Shoes that fit

A confession — or maybe it’s just to purge eight years of anger.

So many times I’ve wanted to hurl my own shoes — or outrage — at George W. Bush.

I have wanted to score a direct, symbolic hit, to shatter his privileged, preppy, Texas, self-righteous, Born-Again, cynical shell.

To protect us — both of us — I have prayed to the powers, "Don’t allow me in the same room with this man!" I fear what I would do. How would I contain my dark disdain for him?

How would I stifle my rage?

I doubt I would hurl mere shoes. I would choose heavy, deep-treaded, metal-toed, big-bore hiking boots. Clod-hoppers.

Danners from Oregon.

After Egyptian TV reporter Muntader al-Zaidi threw his shoes and unleashed his tirade, I wondered what would I yell as I hurled my own.

“Here’s for your lies!” I’d scream. “Take this for your hypocrisy, ignorance, incompetence, callousness, smugness, cronyism, cynicism, contempt and arrogance. Here's for the torture, the deaths, the destruction of the planet, the inhumanity.

Take this for Rumsfeld and Cheney. Take this for your collective evil!”

Don't get me wrong. I believe there is “that of God” in everyone. I really do. I believe in non-violence. I believe in these things, but when it comes to George W. Bush, I fear my beliefs would fail me; that I would fail my beliefs. I fear that my own darkness would prevail. That my boots would become unlaced.

No, the shoes thrown in Baghdad fit me all too well.

Like Muntader al-Zaidi, I wear size 10.

Platinum Rule meets The Curse of Knowledge

One of the most difficult things for journalists to do is escape "The Curse of Knowledge.” The concept is discussed in the book “Made to Stick,” which is one of the reasons I’m requiring the book in my media writing course this term.

The knowledge curse is that as a knowledgeable reporter you are often blind to your reader’s lack of knowledge. Excuse me for sounding a little like Donald Rumsfeldt*, but a reporter's awareness of the reader’s ignorance is essential to writing an understandable story.

“Made to Stick” authors Chip and Dan Heath also discuss the need for simplicity in order to make ideas stick. They use proverbs, such as The Golden Rule, as examples of sticky communication.

But, as it turns out, the Golden Rule suffers from its own twisted Curse of Knowledge. We know what we want others ”to do unto us, “ but that may be a useless guide when it comes to "doing unto" others.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” fails to capture the intended meaning. What the proverb really means has come to be called the “Platinum Rule”: “Do unto others as they would have you do unto them.”

My wife likes to cite the Platinum Rule when, following the Golden Rule, I give her socket wrench sets or books such as “The Idiot’s Guide to Motor Scooters” or “Basic Typewriter Repair.”

The Curse of Knowledge and the Golden Rule have much in common. The Golden Rule’s assumption that you, the gift recipient, will want what I, the giver, wants bears a close resemblance to the writer's assumption that you, dear reader, know what I, the writer, knows.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Chip and Dan, take note: The Golden Rule may be simple, but it has been hexed by “the Curse of Knowledge.”

*If ever anyone was cursed with and befuddled by knowledge, it was Secretary of Defence Rumsfeldt. Here is his famous dissertation on the subject: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Revisiting Strunk and White

Re-reading “The Elements of Style” is like visiting with an old friend after a long, long absence.

All the endearing qualities, all the old bonds, come rushing back.

And, with the passage of the years, there’s so much to talk about with authors William Strunk and E.B. White. So much to be reminded of. That includes their assurance that it’s all right to end a sentence with a preposition — especially if it saves you from writing, “So much of which to be reminded.”

The book reminded me of how much I’ve wanted to share with kindred spirits my revulsion for the ubiquitous “robust.” Whom better than Strunk and White?

If there was ever a “Bush-ite” word, it is “robust.” It almost comes branded with the black mark of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. The word is all posture and no substance. “Mission Accomplished” was, and is, “robust.”

What kind of bust has Iraq been? A RO-BUST!

So it was that Strunk and White singled out “thrust,” which displays its own phoney muscle-flexing. To quote from page 61 of the third edition: “This showy noun, suggestive of power, hinting of sex, is the darling of executives, politicos and speech writers. Use it sparingly. Save it for specific applications.”

Exactly, and likewise with “robust.”

“The Elements of Style” is one gem after another.

One of my favorite passages explains how Lincoln got away with “Four score and seven years ago.”

I mean, REALLY! Talk about over-written.

And yet he did it, and White in the book’s concluding section, titled “An Approach to Style,” nails down why.

Noting that Lincoln was “flirting with disaster” when he wrote the phrase, White continues:

The president could have got into his sentence with plain “eighty-seven” — a saving of two words and less of a strain on the listeners’ powers of multiplication. But Lincoln’s ear must have told him to go ahead with four score and seven. By doing so, he achieved cadence while skirting the edge of fanciness. Suppose he had blundered over the line and written, “In the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and seventy-six.” His speech would have sustained a heavy blow. Or suppose he had settled on “eighty-seven.” In that case he would have got into his introductory sentence too quickly; the timing would have been bad.”

Lincoln’s choice of a beginning ensured that, contrary to what he said that day, we will long remember his short speech at the hallowed Gettysburg battleground.

Strunk and White’s well-chosen words have the same effect. We will long remember “The Elements of Style.”