June 24, 2003

Breslin Threatens to Make World Safe from Purple Prose

jimmybreslin2.jpg

In an unusually intense blast of carping, even for him, Jimmy Breslin threatened a couple of days ago to "leave" the news business.

Well not exactly. More accurately, Breslin said that because of The Terror that the current Fascist US government is inspiring from sea to shining sea, he was "thinking that it could be time for me to begin thinking about leaving this news business. It is not mine anymore."

Thinking about thinking that it could be... Sigh. No joy here soon. No possibility of a large, restful white space standing in for Breslin's sentimental screeds in my local paper. Well, I guess everyday can't be sunshine.

Still, it is nice to know that Breslin is 'thinking about beginning thinking.' Such is the first step to wisdom.

The cause of Breslin's maudlin despair is that 1) The government is bad because

it doesn't see things his way about the arrest and detention of various people, and 2) the news business "is not mine anymore." Why? Because in Breslin's august opinion the biz, as a monolithic body, "reported the following matter with no anger or effort to do anything other than serve as stenographers for the government." (Translation: Not enough peole saw fit to jump on his bandwagon.)

Now there may be an outrage here that spells the death of constitutional liberty,
or there may be, as is often the case with Breslin's signature sob-stories, less than meets the eye. Either way it doesn't rise to the level of tossing your pen down and never writing again in a "rit of fealous jage." Unfortunately.

"[T]hinking that it could be time for me to begin thinking about leaving this news business. It is not mine anymore...."

Dear Mr. Breslin,

I am "thinking that it could be time for me to begin thinking" that over-the-top paranoia is no longer the sole province of those deemed either a danger to others or themselves. In the past couple of years, this dreaded affliction has reached epidemic proportions among those I tend to think of as "the intellectually insane."

An affliction that goes along with this paranoia is the bizarre delusion that one was once the sole owner of the news business.

One would think that a man of your experience would have a better grasp of the current realities of the news business and the vast proliferation of outlets for all views that has exploded across the Infosphere in the last few years. One would think that, but one would be wrong.

Should you choose to make good on your threat (One that brings to mind Robert Altman's promise to move to France a few years ago.), all a thoughtful person can say in response is: "Door. Ass. Bang."


Pointer via Chris Lydon

Posted by Van der Leun at June 24, 2003 12:04 AM
Bookmark and Share