Pied Type
Writing
Nothing new under the sun
When I logged on this morning, the first thing that caught my eye was the Sallust quotation in the sidebar: “Harmony makes small things grow, lack of it makes great things decay.” How appropriate to the bitter partisan divide in Washington and the nation these days. Sallust, by the way, was a Roman historian writing … Continue reading
Media dumb down the news with ‘bug expert’
It’s no surprise, I’m sure, that I have another gripe about the media. And this time, “nit-picking” may be a particularly appropriate term. Everywhere you turn, you hear about the Casey Anthony murder trial, and if you’ve paid any attention at all, you’ve probably heard a reference to a “bug expert.” Reporters everywhere are referring … Continue reading
Why AP spells it ‘Gadhafi’
More than forty years after Libya’s leader seized power, there is still no consensus on the spelling of his name. CNN and MSNBC prefer “Gadhafi”; the New York Times and Fox News use “Qaddafi”; the Washington Post prefers “Gaddafi” and the L.A. Times, “Kadafi.” The inconsistency has been especially obvious recently as headlines focus on … Continue reading
Newspaper Guild takes swipe at Huffington Post
Even retired editors pay attention when something strange occurs in the publishing industry. And a recent little union kerfuffle definitely qualifies. It seems the Newspaper Guild, a union representing 26,000 U.S. media workers, has called for a strike against the Internet’s well-known Huffington Post. Why? Because, according to the Guild, Huffpo doesn’t pay contributors who … Continue reading
Cooks Source controversy fires up bloggers
Anyone with a website knows their material can be easily copied by someone else. It happens all the time. And there is precious little the average website owner can do to stop it. The Internet, after all, is a huge place, and it’s unlikely the owner is going to stumble across his or her material … Continue reading
A wee confession
While I have not changed my mind about the evils and just plain silliness of Facebook, I have a confession to make. I’ve set up a Pied Type page on Facebook. Although FB is called a “social network,” I noticed a lot of businesses, organizations, and politicians, for example, openly use Facebook as a way … Continue reading
I don’t like them either, but …
I won’t bore you with the browsing history that took me from the Denver Broncos game on TV to the article in question. I’ll just refer you to “Focus on the Family Readies Anti-Family Ad Blitz.” Actually, you don’t need to go to the “Women’s Rights” website to see there’s a problem. Just read that … Continue reading
Only an editor would notice
I was in the kitchen serving up a bowl of my current favorite ice cream when I noticed it. The label. Yuck! Three possessives in a row! Ben & Jerry’s Vermont’s Finest Willy Nelson’s Country Peach Cobbler Only an editor would notice, of course. And only an OCD editor would fret about it and go … Continue reading
Today’s grammar rant
If I hear one more person say “focus like a laser beam,” I’m going to scream. So far I’ve managed not to (scream, that is), but this particular phrase has already been overused enough to be driving me crazy … er, crazier. It makes me cringe. I think Pres. Obama originated it, or at least … Continue reading
Decidedly pied
This morning a friend sent me a link to a site called “I Write Like.” It has an “analyzer” that looks at a few paragraphs of your writing and spits out the name of an author with the same writing style. Fun, but likely not very scientific. I don’t have a nice long novel in … Continue reading
He likes me! He really likes me! (Cafferty, that is)
Okay, I’m running out of exclamations here. CNN’s Jack Cafferty just read one of my comments on the air — again! In fact, this time he closed his segment with it! This was the third time in the last two months or so that he’s read one of my comments on national TV. International, actually, … Continue reading
My kind of hunting
The woods are made for the hunters of dreams, The brooks for the fishers of song; To the hunters who hunt for the gunless game The streams and the woods belong. – from “The Bloodless Sportsman” by Sam Walter Foss
Babble on
I prattle. I ramble. I babble on … and on … and on. I know I do. And I apologize for doing it here just because I can. You can’t imagine the number of posts that never got posted, just because some inner voice screamed, “Enough, you stupid old woman! You’re doing it again.” I … Continue reading
When journalism was serious
I’ve been quite outspoken in my criticism of television journalists, and it has finally occurred to me that instead of launching barbs at specific individuals or outlets, I should attempt to spell out the unwritten rules my targets are violating. My judgments are grounded in an aging (1965) BA in Journalism, followed by a lot … Continue reading
A wee moral dilemma
I was reminded by a friend’s blog entry that I have a wee moral dilemma to deal with. At least, in my mind it’s something I should address. People like me spend hours blogging or journaling or whatever you care to call it because we get some kind of personal satisfaction from doing so. I’ve … Continue reading
ROFL at Vanity Fair
I arrived late last night and found the party had come and gone without me. But the trappings were still there … On a page at Vanity Fair, I found the following picture, seemingly sans caption, headline, or any other identification: Ugh! It was after midnight, I was tired, and the image made me recoil. … Continue reading
Wyeth chooses profits over ethics
We’ve all heard of ghostwriters. They get paid to write an article or book for someone else, and that someone publishes the work as his own. (You didn’t think all those famous people who write books are really good writers, did you?) Ghostwriting gets more sinister when the anonymous writers are being paid by pharmaceutical … Continue reading
But wait … she’s going to write a book!
Sarah Palin, Alaska’s about-to-be-former governor, delivered her resignation speech Fourth of July weekend. In doing so, she revealed once again why she should immediately recuse herself from the national stage and concentrate on fishing and hunting deep, deep in the Alaskan wilderness. In case her deficiencies weren’t apparent to those who listened to her speech, … Continue reading
How I never became a writer
It wasn’t easy — not becoming a writer. I worked at it most of my life. It started back in high school. One of my English teachers thought I showed some talent with a couple of short stories, and encouraged me to write. As it happened, she was also the sponsor of the school paper, … Continue reading
A pearl for writers
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection. –Anais Nin
This Is Colorado
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