to his publisher over an overzealous copy editor, “Every writer has his own voice,” Letters of Note, 1988

• Editorial Comment: Um, stet?


PeezPix by Ted Pease

After the Rain












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. 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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Gotcha Questions

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All Koched Up

“Wow, those were some really tough questions asked by the hosts of Morning Joe. That’s tough journalism. Those questions are so easy, they may even qualify them to moderate the next Republican presidential debate. 

“It seems that some journalists are determined not to get on the wrong side of the Koch brothers and their billions. . . . 

“When the media rolls over for these modern day robber barons, as it’s doing now, our country’s in trouble.”  

—U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), former Senate Majority Leader, speaking on the Senate floor, “Sen. Harry Reid Slams Morning Joe’s Fawning Koch Brothers Interview,” MediaMatters.com, Nov. 4, 2015

• Editorial Comment: Joe Scarborough asked the Kochs: “It’s hard to find people in New York, liberals . . . or conservatives alike, who haven’t been touched by your graciousness, whether it’s toward the arts or cancer research. Do you think you got that instinct from your mom?” Let the nice man scratch your fuzzy belly, Joe.


PeezPix by Ted Pease

Eggplants











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. 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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iKids

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Parental Protection

“Chris Anderson, former editor of Wired, also believes in setting strict time limits and parental controls on every device at home. 

“‘My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists. They say that none of their friends have the same rules. That’s because we have seen the dangers of technology first hand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.’”

—Tim Buttars, writer, “Steve Jobs didn’t let his kids use iPhones or iPads: Here’s why,” Inquisitr.com, 2011

• Editorial Comment: Tweet mommie goodnight.


PeezPix by Ted Pease

Noah & Shiloh’s fishing trip









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. 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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Thrashing Hysteria

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The Faux News Effect

“People talk about the imminent ‘death’ of Fox News itself, because of an ever-aging demographic. . . . Certainly the audience is graying to oblivion, but it’s a cold comfort to those of us who watch our parents or grandparents drown in an incessant downpour of outrage. We will only see the ‘End of Fox News’ when my father and his contemporaries die. I do not want to watch my father and his entire generation spend their remaining years enraged at utter nonsense.” 

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

• Editorial Comment: Edwin Lyngar and the Thrashing Hysteria would be a good name for a band.


PeezPix by Ted Pease

Fall Snacks







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. 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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Man Is Bitten

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Bad Writing Was Done

“Why does English need the passive? Think of grammar as an app for converting a cluster of ideas into a string of words. English relies mainly on word order to do this: Dog bites man is different from Man bites dog.” 

—Stephen Pinker, professor, author and psychologist, “Passive Resistance: The active voice isn’t always the best choice,” The Atlantic, November 2014

• Editorial Comment: Different how?





PeezPix by Ted Pease

Dog spots man dressed as bologna











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. 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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That Pesky 2nd Line

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First Things First

“I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others.” 

—Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) (1622-1673), French playwright and actor 

• Editorial Comment: Makes for a lot of short books.






PeezPix by Ted Pease

Froth











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. 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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Buffoonery

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The Media Do Suck

“The Republican presidential candidates are right. The media do suck. But not for the reasons the candidates complained about Wednesday night. We in the media suck because we have rewarded their rampant dishonesty and buffoonery with nonstop news coverage. Which, of course, has encouraged more dishonesty and buffoonery.” 

—Catherine Rampell, columnist, “The Republicans are right. We in the media do suck,” The Washington Post, Oct. 31, 2015 (Thanks to alert WORDster Tony Seton)

• Editorial Comment: Let’s not encourage them


PeezPix by Ted Pease

Cap’n America & Zorro
















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. 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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