Reporter Valerie Bauerlein of the Wall Street Journal Loves Small Town America

It takes a special type of large-hearted person to write sympathetically yet realistically about small town America. Most reporters can't summon up enough empathy, nor discard enough sophistication, to do it. Valerie Bauerlein is the exception; her work on podunks and jerkwater communities makes them come alive, and then lumber off into the distance chased by peasants with pitchforks and torches.

Which is strange, when you come to think of it, because her birth and background are anything but small town. Born and raised in a penthouse apartment that overlooks Central Park, she is the child of unparalleled luxury. Her great grandfather invented the rubber cookie jar, which laid the foundation for one of the most fabled fortunes in America. She not only grew up with an indoor swimming pool and bowling alley, but had a shooting gallery on the terrace for her friends that featured nothing but Ming vases. As a teenager she spent summers on the Riviera and winters sailing among the majestic fjords of Spitsbergen. 

Turning down an invitation to lecture at the Sorbonne, Ms Bauerlein instead attended Duke University and went to work as a cub reporter at the Raleigh News & Observer. Unfortunately, she thought they said 'curb' reporter and spent several unproductive years investigating street gutters. But in 2005 she realized her mistake and joined the Wall Street Journal as their Foam Rubber Futures reporter. From there it was just a hop, skip, and a jump to wandering the highways and byways of small town America, reporting on everything from pothole theme parks to paint drying exhibitions.

Her work has been awarded the Sarah Needleman Trophy for outstanding chirography. 

When not reporting on how to make box elder bug cuff links, Sarah likes to relax with a cup of homemade Borax and the latest Margaret Oliphant novel. 

***************************************

He hasn't got the sense God gave geese!"

Reporter Mike Rosenwald of the Washington Post and the Saluki Conspiracy

Mild mannered reporter Mike Rosenwald of the Washington Post has an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh, where he became interested in the saluki conspiracy theory.

Mike wasn't always an obsessive and determined investigative reporter. He grew up in a small town in a small state with small expectations that were demolished when his maternal uncle was indicted for running an illicit hamster-juggling academy in Bemidji, Minnesota. The shame was too much for the Rosenwalds, so they changed their name to Skamfull -- everyone, that is, except Mike, who refused to give up his family's proud surname because of a crazy uncle. His noble action led indirectly to the Florida Marlins winning the World Series in 1997. 

An anonymous tip first led Mike to suspect that salukis were behind the outbreak of Tutmania in Great Britain during the 1920s, and his further research convinced him that salukis and so-called slughis have been in cahoots ever since to bring about a sinister New World Order. His manuscript articles on the subject have been publicly burned by The Economist, The New Yorker, the Boston Globe, and the Columbia Review of Journalism. His life has been overlooked on numerous occasions -- but he has declared that he will continue his investigation until every saluki in America is properly licensed and wormed. 

His other interests include the Japanese art of Hikaru Dorodango, or dirt polishing, and playing the crwth. 

*******************************

"I bet no one even knows it's a dog he's babbling about."

Haiku: how many bird songs

how many bird songs

does this pine tree remember

from the day before?

haiku: the spilling yellow

the spilling yellow

is held back by the autumn shades

waiting for frost fall

haiku: the wan moon sinks low

the wan moon sinks low

behind inky black branches

mourning absent leaves

Megyn Kelly -- Never Trust a Saudi -- Polluters to Pay Big Fees in Washington State -- Return of the Dreaded Candy Corn

A media star, name of Kelly,

found her career turn to jelly.

One thoughtless remark

about minstrels dark,

and they kicked her right off the telly.

*******************************

From the moment the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappeared after walking into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul this month, Saudi officials have offered a dizzying variety of public accounts about his fate.    NYT

The truth, as it's told by a Saudi,

is very creative, though shoddy.

Scheherazade knew

of Arabs a few

know how to account for a body.

******************************

One piece of that transformation . . .  will be decided on Election Day by people across Washington state, who will vote on whether to charge companies and utilities for their carbon emissions. The proposed carbon fees, aimed at curbing climate change by making the burning of fossil fuels more expensive, would be the first such state initiative in the nation, and other states are closely watching the election outcome.  NYT

A close look at our history

will show that whenever a fee

for doing a wrong

is pushed very strong

it winds up in obscurity.

**************************************

At least 16 states and Washington, D.C., pass out candy corn in sufficient volume to place it among their top 3 Halloween treats in a ranking by candystore.com. And in seven states, it’s No. 1.    WSJ

Of all the treats at Halloween,

worse than the licorice jelly bean,

the candy corn stands out as vile --

yet people serve it with a smile.

Should I be offered just one piece

they'd better ring for the police!

************************************

"Give me a caramel apple, any day!"

El reportero Nick Miroff del periódico Washington Post habla excelente español

Nick Miroff is a man of mystery. His colleagues at the Washington Post, where he has been a staff reporter for the past twelve years, know so very little about his private life and interests that they often jump out of high rise windows in frustrated despair. Who is the man in the lime green jumpsuit that comes to his desk every Thursday afternoon with a roll of duct tape? What does he keep in the brass urn on his desk, labeled "Himmelfahrt"?  Why is his Rolodex completely blank? How does he come to have a Rolodex on his desk in the first place? And when does he find time for cordwaining? 

Rumors are rife that while working in Mexico City he learned the true identity of Fidel Castro's beard groomer and used that information to sink the Graf Spee in Montevideo Harbor. Miroff himself neither affirms nor denies the story.

 Of humble birth, Miroff worked his way up from penury to poverty by selling earmuffs door to door in the Aleutian Islands. Intrigued by the lingering influence of colonial Spain among the native kelpies, he stowed away on a passing freighter to begin life anew as a student and scholar of Latin American studies at the University of California in Santa Cruz. His doctrinal thesis on the square tortillas of Patagonia is considered a landmark in the field of gastronomy. 

He cultivates witches' butter in his spare time. 

**************************

"No está jugando con una baraja llena de cartas."

Reporter Emily Yahr, of the Washington Post, is Proud of her Pirate Heritage

Emily Yahr is proud of her Pirate heritage.

"My ancestors roamed the Seven Seas looking for gold doubloons and rare spices and silks from the Orient that they could swipe from other ships, and then make their victims walk the plank. My progenitors became so infamous for their wholesale thieving that our last name became a byword among Pirates and Pirate wannabees. After all, who hasn't heard someone, somewhere, growl 'Yahr, matey' when they want to impersonate a buccaneer?" 

When she worked at the Lexington Herald-Leader she was known for the particular care with which she placed her commas, asterisks, and apostrophes. She was often heard to say: "There is more mischief in a misplaced semicolon than in a quart of whisky!"

Prior to joining the Washington Post she worked at USA Today as their kapok reviewer. Her columns have been collected into a book, entitled "Excelsior is My Sister," which was on the Ladies Home Journal short list for six months. 

Yahr joined the Washington Post in 2008 and immediately began building a reputation for hard-hitting style section pieces. Her prose has been likened to 'velvet sandpaper.' Her series on Velcro high heels led to legislation in several states banning the use of pesticides near bowling alleys. 

She calls Cleveland her Pittsburgh. 

She graduated from the University of Maryland at the age of sixteen, and took an advanced degree at the Winnemucca School of Mines before she could legally vote. Her interests include scrimshaw, hot plate repair, and flying inflatable latex gloves. 

****************************

"I wouldn't want to be in her shoes."

Sarah Needleman, of the Wall Street Journal, is a Tea Connoisseur

No one can say that Sarah Needleman is not smart, edgy, trending, and pasteurized. Her articles in the Wall Street Journal and other media have always drawn attention from the Cognoscenti, Montagues, and Capulets. Currently engaged in chronicling the video game industry, her previous writing gigs include writing about how the word 'entrepreneur' would never be used if it weren't for Spell Check, and reporting on small businesses -- in fact she nosed around and found dozens of businesses so tiny that she had to buy a microscope to examine them. 

She is the recipient of the Aimee Semple McPherson Award for her coverage of the International Tea Cozy Knitting Competitions in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada, in 2011. During the ensuing riots she was injured and lost the use of her coccyx for several years. 

She says that literature runs in her family -- or was it runs from her family?  I'll have to check my notes . . .  

She graduated from Rutgers University in 1997 but likes to tell complete strangers that she is taking an online course in taxidermy to help support her dream of one day owning a kumquat ranch. 

Even though Sarah admits to possessing a cat, she has not yet developed the facial tics and nail biting habit that most cat owners acquire over the long, tortuous years of feline subjugation. Her bravery and stamina in this area have earned her the admiration of scores of influential people, including Tom Cruise and KICD Meteorologist Corey Harguth, who have set up the Sarah Needleman Memorial Fund to help victims of cat ownership recover their self respect and dignity. 

Social Media stories that she has amassed a giant blob of Silly Putty in her basement and intends to use it to take over northern New Jersey have been labeled as 'Fake News' by the Columbia Journalism Review and the South Brunswick Post. But nobody, least of all Ms. Needleman, seems to know just exactly what her cat does with all its spare time. 

*******************************

Ms. Needleman emailed me her response to this piece, thus:

I think it's odd and has several errors. I'd prefer you take it down.

Regards, Sarah E. Needleman

TECHNOLOGY REPORTER THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

*******************************

"I'd rather own a porcupine than a cat."

Katie Rogers of the New York Times is Proud to be a Hoosier

Katie Rogers covers the White House for the New York Times, a job she finds both stressful and educational. She says that the stress of having to constantly snap her fingers in front of President Trump's face to regain his attention when he veers off into an incoherent rant makes it impossible for her to sleep at night unless she hangs upside down from the rafters. But she also admits she has learned so much about the inner workings of the American experiment in democracy that she is now planning a lateral move to Antarctica for a ten year sabbatical among the chinstrap penguins.

She has fond memories of growing up in Hoosier, Indiana, where the corn is alpine as a tall billboard sign, and it looks like it's growin' right up to cloud nine . . . 

Her ancestors arrived at Plymouth Rock by coracle and held important positions in such organizations as American National Cattlewomen Inc; the Association of Gravestone Studies; The Organization for the Working Samoyed; and the American Association of Candy Technologists. There is a statue of her great Uncle Sebastian on the grounds of the state capital in Indianapolis, for his outstanding contributions to the game of pinochle. 

A keen student of pop culture and haute couture, Ms. Rogers was among the first journalists to investigate the dangers of prolonged exposure to hula hoop earrings. 

A graduate of Loyala University, she was awarded the Lucius Beebe Medallion for Breaking News and then Fixing It. Her hobbies include bowling ball rosemaling and collecting wimples. 

********************************

"Give me a Buckeye anytime . . . "