WILL

(there is now a piece on Wednesdays as well as Saturdays on the left side under BLOGS. Please read
them both. Your comments will be greatly appreciated.)



George F. Will, the 73 year old 1977 Pulitzer Prize winner (when he was 36) and columnist for a multitude of ‘big time’ newspapers all across the country (mainly the WASHINGTON POST) recently lost the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH because of an alleged ‘rape slur’ his column contained.

Whether it did or not is an unanswered question; the entire matter is one of uncertain roots, as I have rarely read many words George Will has written — unless a newspaper containing his scribbling was left on a seat in an airline terminal in NYC while I was hoping to be home in time for dinner.

I did once read a column he had written after ha and his first wife had divorced (after twenty-two years of marriage and he took up with his second wife with whom he had one child); his first wife had had three children, the last of whom was born with Down ’s syndrome. That may account for the one column I have read:to have a child with a deformity such as that would devastate me beyond the point of no return!

Anyway, the yarn on the bedroom TV unfolded as I sat at the foot of my bed the other morning, drying from the shower my wife had given me and getting dressed (I have PLS, Primary Lateral Sclerosis). The set was tuned to CNN (so I wouldn’t miss anything important, I imagine), and the story was told by a reporter whose name I did not catch as he interviewed the editor of the ST. LOUIS POST- DISPATCH (whose name I likewise did not catch, either).

Apparently, the editor decided the readership of his rag would be highly offended by the comments of George Will (the editor ‘apologized’ for having published them) — comments that had to be published and read first in order to be frowned upon by the offended readership.

There was something about this story that did not sit well with me. First of all, the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH is not, to my pedestrian way of thinking, a major newspaper; secondly, I have to believe the people of Missouri deserve better than a CNN reporter and a newspaper editor taking it upon themselves to act as censors.

What did the column say? I have no idee. Was it a ‘rape incident’ comment? I have no idees, neither, in that department.

Do I care?


Copyright©2014,by Robert A. Mills