red leaves in autumn
lolling under a false sun --
such glorious fools
Saturday, October 27, 2018
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.
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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.
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"I bet no one even knows it's a dog he's babbling about."
Friday, October 26, 2018
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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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"Give me a caramel apple, any day!"
Thursday, October 25, 2018
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.
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"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.
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"I wouldn't want to be in her shoes."
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