Brick

The fol­low­ing is my president’s col­umn for the May 2011 edi­tion
of the monthly newslet­ter of the National Soci­ety of News­pa­per Colum­nists.

Had a bizarre dream the other night, that World War III had started. I saw Dianne Fein­stein, she hav­ing moved up from sen­a­tor to sec­re­tary of state or vice pres­i­dent, hold­ing a news con­fer­ence. She announced the U.S. ambas­sador to Turkey had died in a sus­pi­cious plane crash.

A col­umn might be found in that.

In writ­ing down the dream, it became a “hmm note.” This was advice from the 1991 con­fer­ence of the National Soci­ety of News­pa­per Colum­nists, held in Hunt­ing­ton, W.Va. The con­ven­tion, my first, had great speak­ers, yet the Hmm Note con­cept came infor­mally from colum­nist Bill Tam­meus, then of The Kansas City Star.*

We ended up at the same air­port gate Sun­day after­noon for our Mid­west­ern flights. Bill was alone in a row of black chairs, writ­ing a col­umn. He was not writ­ing notes in the nar­row reporter’s note­book, nor an out­line, but full para­graphs with a ball­point. Some stores still sell paper and pens.

I asked him the novice’s ques­tion of how he got ideas. Bill said he tried to write down every time he came across some­thing new or unusual, or when he’d think some­thing that seemed clever, any­thing that would cause a “hmm.” Not as in, “Hmm, that would make a good col­umn,” as might be expected, but sim­ply, “Hmm, that’s interesting.”

Hence, Hmm Notes. Most would not pan out, but the rest become columns.*

Columns and blog posts can come from any­where. The Hmm Note is just a good tool to keep in the writer’s tool­box.*

Fuel Up on Facts

How are Hmm Notes used? First, let them rest. Five min­utes is enough for some, oth­ers can age years, cached in a fil­ing sys­tem. Then, start writ­ing and see where it goes.

While brain­storm­ing, though, it’s not long before I need fuel. A sand­wich, a cof­fee refill. Often I need to fuel up on facts, even for humor pieces.

Fuel now often starts with cau­tious use of Wikipedia, then Google for iden­ti­fied sources to cross-reference.* This can be the time for a quick phone or email inter­view with a specialist.

There’s other tasks involved in the writ­ing: The choices made for frame or voice and atti­tude or tone make or break a good Hmm Note. Fram­ing is my favorite tool.

As frames, Art Buch­wald would drop a seri­ous argu­ment into a cou­ple shout­ing on a disco floor, or two gents on a park bench beset by pigeons.* (This col­umn is in a mir­ror frame. Am I dis­guis­ing a polit­i­cal dis­cus­sion as a how-to piece or am I using a polit­i­cal dis­cus­sion to illus­trate a how-to piece?)

Last, dead­lines hang over us all, even blog­gers: Jots often face obso­les­cence. Isn’t it silly now to argue over Pres­i­dent Obama’s birth cer­tifi­cate?*

Here’s that brain­storm on my dream: Is the United States in World War III already? And would it be tak­ing the role of Ger­many in the 1930s?

We’re the Axis of Nice

On the for­mer point, we’ve been in a suc­ces­sion of wars since 1990, essen­tially all on for­eign ground, and few have ended. On the lat­ter, we believe we’re help­ing these coun­tries, and didn’t grass­roots Ger­mans believe pretty much the same thing? Ger­mans at the time needed lit­tle per­suad­ing that all Jews were ver­min. But isn’t there a num­ber of Amer­i­cans encour­aged to believe all Mus­lims are ter­ror­ists? Yet the U.S. has allies to help us in these lands defeat dic­ta­tors and pro­mote self-rule and human rights as well, as con­trol­ling one influ­en­tial anar­chist — we’re the Axis of Nice.

Whoa. it’s time for research. And a cof­fee. (In this col­umn, I have aster­isks to indi­cate ‘most every­thing I looked up.)

Fein­stein: In my dream, she was an older ver­sion of the San Fran­cisco city leader who in 1978 held an impromptu press con­fer­ence to announce the assas­si­na­tions of Mayor George Moscone and Super­vi­sor Har­vey Milk. My mem­ory of that on TV needed con­firm­ing. Then, I needed to go through online his­to­ries of the two world wars. Last, refresh­ers were needed for Iraq I and Iraq II, Yugoslavia, Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan and Libya. ********

I’d be embar­rassed to pub­lish this. Research guts the Axis of Nice. World wars don’t involve every nation, but many more than now would have to par­tic­i­pate. Hitler’s noble cause was a sham. In our era, these Near East­ern peo­ples do need the assis­tance of the West, mil­i­tar­ily, eco­nom­i­cally and politically.

Bore­dom is another fac­tor in col­umn build­ing. Not the writer’s but read­ers’. Con­struct­ing a col­umn requires judg­ing how much back­ground detail to include, even a light col­umn over start­ing the lawn mower for the first time in spring. The sweet spot just before TMI, too much infor­ma­tion, is tricky to place.

Judg­ing by politi­cians and pun­dits these days, some­one could sell World War III being in its 21st year and not bother with even fact-based humbug.

‘Per­pet­ual War’

Yet colum­nist Christo­pher Hitchens recently was quoted as hav­ing said, “What can be asserted with­out evi­dence can be dis­missed with­out evidence.”*

Although he’s a stu­dent of pol­i­tics, recent decades refute his tau­tol­ogy. Lit­tle is ever dis­missed. Based on sto­ries that per­sist about past pres­i­dents, the cre­den­tials of Barack Obama will be ques­tioned long after he leaves office.

The only way con­cepts can be val­i­dated is to test them with imag­i­na­tion and zing them with ver­i­fi­able facts. That so many peo­ple want to believe unsub­stan­ti­ated bunkum, when facts now are easy to find, may be the tragedy of our generation.

If it’s not World War III, then would Nine­teen Eighty-Four’s “per­pet­ual war” bet­ter match my dream to facts?* The world of George Orwell’s famous novel was built on Per­pet­ual War, with our Ocea­nia against either Eura­sia or Eas­t­a­sia.* No com­mon enemy. No clear path to vic­tory. Sol­diers and resources are used, con­firm­ing the cause in reverse.

This might work. It explains Iraq and Afghanistan.* Libya joins them in not hav­ing a clear long-term goal — who’s in charge after Gad­hafi? America’s allies vary a bit in each of the cur­rent wars. Recent news from Wash­ing­ton has con­cerned man­ag­ing the fed­eral bud­get.* Heard any talk about mil­i­tary expense cuts? Wasn’t that com­mon, both in news and com­men­tary, to say noth­ing of com­edy? Wasn’t defense spend­ing behind Repub­li­can Eisenhower’s con­cern about the “military-industrial com­plex”?* Remem­ber the $640 toi­let cov­ers that Lock­heed sold the Pen­ta­gon in 1987?*

Per­pet­ual War can explain the West’s mil­i­tary actions and some eco­nomic deci­sions since the Cold War cooled. The flaw in the logic of my dream remains, though. The Axis of Nice really is fight­ing despots and an anarchist.

Hmm.

–30–

* Every time you see an aster­isk, an angel gets his wings, and they show where I looked some­thing up for accu­racy. Below are end­notes, all of which are in hyper­links in the text above.

• http://billtammeus.typepad.com/my_weblog/
• http://benpollock.com/brick/2005/05/01/the-60-second-blogger/
• On Writ­ing: A Mem­oir of the Craft, by Stephen King, 2000. http://www.stephenking.com/library/nonfiction/on_writing:_a_memoir_of_the_craft.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia
• http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1002/buchwald100402.asp
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianne_Feinstein#President_of_the_San_Francisco_Board_of_Supervisors
• http://youtu.be/oUB-RCNBDnk — Fein­stein announce­ment about 2:20
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslavia_Wars
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)
• http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/04/14/nato_clinton_gadhafi_civil_war/index.html From AP: Clin­ton: NATO Nations Agree That Gad­hafi Must Go
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/24/amis-hitchens-world
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four#The_War
• http://benpollock.com/brick/2010/11/02/war-paths/ for Per­pet­ual War
• http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/The-Vote/2011/0424/David-Stockman-takes-President-Obama-and-Rep.-Paul-Ryan-to-the-woodshed
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_seat#U.S._Navy.27s_.22.24600_Toilet_Seat.22