Alrighty, I think I'm getting the hang of this, sort of.
So, concerning the title of this weblog, Sweetness and Light. At some point during the past few years, when setting up my Outlook files at work, and being slightly paranoid about IT and managerial snooping, I came up with this as a code for my personal emails, shortened to S&L. Don't ask me how this phrase got in my head, how long it was knocking around in there, but there you go: at every job since then, I always have my S&L folder.
In any event, don't think of it as a descriptive but rather a proscriptive - you know, like 'Wives be obedient to your husbands' kind of deal. Paul wasn't describing how women were, he was trying to convince them how to be - which was pretty obnoxious of him, considering he spent most of his time sponging off all the rich women who let him crash at their houses during his touring. But that's another story.
This morning I read an editorial in the Boston Globe online, written by the ombudsperson, in which she noted that many of the complaints she fields are due to readers confusing editorials with news reports. She then goes on to do a basic overview of the differences between the two. It was fine, straightforward - but she didn't address the other reason why readers would get confused: because so many journalists confuse the two!
And just to prove my point, on the way home I read an irritating article in The Improper Bostonian (okay, yes it's a freebie 'cool things to do in Boston' type of deal at its core, but it really strives to be a free, younger Boston magazine-let). The article, ostensibly about 'what women competing in traditionally male sports really want', starts with "Are you a feminist?" (in bold color, font size twice of the text, to boot), addressed by the (male) author to a rugby player.
Okay, stop the bloody hell RIGHT there, mister! This is the first thing out of your mouth in your interview with this woman? An interview that you probably arranged by saying 'oh, we really want to talk to women in some of the lesser-known sports, give them a chance to share what about the sport they love, that kind of thing', some sort of sandbagging blather like that. Then you get the tape rolling and blammo! You use the f word right off the bat?
He says : "the question makes (her) uncomfortable. Normally playful, outgoing and chatty, she is now momentarily silent, contemplating her sociopolitical views. What she would probably want to say is, "I'm a rugby player," and leave it at that.
Nimrod, she wasn't contemplating her sociopolitical views, she was kicking herself for falling for this interview idea, trying to read you to figure out what your agenda was, then deciding to err on the side of caution. What she probably REALLY wanted to say was "If I say yes, is your follow-up question gonna be 'well, are you a lesbian?'"
(rant alert, rant alert - oh no, too late! - danger, danger)
This author should have been forced to cough up his sociopolitical views, his definition of feminist, and his opinion of women in sports. A mandatory sidebar to the article. Boxed. Shaded. With circles and arrows, and a 'READ THIS' header.
This just bugs the bejeezus out of me. Yes, I know it was not a Globe Spotlight item, I should expect this kind of thing from a periodical of any kind. It's not that I want to turn off my hermeneutics of suspicion whenever I read, I just wish there was still a journalistic standard out there as the rule, and not the exception. I expect it in TV, and I can identify it more easily on TV: what did that edit cut out? what isn't she saying? The print media is more difficult to get under - plus, it becomes part of the historical record more easily, so garbage in stays garbage in. Okay, rant over, you can all move along now...
