Slow and Steady

. 
The Grind

“Writing is like the life of a glacier, one eternal grind.”

—John Muir (1838-1914), naturalist, conservationist and author

• Editorial Comment: My floor is a constant moraine of ground-down inspiration.


PeezPix by Ted Pease

Pastels







Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.

What’s Killing Newspapers

. 
The Threat of Single Motherhood

“Even in a supposedly prosperous and well-educated state like Connecticut, how strong can demand for [the news] be now that half the children are being raised without two parents at home and thus acquiring developmental handicaps. . . .”

“Indeed, newspapers still can sell themselves to traditional households—two-parent families involved with their children, schools, churches, sports, civic groups, and such. But newspapers cannot sell themselves to households headed by single women who have several children by different fathers, survive on welfare stipends, can hardly speak or read English, move every few months to cheat their landlords, barely know what town they’re living in, and couldn’t afford a newspaper subscription even if they could read.”

—Chris Powell, managing editor, in editorial, “Journalism’s problem may not be the Internet,” The Journal Inquirer, Manchester, Connecticut, Sept. 28, 2013 

• Editorial Comment: Sheesh.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Delish





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don’t necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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 Elusive Muse

. 
Keep Your Head Down

“Mr. Clancy said none of his success came easily, and he would remind aspiring writers of that when he spoke to them.

“‘I tell them you learn to write the same way you learn to play golf,’ he once said. ‘You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired — it’s hard work.’” 

—Tom Clancy (1947-2013), blockbuster novelist, died Wednesday. (NYTimes obit by Julie Bowman) (Thanks to alert WORDster Mark Larson)

• Editorial Comment: Damn. I’ve been waiting for a muse kiss since 1964.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Houda Beach




Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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 Academy

. 
Campus View

“The academic community has in it the biggest concentration of alarmists, cranks and extremists this side of the giggle house.”      

 —William F. Buckley Jr. (1925-2008), conservative icon, author, talk-show host, magazine editor and wordman. (NYTimes obit)

• Editorial Comment: Nothing to do with journalism, but it has a ring of truth to it.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Cukes






Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, and Humboldt State University, Arcata, California

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.

Read a Book

. 
Gramma Says

“My grandma always said that God made libraries so that people didn’t have any excuse to be stupid.” 

―Joan Bauer, author, Rules of the Road (1998)

• Editorial Comment: Let’s hit the library and check out Gramma.






PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Surf’s Up! Elk Head, Humboldt County, California





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.

George Orwell Was Right

. 
Big Brother

“While the collection of private information by the National Security Agency is under scrutiny worldwide, a remarkable amount of your digital trail is also available to local law enforcement officers, IRS investigators, the FBI and private attorneys. And in some cases, it can be used against you.”

“. . . [T]here’s a wide range of ostensibly private data that's obtainable even without court approval: Law enforcement can create a map or timeline of a person’s whereabouts by accessing data from license-plate scanners, toll-bridge crossings and mobile phone carriers and, without much trouble, access records on your power consumption, purchasing habits and even snail mail.”

—National Public Radio and the Center for Investigative Reporting, “Your Digital Trail, And How It Can Be Used Against You,” Sept. 30, 2013 

• Editorial Comment: Hey! What’s that bug doing in my soup?


PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Surf’s Up! Elk Head, Humboldt County, California





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.

Journalistic Timidity

. 
What’s Up Seymour?

“It doesn’t take much to fire up [Seymour] Hersh, the investigative journalist who has been the nemesis of US presidents since the 1960s and who was once described by the Republican party as ‘the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist.’

“He is angry about the timidity of journalists in America, their failure to challenge the White House and be an unpopular messenger of truth.

 
“Don't even get him started on the New York Times, which, he says, spends ‘so much more time carrying water for Obama than I ever thought they would’ — or the death of Osama bin Laden. ‘Nothing’s been done about that story, it’s one big lie, not one word of it is true,’ he says of the dramatic US Navy Seals raid in 2011.” 

—Lisa O’Carroll, reporter, “Seymour Hersh on Obama, NSA and the 'pathetic' American media,” The Guardian, Sept. 27, 2013 

• Editorial Comment: And about that so-called “moon landing”?!?

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Autumn Squash Basket







Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.

Brainiac

. 
Simplify

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

—Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Nobel Prize-winning physicist

• Editorial Comment: It ain’t rocket science.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Autumn Squash Basket





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism by email (FREE!), send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.

Cosmic Pressure

. 
Angst of the Newswriter

“Newspaper writing is not writing. No more than shooting a basketball at your front-yard hoop is like playing in a basketball game with nine others. Or strumming a guitar is like playing in a band in front of 3,000 people. ‘Writer’ connotes the sun, reflecting on the forces around it. The reality of ‘newswriter’ is the asteroid, being tugged at violently from every angle—bitchy sources, bitchy competitors, bitchy editors, bitchy readers, deadlines, space limitations and the emotional fragility those pressures create.”

—Bob Baker, journalist, editor & author, “Newsthinking: The Secret of Great Newswriting” (1981). Bob Baker's Newsthinking. (Thanks to alert WORDster Mark Larson)  Image: “Newspaperman in Paris,” Giovanni Boldini, 1878

• Editorial Comment: Mama wanted me to go into something kinder and gentler. Like air traffic control...

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Unsettled Sea off Elk Head





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism, send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.

It’s National Punctuation Day

. 
Slow-Comma-Down

“I have always liked commas, but I seem to be in a shrinking minority. The comma is in retreat, though it is not yet extinct. In text messages and e-mails, commas appear infrequently, and then often by accident (someone hits the wrong key). Even on the printed page, commas are dwindling. Many standard uses from my childhood (after, for example, an introductory prepositional phrase) have become optional or, worse, have been ditched. 

“If all this involved only grammar, I might let it lie. But the comma’s sad fate is, I think, a metaphor for something larger: how we deal with the frantic, can’t-wait-a-minute nature of modern life. The comma is, after all, a small sign that flashes PAUSE. It tells the reader to slow down, think a bit, and then move on. We don't have time for that. No pauses allowed. In this sense, the comma’s fading popularity is also social commentary.” 

 —Robert J. Samuelson, columnist, “Farewell, Comma, He Said,” The Washington Post, 2007

• Editorial Comment: Let’s pause to eat Gramma.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Unsettled Sea off Elk Head





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism, send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.

Happy Banned Books Week

. 
Mighty Librarians

“And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

“So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.”
 

―Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), writer and book-lover, A Man Without a Country (2005)

 
• Editorial Comment: This is Banned Books Week. How serious are book-banners? The most frequently attacked book this year was “Captain Underpants.” Seriously?

• Related: “Still Banning Books,” by Ted Pease, Salt Lake Tribune, 2012

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Baby Eggplants





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism, send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.

Informed Citizen Disorder

. 
Fair Warning

“[I]nformed citizens aren't puppets; they're critical thinkers. Civic literacy is not inherently impossible. But it can cause such outrage, panic, helplessness, bewilderment—there really should be a consumer warning on the news. 

“What a downer for democracy. You do your best to keep up, and what you get in return for your effort is something the American Psychiatric Association ought to have put in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Informed Citizen Disorder: the damage you do to your mood and your blood pressure by watching Bill Moyers or Jon Stewart, listening to Kevin Phillips or Bruce Bartlett and reading the Guardian or the New York Times.” 

—Marty Kaplan, writer, “Reading the News Is Fun and Patriotic, But It Sure Can Make You Anxious,” AlterNet, June 2013

 
• Editorial Comment: As Aldous Huxley said, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.”

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Chicks










Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism, send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.

Creative Muse

. 
A Bloody Pastime
 

“There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”
  

—Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith (1902-1982), famed sportwriter

 
• Editorial Comment: When I’ve got nuthin’ I talk to the dog.

PeezPIX by Ted Pease
 

Deck Dawgs





Original PeezPix archival prints, matted at sizes from 5x7" to 16x20" or larger, available for sale. ted.pease@gmail.com

(Be)Friend Dr. Ted, Professor of Interesting Stuff

TODAY'S WORD ON JOURNALISM is a free “service” sent to the 1,800 or so misguided volunteer 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: While I just quote ’em, I don't necessarily endorse ’em. All contain at least a kernel of insight. Don’t shoot the messenger.) 
 
Ted Pease, Professor of Interesting Stuff
Utah State University, Logan, Utah, & Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.

To receive Today's Word on Journalism, send "subscribe" to ted.pease@gmail.com

“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
.