When Good Hosts Get Real

I am a big fan of the Daily Show w/ Jon Stewart. Heck, I'm a big fan of Jon Stewart in general. I'm no obsessive, but the interviews I've seen or read with him lead to me to think of him as an intelligent, poignant and pointed, critical mind.

On tonight's show, I actually think he lost his cool. And I applaud him. He did a bit on G. W.'s use of "In Other Words." It was fairly Bushism standard. But Jon ended with this rant: "When you say "in other words" it's because you think we don't understand. We understand. We just don't "BLEEPING" get it!"

I truly and honestly try not to out and out hate people. It's bad karma, among a dozen other things. But as I read more and more about people dying needlessly in this war he lied us into and all of the domestic Cluster Effs that are happening, I'm having more and more trouble staying on my happy side of the fence.

I just don't bleeping get it.

Back to the Grind

I won't bore anyone with the trials and tribulations of returning back to work after so long in the beautiful Maine woods. Almost everyone knows what it's like to return to an overflowing inbox and a mile-long task list.

Of course, not everyone works for Napolean.

Suffice to say, his newest kick is to make sure that every single thing I write for this company doesn't use a "z" (read "zed") so as to not offend our European and Australia/New Zealand colleagues. Optimize? Forget it. Analyze? No way. Standardize? Not on your life.

I tend to think that there comes a time when the awkwardness of phrasing that must be employed to avoid the use of the zed outweighs the need for universality of spelling. But, hey, I'm no CMO.

At least yesterday, I got a little bright spot in my life. Witness this view from the parking lot.