Dad notes a Dayton TV commercial wishing viewers a "stress-free holiday."
Of course it was "Merry Christmas" for the first 50 years of his life, "Happy Holidays" for the next 30.
"The new language," he chuckles.
The perfect alibi
Sam Zell wants us to believe that, as with Karen Carpenter, this world was not meant for one as beautiful as him.
“Over the last year, we have made significant progress internally on transitioning Tribune into an entrepreneurial company that pursues innovation and stronger ways of serving our customers,” Mr. Zell, who holds the titles of Tribune chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, at the same time, factors beyond our control have created a perfect storm — a precipitous decline in revenue and a tough economy coupled with a credit crisis that makes it extremely difficult to support our debt."
And another thing: How did businesspeople explain their lack of foresight, their recklessness, their flawed instincts before 1997, when the writer Sebastian Yunger published the book, The Perfect Storm?
Speechwriter Jon Favreau: Obama’s first ‘Brownie’?
Now look: I'm not actually saying that Obama's communication director Robert Gibbs should have hired me instead of Jon Favreau.
Writing soaring rhetoric takes a certain type of talent, a talent similar to what it takes to bullshit one's way through a sociology term paper. Grownups can be moved by listening to such rhetoric, but I think we have a hard time keeping a straight face while writing "yes we can" two dozen times in a single speech script.
So Favreau was probably the right man for the campaign. And in gratitude and admiration, Obama named him director of White House speechwriting. But governing is different from campaigning, and now the premium is on prose more than poetry, maturity more than enthusiasm, wisdom more than spunk.
And of all the hundreds of speechwriters I know, I'm not sure Favreau is the right guy (actually, he's the guy on the left).
Mr. Gibbs, if you agree that the lad needs some supervision, I'm reachable here at Writing Boots; I can give you lots of recommendations.