I worked as a reporter for several years in my early 20s.
Loved every minute of it—even though the editor I worked for was a martinet of sorts, because he demanded the best at all times.
I learned a hell of a lot from him.
My mother worked for the same paper for nearly 20 years as a reporter.
That editor was a close family friend and mentor to us both.
When he died, almost the entire town turned out for the funeral.
“HAPPY Jew Year. You Jews”
…I have deleted tweets from a decade ago that are offensive…
So I guess he was 12 years old a decade a go?
I see that this crow is flustered,
Not unlike an angry bustard.
She claims that I smear,
(Or, so do I hear).
Perhaps she can not cut the mustard.
The gauntlet is thrown, the challenge is met
Though this sudden hostility does make me fret.
With pistols or swords?
Or ridiculous words?
Dueling limericks, Haiku, or Sonnet?
Fair question, and unquestionably Murrow would have taken on Trump - and prevailed. It’s hard to convey nearly 80 years after the Battle of Britain the stature that Murrow possessed. No one today - or really, decades to generations - can even begin to compare.
When Murrow took on Tailgunner Joe in March, '54, recall our then-President was MIA. It was not one of Ike’s finest moments (and contrasts with Harry Truman; Roosevelt would have torn Tailgunner Joe to shreds). Nineteen Fifty-Four was nearly a decade after the end of WWII, but the war was extremely fresh; Hell, that was still true in the Sixties. But Murrow’s stature by then had only grown over the course of a few eras - the beginning of WWII, through VE and VJ Day, and the first nine-years of a world transformed.
Murrow had his rows with CBS management, all well-documented. The past is a foreign country, but based on all we know from 1940 through 1954 and the formulation of mass media, Hell yeah Murrow would have taken Trump on. And his stature was such management would have backed him. That was then, of course.
My mother told us from childhood to never write anything you weren’t ok with having the whole world read. She was talking mostly about diaries and letters, as this was the 50’s and early 60’s, but she made a valid point that more should follow.
It did make it hard for me to write papers in school. I could never write a rough draft, it wasn’t ready to be read. My English teachers had a hard time with that, but I really couldn’t do it. I still can’t.
To paraphrase, it went something like this: “People think the Trilateral Commission runs the world. They do not. The Council on Foreign Relations does that.” - John McCloy
If he was a nobody his butt would be out the door.
This.
You had a very smart mother.
And before the internet, it was much easier, because people had to make an effort to be stupid.
The advent of the “post” on social media means that people no longer have those barriers, and can post things that they would normally regret, at almost no level of effort.
I did. She also had a major love of learning she passed on to all 6 of us. Never mattered what we asked her, she’d say, “This is what I think I know about this, but let’s go look it up.”
Every move, first thing we’d do was go to the library and get our new library cards. First time I got caught skipping school she found me hanging out at the library. From then on she would just write me a note when I was too bored to stick it out : - )
Somebody’s nephew?
I think I said this before: When I worked in “worldly” NYC, I was stunned by the overt bigotry displayed by so many in the business world You can take the man out of the Bronx, but cannot take the Bronx out of the man.