Time to Step Up, Cowards

“To sin by silence, when we should protest, makes cowards out of men.”  

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919), poet, from “Protest,” in Poems of Problems, 1941.

• Editorial Comment: “I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me.” —Christine Blasey Ford

PeezPix 

October’s Hot Retirement Issue Click here.
 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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

Speaking of Great Legal Minds

“To think is to differ.” 

—Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), legendary defense attorney. (Image: With William Jennings Bryan at Scopes “Monkey Trial,” 1925)

 

• Editorial Comment: I beg to differ.

PeezPix

Bloomin’ Artichoke
 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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 Dull Roar

“Here’s what you can do to keep the insanity to a dull roar.

“Consider actually reading that story before you share it on social media. It’s astonishingly common to see a story hit Twitter and see it retweeted with outraged commentary even before it could possibly be digested. Headlines are only a hint, after all, and the fine print in the 19th paragraph may change your mind about what you think, or what you say to your Facebook friends in your next blistering post.” 

—Margaret Sullivan, media columnist, “How to stay (slightly) sane this week: A user’s guide to the media maelstrom ahead,” The Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2018.

 

• Editorial Comment: Wait. “Maelstrom ahead”? Crap, you means it’s going to get worse? 

PeezPix

Dejected Pelican
 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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

Ew, OK?

 “Scrabble enthusiasts will have 300 new words added to the Scrabble dictionary to up their game, thanks to the sixth edition of the popular board game. The latest edition, which was released on Monday, added long-awaited words like ‘OK’ and ‘ew’ to the vetted Scrabble lexicon . . . 

“‘OK is something Scrabble players have been waiting for, for a long time,’ [Merriam Webster editor at large Peter] Sokolowski said. “Basically two- and three-letter words are the lifeblood of the game.’”

—Leanne Italie, writer, “Score! Scrabble dictionary adds ‘OK,’ ‘ew’ to official play,” Associated Press, Sept. 24, 2018.

• Editorial Comment: Definitely OK. Also qapik (“a variant of gopik,” of course), twerk, frowny, zomboid, arancini and . . . more. Ew.

PeezPix

Thin green line besets Trinidad. But why?
 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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

Brain Cleaning

“Our brains have evolved to crave information consistent with what we already believe. We seek out and focus on facts and arguments that support our beliefs. More worrisome, when we are trapped in confirmation bias, we may not consciously perceive facts that challenge us, that are inconsistent with what we have already concluded. 

“In a complicated, changing and integrated world, our confirmation bias makes us very difficult people. We simply can’t change our minds.”

—James Comey, former FBI director and author, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership, 2018. (Thanks to alert WORDster Alan Kania)

• Editorial Comment: As Luther Burbank observed, “It is well for people who think to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean.”

PeezPix

Pretty nice
 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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

You’re Fired.

“I was trained in a tradition in which editorial cartoonists are the live wires of a publication — as one former colleague put it, the ‘constant irritant.’ Our job is to provoke readers in a way words alone can’t. Cartoonists are not illustrators for a publisher’s politics.” 

—Rob Rogers, fired as editorial cartoonist of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette after 25 years, “I Was Fired for Making Fun of Trump,” The New York Times, June 15, 2018.

• Editorial Comment: Not funny.

PeezPix

Orca
 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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

An Old Romance

“You used to see everybody reading the newspaper on the subway. The News was the right size. It was the perfect size for the biggest city. It was our city — we owned it. And it was a great romance.” 

—Michael Daly, former New York Daily News columnist, on lay-offs at what was once the country’s largest newspaper, “Daily News Newsroom Cut in Half by Tronc as Top Editor Is Ousted,” New York Times, July 23, 2018.

• Editorial Comment: Daily News and New Yorkers get Tronced.

PeezPix

Bob Doran, ’tooned
 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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

Alarming Times

“I am alarmed at how much non-factual material is out there, how gleefully it’s generated, and how exciting it is to read and pass around. 

“I know everyone in this room is very familiar with all this but I just wanna say: I’m disturbed by how often when I’m out reporting, I find myself in conversations with people I like a lot. Lovely people, good people, who say things that are just not close to being true.

“That’s what I find most alarming about this moment we’re living through.”

—Ira Glass, radio host, This American Life, in commencement speech to the Class of 2018 at Columbia Journalism School, June 2018.

• Editorial Comment: Isn’t it true if we believe it?

PeezPix 

1822 Sonoma Street
 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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

Little Prince

“Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures — in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together.” 

—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944), author and aviator. (Thanks to alert WORDster Christine Hills)

 

• Editorial Comment: Seems our aim is a little off of late.

PeezPix

Summer Field
 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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

Crank Calls

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.” 

—J.D. Salinger (1919-2010), author and recluse.

 

• Editorial Comment: I know I’ve always wanted to go out for a beer and a whine with Holden Caulfield.

CORRECTION: Yesterday’s WORD quotes the redoubtable Jessica Mitford on changing the world and embarrassing the guilty. Alert WORDster and Mitford expert Peter Y. Sussman, who edited a great collection, Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford (Knopf, 2006), sends this:

That's a great quote, Ted, and it certainly sounds like something Jessica Mitford would say. Sadly, however, she didn't say it.

I researched the question thoroughly while I was doing research for my book "Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford." I had been puzzled by the fact, though the quote was all over the internet (confirmation bias), I couldn't find it in any of Mitford's letters, books or articles. I finally traced it to my satisfaction to its apparent origins in a magazine article ABOUT Mitford, presented as the article writer's summary characterization, not Mitford's own words.

Sorry. I hate to rain on your parade.

Thanks, Peter. Good to have such folk backstopping the WORD.

PeezPix

Costco: Where Superheroes Shop
 

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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

Reachable Goals

“You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty.” 

—Jessica Mitford (1917-1996), author, journalist, and civil rights activist (Thanks to alert WORDster Alexandra Halsey)

 

• Editorial Comment: Can’t we do both?

PeezPix

Vintage Mercury Tail light

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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 Bilious Underbelly

“The viciousness, toxic partisan anger, intellectual dishonesty, motive-questioning and sexism are at all-time highs, with no end in sight. It is a place where people who are understandably upset about any number of things go to feed their anger, where the underbelly of free speech is at its most bilious.” 

 —Maggie Haberman, White House correspondent, New York Times, “Why I Needed to Pull Back From Twitter,” The New York Times Sunday Review, July 20, 2018.

 

• Editorial Comment: So much bile, so few characters. You know, Maggie and the Bilious Underbelly would be a good name for a band.

PeezPix

Trinidad Arts Night

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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

No Forgetting

“Time is passing. Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th. We will remember every rescuer who died in honor. We will remember every family that lives in grief. We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children.”

—President George W. Bush, addressing the United Nations General Assembly, Nov. 10, 2001. Transcript here.

FREE! Get TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM in your email This free “service” is sent to 2,000,000 or so subscribers around the planet more or less every weekday morning during WORD season. 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. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
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