So Simple to Avoid

I'll leave it to more qualified people to address the racism inherent in, once again, a white person falsely accusing unknown and nonexistent black people of committing a crime.

I'll stick to the "suspects" issue.

The incident initially began when Upper Southampton Police received a 911 call from Sweeten claiming she and her child were abducted following a minor crash near Street Road and 2nd Street Pike Tuesday afternoon. She reported the alleged accident happened before 2 p.m.

Sweeten reportedly told police she was in her SUV when she was struck by a late 1990s dark-colored Cadillac. Two suspects exited the vehicle and forced her and her daughter into the trunk of the vehicle, she reportedly said.

No. As she was reporting it, the two people who got out of the car aren't suspects: they were two men. (All of this was fake, of course.) On top of that, this report is loaded with cop talk, not something a news organization should be putting up.

More Questions Than Paragraphs

Smile Not for Licenses

First. Such statements as "Ordering people to wipe the grins off" and "are required" are not the same as saying "serious poses are urged" but the latter phrase may or may not be citing the same policies or rules. It's certainly unclear.

Second. So let's say if you smile in the second photo but not the first, then you mess up the match. But what if you were smiling in the first photo? And how do some states manage to handle this without such a ban and others can not?

Third. What's the source of the comparison photo: DMV files? Nice to know. Or is some other search going on? Where are the originals coming from?

Fourth. Really, one state found 6,000 fraudulent license attempts? And that relates to smiling how? Would love to know more about this but I don't know how it fits with the no-smile policy.

Fifth. "Other states may follow" the no-smile ban. Or recommendation or suggestion. Really? What's the support for that statement?

Sixth. Elaine Mullen bristled "until she heard the reasoning." Hmm. Who provided it? And national security was cited? Again, really? That's what motor vehicle offices are claiming? Or is this yet another bit of collection of data for general purposes? Since at least one state has been doing this since 1999, I would think national security/AKA post-911 isn't an argument for its use.

Seventh. Haven't we been told how great this software is--that it's not fooled by beards or moustaches but a grin changes everything?

Eighth: "When a new photo seems to match an existing one, the software sends alarms that someone may be trying to assume another driver's identity." What? Someone else's identity? Or a false identity? If someone, say, changes his name, then an alarm would go off because the NEW photo looks like someone already on file? Wouldn't it work the other way--a new photo doesn't match someone whose name and photo are on file?

There are enough holes in this story to drive a truck through. With or without a license.

Story:

Four states adopt 'no-smiles' policy for driver's licenses

Stopping driver's license fraud is no laughing matter: Four states are ordering people to wipe the grins off their faces in their license photos.


"Neutral facial expressions" are required at departments of motor vehicles (DMVs) in Arkansas, Indiana, Nevada and Virginia. That means you can't smile, or smile very much. Other states may follow.

The serious poses are urged by DMVs that have installed high-tech software that compares a new license photo with others that have already been shot. When a new photo seems to match an existing one, the software sends alarms that someone may be trying to assume another driver's identity.

But there's a wrinkle in the technology: a person's grin. Face-recognition software can fail to match two photos of the same person if facial expressions differ in each photo, says Carnegie Mellon University robotics professor Takeo Kanade.

Dull expressions "make the comparison process more accurate," says Karen Chappell, deputy commissioner of the Virginia DMV, whose no-smile policy took effect in March.

Elaine Mullen of Great Falls, Va., bristled at the policy while renewing her license until she heard the reasoning. "It's probably safer from a national-security point of view," she says.

Arkansas, Indiana and Nevada allow slight smiles. "You just can't grin really large," Arkansas driver services chief Tonie Shields says.

A total of 31 states do computerized matching of driver's license photos and three others are considering it, says the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. Most say their software matches faces regardless of expressions. "People can smile here in Pennsylvania," state Transportation Department spokesman Craig Yetter says.

In Illinois, photo matching has stopped 6,000 people from getting fraudulent licenses since the technology was launched in 1999, says Beth Langen, the state head of Drivers Services.

--
This story was distributed across several Yahoo and other sites yesterday.

Mediagiraffe's Conference, Live

Can You Say Latino?

Update: Christopher Beam explains the difference between Hispanic and Latino.

Josh Marshall takes a look at the little argument over whether Sonia Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice because of Justice Benjamin Cardozo, in his Scotus: Sephardic Jew Trivia posting.

I would have never included Portugal in a Hispanic reference, and that appears to be the AP's decision, too.

Britishisms and Other Words for Fun

I don't recall ever reading the term "one-off" before until Dick Cheney used it the other day while arguing that the Bush Administration had kept the United States safe, except for the Sept.11 attacks. Michael Quinion at World Wide Words explains it in detail; here's a piece of it:

A one-off was just a single item, used in particular to refer to a prototype. The first known example appeared in the Proceedings of the Institute of British Foundrymen in 1934: “A splendid one-off pattern can be swept up in very little time.” (The reference is to a casting mould formed in sand.)

If you're contemplating a sun-less Sunday and looking for things to do, check up the recently revivified Omniglot site with its fun listing of, shall we say, unusual phrases in different languages. Omniglot is a serious language site despite its fun moments, as is Ethnologue.

And The Engine Room has fun with "pre-loading." Hint: It has nothing to do with computers and software.

Rapping This Story

We've got date/sequence problems here, in addition to pure police jargon issues.

First, the cop talk. The guy with the gun is the shooter or killer. He's not a suspect. If someone is indeed arrested and charged, then he is the suspect. Second, we've got our old "person of interest" term here, one that we ought to avoid unless we attribute it to the cops. It is meaningless. And, third, we discover later in the story that the cops have detained two people.

On a side note, who cares what he was driving? Does it deserve to be in the lede, even in car-centric Los Angeles? Only after reading the story all the way through do we discover that the car was found at the airport, after the police found their "person of interest." But we get no sense in the story flow that the car is important.

On the chronological problem: The cutline says he arrived "this morning" and the story is datelined for today. But the story also says he flew into the airport on Monday. So one element or the other needs to be fixed.

Cutline: Shooting in the valet area of the upscale mall sends diners diving for cover. The rapper had flown to L.A. this morning to work on his first album, slated to be out this summer.


Rapper Dolla is shot, killed at Beverly Center

Story:
May 19, 2009
An Atlanta-based rapper was fatally shot in the valet waiting area of the Beverly Center mall Monday by a suspect who fled in a silver Mercedes SUV, according to police. Officers later detained a "person of interest" as he approached the ticketing area at Los Angeles International Airport armed with a gun.

--
I'm thinking adding the following to every post critical of editing or reporting: Cutbacks are forcing people to do more work than they should be doing. Criticism is not directed at the reporter or editor involved in the story, many of which are rushed into online publication before they are ready.

Get Your Own Words

And 'fess up, New York Times and Maureen Dowd.

Poynter's columnists are strangely silent today on the story of Maureen Dowd's plagiarism of Josh Marshall, right down to the punctuation marks. So for those of you who were watching the NBA playoffs last night instead of reading newspaper/blog controversies, here are some links:


Brad DeLong has a theory.


Gawker explains the issue.


Little Green Footballs has its own complaints.

And Huffington Post messes up:

Maureen Dowd Admits Inadvertently Lifting Line From TPM's Josh Marshall
The headline says it was inadvertent, which is what Dowd says. The columnist gets it right by simply reporting the facts.


Newspapers are under serious attack by bloggers convinced that either we're irrelevant or we're busy stealing their reporting, a word I would normally put into quotes when talking about blogs because so much of that material originates with newspapers. But Marshall is a definite exception, a journalist who turned to the web to continue his fine work. This is not the first time he's caught people borrowing his work but it's not usually so blatant.

Abortion and Coverage

Media Matters examines the coverage of President Obama, his trip to Notre Dame and the way abortion views are represented.

It isn't pretty--whatever your politics, the Media Matters writer is right--and he finds deep flaws in the coverage.

What I see is a laziness, a reach for the "X are split" kind of reporting that cable news talking heads favor and not a serious examination of the facts.

Any Kid Will Do

Obama Kids' Photos on a Murder Story


Having worked for newspapers for more years than I care to mention, I suspect this photo choice was boneheaded but not deliberate. At least I hope that's the case, because otherwise, this is an appalling move, potentially one with racial overtones.

Some of you may remember the newspaper feature about children's parties that was accompanied by a file photo of a clown--mass murderer John Wayne Gacy in his clown suit. Someone didn't think.

People who see conspiracies in coverage should visit the local sausage factory and see what really goes on. Before the factories close, of course.

A newspaper that once employed me accidentally ran the wrong photo of a community school board member. Three times. Which was particularly problematic because of the two members, from different boards but with identical names, one was under indictment and frequently written about; the other was not. Then-assistant managing editor Bob Keane came up with a way to keep it from happening again--he went to the library, asked for the photos of the two men and ripped them to shreds. End of problem.

Another paper ran a column about the arrival of nice, sunny weather and used a file photo of a guy sunning himself in the backyard. The latter, unfortunately, had died earlier in the year, of cancer. His mother had to be taken to the hospital after reading the paper. But it was genuine error, someone desperate for a stock photo and not realizing what had been pulled, not snark or callous choice.

I do believe the lack of honest, unbiased coverage on cable news has led many people to see all reportage as opinionated yak, not to be trusted unless the yakker happens to hold your same views. When the commentary of Larry King, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough, Glenn Beck and Lou Dobbs all wind up mixed in with straight, hard news coverage, it's no surprise that people can't distinguish the difference anymore.

And it feeds this sense that anything goes--a meanness that says that no one is off limits, and that there's virtually no one putting on the brakes when it comes to commenting or otherwise covering people. Regardless of the consequences.


UPDATE:
Editor John Solomon told Greg Sargent technology, not a person, was to blame.

"The theme engine, through automation, grabbed a photo it thought was relevant, and attached it to the story," Solomon said, acknowledging that the photo had gone up without a person seeing it. "There was no editorial decision to run it. As soon as it was brought to our attention, we pulled it down."

Help The ACES Education Fund

Here's a really easy, no-cost way to help the ACES Education Fund with its scholarship and other programs. Go to Good Search, choose ACES as the recipient and then use it for web searches. You can add it as a toolbar to your browser or go to the web site if you want to look for things. It's a pretty good search engine, powered by Yahoo.

Use it wisely.

As Good Search says:

Please use this site honestly. Fraudulent searches will result in a charity being de-listed.

Moving Over

Andy Bechtel does a Q&A with a copy editor turned public information specialist. Well worth a read for those contemplating a jump, willingly or otherwise. I started a Making the Leap series here and hope to have further postings of a similar nature for those looking to flee newspapers.

Say What?

It would seem completely unneccessary to explain how to pronounce "Julio" at this point, don't you think? Hevesi? Could be another matter, at least for those outside New York.

From the AP:

The attorney general's office said Tuesday Julio (HOO'-lee-oh) Ramirez entered into a corrupt agreement with a top political aide to former New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi (HE'-vuh-see) to ensure that his company's clients got a slice of pension fund investments.

Whom Is Here

Mr. Verb takes on what he calls the hypercorrected use of "whom" in a headline.

A couple of other "who/whom" discussions:

Grammar Girl gives us a review.

Paul Brians tries to make it easy.

GrammarBook explains and offers a quiz for practice.

The Old Days Remembered

Yes, well, I guess the only question was whether the editor was using his fingers or a plastic spoon:

Recalling a job interview at the Fort Worth Press when he was a college student, Shrake wrote years later, "It was a rackety, dirty city paper, with the teletypes clacking and a sense of urgency everywhere. A copy editor was eating tuna fish out of a can, and the bowling writer was drinking bourbon, and I thought, 'This is the world I want to be in.' "
From the obituary of Edwin "Bud" Shrake.

Amazon Takes a Cut, a BIG Cut

This is odd: The Fitz and Jen blog at E&P reports that Amazon.com will keep most of the revenue from its Kindle-newspaper service and, even odder, that only people who live in areas where the newspaper can't be delivered will be able to subscribe through Kindle. What? WHAT? To both elements of this story.

Rules for Writing, Some in Jest

As I recall, William Safire has always said he didn't write these, and a lot of people would dispute their value or accuracy. But in the interest of fun, here's a post of tips known as

William Safire's Rules for Writers

* Remember to never split an infinitive.
* The passive voice should never be used.
* Do not put statements in the negative form.
* Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
* Proofread carefully to see if you words out.
* If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be found by rereading and editing.
* A writer must not shift your point of view.
* And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.)
* Don't overuse exclamation marks!!
* Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
* Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
* If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
* Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
* Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
* Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
* Always pick on the correct idiom.
* The adverb always follows the verb.
* Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

Here's another version:

Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
Don't use no double negatives.
Use the semicolon properly, always use it where it is appropriate; and never where it isn't.
Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not needed.
Do not put statements in the negative form.
Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
No sentence fragments.
Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
A writer must not shift your point of view.
Eschew dialect, irregardless.
And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
Don't overuse exclamation marks!!!
Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
Hyphenate between sy-
llables and avoid un-necessary hyphens.
Write all adverbial forms correct.
Don't use contractions in formal writing.
Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
It is incumbent on us to avoid archaisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Steer clear of incorrect forms of verbs that have snuck in the language.
Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixed metaphors.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing.
If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, resist hyperbole.
Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.
Don't string too many prepositional phrases together unless you are walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
Always pick on the correct idiom.
"Avoid overuse of 'quotation "marks."'"
The adverb always follows the verb.
Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

And the George L. Trigg:

Make sure each pronoun agrees with their antecedent.
Just between you and I, the case of pronoun is important.
Watch out for irregular verbs which have crope into English.
Verbs has to agree in number with their subjects.
Don't use no double negatives.
Being bad grammar, a writer should not use dangling modifiers.
Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
A writer must be not shift your point of view.
About sentence fragments.
Don't use run-on sentences you got to punctuate them.
In letters essays and reports use commas to separate items in series.
Don't use commas, which are not necessary.
Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
Its important to use apostrophes right in everybodys writing.
Don't abbrev.
Check to see if you any words out.
In the case of a report, check to see that jargonwise, it's A-OK.
As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong.
About repetition, the repetition of a word might be real effective repetition - take, for instance the repetition of Abraham Lincoln.
In my opinion, I think that an author when he is writing should definitely not get into the habit of making use of too many unnecessary words that he does not really need in order to put his message across.
Use parallel construction not only to be concise but also clarify.
It behooves us all to avoid archaic expressions.
Mixed metaphors are a pain in the neck and ought to be weeded out.
Consult the dictionery to avoid mispelings.
To ignorantly split an infinitive is a practice to religiously avoid.
Last but not least, lay off cliches.

And then there's Orwell's rules.

Sticky Labels

Threatening a student for going to a prom is not exactly in the mainstream of Christian thought. To identify it as simply a Christian school is misleading and superficial. Adherents.com says there are 2.1 billion Christians in the world, and, surprise, they don't agree at all on many issues.

Ohio Christian school tells student to skip prom

The story does better: it identifies the school as a fundamentalist Baptist, though I'm not sure what broader group, if any, the school belongs to. It certainly wouldn't be a member of the American Baptist Churches USA, a fairly liberal organization. And I'm not sure if "fundamentalist" does the job, either since the term has specific theological roots, but it could be correct.

There are problems with this story, though. There are references to rules, but no explanation of what they are. It seems that the student got his principal's written permission as required but the latter then asked a church committee, which issued the suspension threat.


FINDLAY, Ohio – A student at a fundamentalist Baptist school that forbids dancing, rock music, hand-holding and kissing will be suspended if he takes his girlfriend to her public high school prom, his principal said.

Despite the warning, 17-year-old Tyler Frost, who has never been to a dance before, said he plans to attend Findlay High School's prom Saturday.



The problem of overly broad labels is hardly unique to this story. And labels shift: political stories often refer to "moderate" Democrats (I guess that makes the rest of them radicals?), people who in past years would have been labeled conservatives.

It's Getting Ugly Out There

The war between bloggers and defenders of mainstream media is getting pretty nasty, some of it triggered by the Future of Journalism hearing in Washington. It was an odd collection of witnesses, to say the least (not that any particular witness was odd.)

It really does seem as if we've reached a tipping point: there's no going back to the traditional newspaper and we've not found a good alternative. I read lots of blogs everyday and love many of them. They are often deeply focused on political news, great for junkies but often lacking perspective or context. They'll take up an issue and report it out with a great deal of insight. But the original news usually comes from a newspaper. And as far as depending on a blog for local news, forget it. I wouldn't have a clue what was happening in my town if I had to depend on blogs.

Some of the coverage coming off the hearing:

Laura Bush's ex-press secretary heaps scorn and mocking photos on John Kerry

Friends of Arianna Huffington rush to defend Huffington's business model

David Simon gets skewered by several writers, some pissier than others.

Some writers point out that any news site can be successful if its contributors work work for free.
On the one hand she rails against corporate greed. On the other hand, Arianna Huffington, one of the web's most prominent political bloggers, refuses to pay the legion of citizen bloggers that have made her site (The Huffington Post) the 5th most linked to blog on the web according to Technorati. Or, so argues Froma Harrop in a biting editorial in the Providence Journal.

Adam Serwer tries the sensible, context approach to writing about the "Future of Newspapers" hearing.

And some of those who like the Huffington Post aren't fond of the tabloid approach it's taken lately (not to mention the postings by anti-vaccine crusaders)

UPDATE, Peter Y. Sussman, writing at Huffington Post, makes a thoughtful point about the celebrity effect on journalism, one that I find grows directly out of Huffington's very essence.

Huffington Post is a noble and necessary experiment in citizen journalism -- and indeed in journalism itself -- and I have been pleased to be a contributor, however infrequent. But like all path-breaking experiments, it can be led astray by its very success, and I wonder if it is now in danger of being blinded by the dazzle of one of its own innovations...
Citizen journalism certainly has a valuable role to play in leavening news coverage with local perspectives and with the insights of experts outside the "usual suspects" featured on Sunday morning news shows. But massive, unfiltered exercises in citizen journalism can tilt public understanding as surely as the rush of passengers from one side to the other can threaten the stability of a small boat.

I used the word unfiltered intentionally. Despite the scorn heaped on the role of the MSM as filters of the information that reaches the public, we may be losing something important by so completely ditching the old model. The solution for information that has been inappropriately filtered may not be opening the spigot full-force.

Another word for journalism filters is editors.


As usual, Jay Rosen has one of the more intelligent comments on the end of journalism/future of journalism issue: "If I had one wish in this whole business model discussion, it would be that everybody would drop the idea that there is a single solution."

Get a Grip on the Goal

People often complain that the mainstream media is too self-centered, and somedays, that characterization is hard to challenge. Two examples:

From The New York Times, this inflated sense of importance. The best we can hope for is that it was meant to be fun but fell flat:

Op-Extra
Blogs
The Conversation
Who Will Replace Souter?
By DAVID BROOKS and GAIL COLLINS
Here's hoping for someone Gail Collins likes, and David Brooks can live with.



Readers DO NOT CARE about bylines. And a management that would savage the ranks the way it has in the last few years also doesn't care. I realize people are stressed and looking for anything to make themselves heard but this old tactic has never, ever worked.


Sun staffers to withhold
bylines to protest job cuts, Tribune's "heavy-handed tactics"
MORE THAN 50 BALTIMORE SUN
NEWSROOM STAFF MEMBERS LAUNCH BYLINE STRIKE PROTESTING JOB CUTS AND HEAVY
HANDED TACTICS BY TRIBUNE

Reporters, photojournalists and other newsroom staff members, angered at shabby
treatment and Tribune's dismantling of the paper, say no to bylines.

BALTIMORE, Md., May 6, 2009 –More than 50 Baltimore Sun newsroom staff members, including reporters, photographers and other
bylined content producers, launched a byline strike today protesting layoffs
and heavy handed tactics by owner Tribune Co.

Newsroom staff members informed their managers today that they would withhold
their bylines to protest last week's surprise layoffs of roughly 60 newsroom
employees. Tribune, last week, slashed the newsroom by about one third,
reducing the staff to 148 employees, a fraction of what it was in 1999 when the
Chicago-based company acquired The Sun, which then boasted a newsroom staff of
about 420 employees.

Some employees last week were fired while they were in the midst of writing and
editing stories. Others were told to pack up their belongings immediately, and
others were escorted out of the main newspaper building by security guards.

"Tribune's tactics are deplorable," said Cet Parks, Executive Director of the
Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. "Employees who poured their hearts
and souls into putting out a great newspaper every day were told to get out and
stay out. No fanfare, no thank you, no outplacement help, just hit the streets.
Maybe that's big business Tribune way, but it isn't right. Through its actions
Tribune has demonstrated that it has little regard or respect for its
employees."

Not Getting What You're Not Paying For

I suppose we risk looking like finger-pointing little children gleefully shouting "Told you so!" when we insist that eliminating copy editors reduces the value of a publication.

Or, conversely, like angry old folks, that things were better, sonny, back in my day!

So be it. You cannot read a newspaper these days without seeing clear signs of decline. Far too often, though not always, stories are increasingly superficial, key facts are missing, typos abound.

We can't completely blame the blogs or people's lack of interest in events, though the fact that slideshows about celebrities who wear pink or the latest sex scandal draw far more attention than do stories about the economic crisis is disturbing and depressing in a society that depends on an informed citizenry to survive with its values intact.

Even the best papers are declining, racing around in a panic, trying anything to make up for their failure to respond more than a decade ago when the Internet began capturing readers' attention.

At least we can use the Internet to document the decline and hope that when something new and better rises in the place of print newspapers, some remembers some lessons: a. you can't give your work away for free (it's too late to do anything about that now)
b. people notice when you keep reducing the quality and quantity of your product and eventually walk away from it.

Here's another citation on the road to decline, from Ken Robertson of the Tri-City Herald:

Why newspapers should love their copy editors
By Ken Robertson, Herald Executive Editor

Reporters sometimes have a hard time believing it, but the best friend they can ever have is a sharp copy editor.

I was reminded of that again Monday when I was reading a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. A couple of folks from George Mason University were arguing for accountability as the federal stimulus money is spent across the nation.

Their article started out this way:

“President Barack Obama has promised a full accounting online of where his $787 stimulus package is spent ....”

That no one at the Wall Street Journal had noticed a key word — billion — was missing shocked me. Yes, I’ve seen both “billion” and “million” go missing in the Herald’s pages, and both of them trade places at times when they shouldn’t.

And yes, much of my job every day is to preach quality control and teach about the ways good copy editing ensures accuracy.

But I’m still shocked when I see such lapses, especially from a national newspaper with a staff of copy editors that must number in the scores.

In Need of Copy Editors

Complaints here about the impact of the loss of copy editors.

Congrats, ACES

As mentioned on Facebook, I'm completely wowed by how well the American Copy Editors Society has done this year at its national conference: extended memberships for laid-off members, awarded the Robinson and Glamann prizes to two pros, handed out scholarships and headline prizes, and above all, retained some othe older, popular workshops while adding fresh new material and presenters to the lineup. Under the circumstances we're all facing, that's a remarkable performance. Kudos to all--way to go, Deirdre, Chris, and the entire team.

The Lonely Only

I've been working on a little training project and came across this from my files. It came from an old AP writing guide. Merrill Perlman uses this or something similar in her excellent ACES workshops.

It matters where you put the adverb.

Only I hit him in the eye yesterday.
I only hit him in the eye yesterday.
I hit only him in the eye yesterday.
I hit him only in the eye yesterday.
I hit him in the only eye yesterday.
I hit him in the eye only yesterday.
I hit him in the eye yesterday only.

Maybe It's Time for a New Word

Something about the word "pandemic" seems to scare people beyond reality. Maybe it's time to start defining the word instead of showing endless pictures of people wearing masks and drawing samples from innocent pigs while failing to provide much hard information.

The Washington Post has this today:
Michael T. Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, said the situation is analogous to forecasting a hurricane when meteorologists know only that there is a high-low pressure gradient in the Atlantic. "Everyone in one week wants an answer as to what it will do. Anyone who gives you an answer right now, do not listen to them about anything else because you cannot trust them," Osterholm said.

WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl noted yesterday that the public may misunderstand the word "pandemic." The term refers to where an illness spreads, not its severity.

From the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health:

Pandemic—an epidemic occurring over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting large numbers of people. A global disease epidemic.

I'm trying for a "flu the coop" line but it's not happening so far.

A New Home

John McIntyre's back with his old You Don't Say name in a new location. Let the fun begin!