Jesse Helms Epitaph

While my 28.8k dial-up AOL childhood scars usually make me shun America Online like the Black Death, this AOL News feature obituary made my heart sing a little.

The controversial Senator Jesse Helms died this Fourth of July, and blogger Ken Layne wrote an amazing obit piece. I have practiced writing them in college, but the examples never read like this:

Jesse Helms died today, 25 years too late, but the stench of his rotten career will always linger in the Senate, and over the South.

He was a hero to bigots and the cigarette corporations, a menace to the poor and downtrodden, and a mean little troll whose heart was so wrecked by wickedness that doctors had to patch it up with coronary valves from a pig.

It was a far better summary of the man's life than I heard on NPR, which featured an infuriating apologist in lieu of worthy journalism.

Perverse and Often Baffling

I was listening to NPR on my way home tonight*, and I caught the end of an amusing series of anecdotes by Malcolm Gladwell about his beginning days as a journalist for the Washington Post. You might get a kick out of listening to its online rebroadcast on This American Life. My favorite part was his contest with his co-worker to use the phrase "raises new and troubling questions" in their articles as many times as possible.

The episode's audio podcast can be found here.

Just click on the link "Full Episode" below the title graphic, and skip ahead to 45:25. The segment runs for 14 minutes.

Hope you enjoy it. If you are interested, the beginning of the episode features the humorous writing room of The Onion, which was also quite amusing.

*Before writing this post, I sent this as an e-mail over to my reporting professors at the University - only to realize that I had begun the e-mail "I was listening to NPR on my home tonight," and came across either as a a complete idiot or a bizarre roof-dwelling radio fan. How embarrassing.