Tell him to get his fat ass

  Tell him to get his fat ass off the sofa 

  It doesn't work that well as a headline for global news.  I feel for the journalists that have to report what our presidents say.  Can't make it up, and can't interpret as journalists, so yeah, it's a challenge.

  But it's also why journalism has historically been a type of institution where there is process and discussion about selection and presentation of information.  And why there are different kinds of journalistic writing.

  Inking the sounds of a car race back in the days of early "new journalism" was shocking and didn't neatly fit into the usual categories of how people thought about truth writing....

  I know in our family our great white father was when we were growing up like maybe 74% Homer Simpson style or personality-wise and 26% dressed in suit and tie business-person.  We voted and suggested that Mom be our spokesperson.  Even she had her fed-up moments but we didn't put those kinds of quips in a newspaper.

  I think one of my Dad's most famous gaffs was when we went on a historical trip and he pulled into town driving that old station wagon and asked the traffic cop, "Where is the rock and the boat?" I was further shocked when Plymouth Rock was covered in grafitti.  Of course my reverent-of-colonial-past sensibilities were offended.

  The world was changing fast and hard by the 1970's but our parents did an extraordinary job of letting children be children.  That in and of itself was "new world".  Even that was arguable especially to the preceding generation who were born right into earning every penny and fighting for every iota of freedom to be an individual.