THE EDITOR; BANE TO WRITERS
by Jericho Van Orman

Seasoned readers of Our newsletter, PressPoints, will be aware of how earnestly we avoid even the slightest mention of anything topical. It isn't pusillanimity but simple common sense. Writing a week ahead of publication, how could I possibly advise you to buy any money making stocks when, for all I know, the shares might have come down a tad in value before you can act on my advice?

My editing colleague here on the staff, at the insistence of my editor, always has the last read to clear the column before it is actually printed. Known to some as Dr. Cordiality, he is known to the staff here as Dr. Punctilio for the zeal with which he slashes the least hint of breaking news. His list of forbidden words is immense: Kabul, Taliban, Al Quaeda (and if you must mention him, spell out the first name: Alfred!), Osama bin Ladin (no ethnic foods! -- besides, Julia Child's recipe for this dish is in all her books), Kenneth Lay (his potato chip is not bad, but avoid anyone who takes the Fifth)....

I warned Dr. Punctilio in advance that that this month's article was going to start off with Diogenes, but the word was hardly out of my mouth when he objected equally warning me that I was to write nothing about cloning! Or genes of any kind! Diogenes, I explained (and he hates it when I explain) was a Greek philosopher (412-323 BC) who lived in a tub and spent his daylight hours searching, with a lantern, for an honest man.

"And did he find him?"

"No," I said, "but Alexander the Great, the George W. Bush of the ancient world, found Diogenes, and asked what he could do for him. ' Step out of my sunlight' said the Cynic." Diogenes was a Cynic, you see. "My kind of guy," said I.

"Use it!" Dr. Punctilio said.

So, with his permission, I will. Imagine the quest of Diogenes today trying to find an honest person. I can't recall a time when this might have been a more ludicrously quixotic task. One of the ironclad rules of journalism is "When it bleeds, it leads." An earthquake tops a flower show anytime. A fifteen-car pileup tops a mere skid into a lamppost any day. The lamp of Diogenes would find very few honest men but how many, alas, would it expose like the vendible French judge at the Olympics and the Catholic priests who used their office for sexual predation on boys.

There is the incredible story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for 15 February. It involves, as you might expect, another corrupt CEO, that of Chubb, a man named Dean O'Hare.

"What! He violated the office boy," exclaimed Dr. Punctilio not without a certain lurid interest.

"No, he annoyed his neighbors in Far Hills, N.J., with his leaf blower."

"Now we are getting somewhere," said he, his blue edit pen poised in mid-air. "It's time this column came back to earth."

"Earth is where it is," said I, "for this man, one of the most powerful leaders of world capitalism, is driving his neighbors mad by the simplest of means, a leaf blower. He sits in the open trunk of his car (driven by his wife) whilst blowing the leaves from the immense drive leading to his mansion. He does this, say the neighbors, at odd hours."

"What is odd in Far Hills is anyone's guess," said he of the mighty edit pen. "A New York photographer," I recalled, "once moved to Princeton for the tranquility, heard the din of leaf blowers, and moved back to Manhattan for her sanity."

"No names!" Dr. Punctilio screamed. "She being still alive, I would have to quash your whole column!"