Thank you and … good day?

You did admirably and your memory needs no trinket for validity or emphasis.

You have preserved the memory here and now we all have shared in the moment.

I don’t know if the man has blind spots like the rest of us or is a bigot.

Jim’s aggregator blog filled a gap in coverage that I’ve relied on for years: Do I need to apply for a baker’s job at Panera yet?

In personnel matters like this one, I was trying to say in part, there’s always more beneath the surface. Your point may well have played a role. This was never just a squabble on quote marks. It must have been a front, and a poorly executed one.

Ben

We should never put journalists on pedestals or turn them in to martyrs or even “gods” of journalism. That is what creates the real problem and why so many mainstream Americans regard the media with the same suspicions and concerns that are shared by new immigrant American communities.

Thanks for writing a great column though. You should do the media beat.

Ray Hanania

Have you understood my point here? Stated in sentence fragments rather than formal prose, I believe the meaning is nonetheless quite clear. If good spelling and fine structure are to determine fitness for a professional writing organization, you will dwindle to insignificance and you will die from lack of oxygen with your noses up in the thinnest atmosphere.

Perhaps it might be better to emphasize your materials, sessions or Web pages that help your membership to practice self-editing, improve their spelling and find mentors/partners for critical review as they refine their craft.

You certainly ought encourage a drive for excellence and hold membership accountable on matters of accuracy or libel, but the wider audience generally doesn’t give a fig about iambic pentameter, split infinitives or how many m’s are in “accommodate.”

I know — it makes me crazy, too, when writers are sloppy, but we don’t encourage good writing by shutting writers out. Better to say, “Join the club; now learn to shine with the best.”

Ben, Tracy, keep making ‘em better!

I have not looked at this website, http://www.thesubmissionnovel.com/ , but I just completed the novel that it promotes. Submission uses all meanings of the word. Most important, for a non-thriller, it was the most suspenseful fiction I’ve read in quite a while. I read the last 120 pages in one sitting this morning, couldn’t put it down. It promotes architecture in ways perhaps not seen since The Fountainhead. That’s a risky comparison because Amy Waldman is a finer storyteller than Ayn Rand, along with compassion and openness to the politics, faiths and troubles of others.

Waldman, Franzen and Egan all are trying to explain the America of the end of the 20th century. In the last case, 2001′s 9/11 is the fulcrum, will split off the 21st century more decisively than the rather arbitrary Jan. 1, 2001 (or Jan. 1, 2000, for those who can’t count).

Isolationism doesn’t work, and yet often walking away is the best thing to do. As citizens of the world, we should always be on the lookout — in the most unexpected places with the most unexpected companions — for the beginning of a beautiful friendship.