It Is Fitting That Yesteryear's Swashbuckling Newspaper

Serious Journalism Need Not Be Solemn.

Most English Speakers Do Not Have The Writer's Short Fuse About Seeing Or Hearing Their Language Brutalized. This Is The Main Reason, I Suspect, That English Is Becoming The World's Universal Tongue: English-speaking Natives Don't Care How Badly Others Speak English As Long As They Speak It. French, Once Considered Likely To Become The World's Lingua Franca, Has Lost Popularity Because Those Who Are Born Speaking It Reject This Liberal Attitude And Become Depressed, Insulted Or Insufferable When Their Language Is Ill Used.

There Are Good Reasons Why Everybody Should Heed Politicians' Advise Not To Believe The Media. One Of The Best Is That The Media Report What Politicians Say.

It Was Dramatic To Watch My Grandmother Decapitate A Turkey With An Ax The Day Before Thanksgiving. Nowadays The Expense Of Hiring Grandmothers For The Ax Work Would Probably Qualify All Turkeys So Honored With Gourmet Status.

Like All Young Reporters - Brilliant Or Hopelessly Incompetent - I Dreamed Of The Glamorous Life Of The Foreign Correspondent: Prowling Vienna In A Burberry Trench Coat, Speaking A Dozen Languages To Dangerous Women, Narrowly Escaping Sardinian Bandits - The Usual Stuff That Newspaper Dreams Are Made Of.