This Rose Stinks

My brother listened and paid attention and as a result, followed my father into the law. The Sunday after he passed the bar, a few of us were grilling and Dad called everybody together for a quick toast. He started out with a bit about how proud Mom would have been. I think that was his intent going in - maternal praise noted by its absence – but he was both the father and a respected member of my brother’s new field. He gave advice and perspective.

“You’re entering a profession,” he said. Or something like that. This was fifteen years ago so I’m paraphrasing as best I can. You can’t hear it but he speaks Mid-Atlantic raised in Maryland with forty-seven years of Alabama residency leaning in. “Your clients aren’t customers. You aren’t in business.” He went on in that vein about duties and backbone, disappointing with honesty when needed. It was a good toast. Not as good as the one at my cousin Andrew’s wedding, but that was the benchmark and it’s not fair to compare. It was obviously something he’d been hoping for the opportunity to say since my brother’s first year at law school and you could tell there was thought and maybe some shower rehearsal in it, but he blended intent and spontaneity.

Another similar moment: I was working in real estate and we had a company gathering. I think it was a cookout, too. The president banged a rock or something. A plastic fork against a solo cup doesn’t make the right crowd-silencing pay-attention noise, but he did something and we did as hoped. What I expected was “We’ve had a great year!” and “Thanks for doing what you do!” to make everybody happy. Instead he talked about property rights and personal agency. “We,” he said, and I’m again letting time be my excuse for imprecise recollection, “see it every day so we take for granted what ownership means to the first-time buyer.” He talked about responsibility, defiance, and equality. There wasn’t any jargon or strung together buzz words. What he said would freeze the blood of any motivational sales speaker. He told us why he does what he does and why it’s important without regard to success.

I know at least one good journalist. He and I disagree on just about everything politically, but he doesn’t let his nonsense views affect his work. For most of my lifetime, it’s been obvious to me that people like him are outliers. I’ve been waiting for a veil slip big enough for even the most poker-faced grifters to think they’ve gone too far. Hiding an enfeebled President seems bad enough that some prefer to be thought gullible enough not to notice that the President is enfeebled. The smart ones are shocked, “Shocked!” that those rascally insiders were so talented at hiding what would have doubtless been reported if not so well hidden.

Journalists need to retire the word “journalism” for a while. It’s become a punch line instead of a profession. No one believes them when they wax over the ideals they pretend to. Progressives became liberals and then went back to being progressives when they convinced everybody that eugenics was the other side’s game (“They switched!... except when Wilson suspended the press, they switched back and then back again, and once more when FDR locked up the Japanese, but not before that because we still get the TVA but back again after… the parties switched a lot.”). Journalists should call themselves something else; wherever the taint ain't. I remember a sci-fi story in which they were called “drudges.” Maybe “newsies?” Pretend to be “journalists” again in a few decades. Right now, the word’s embarrassing.