Press stuff

Edith Ann, a sanctuary-seeker from the Advocate blogmess, has a quote today from A. J. Liebling: “People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.” For years after WWII, Liebling had a column called 'The Wayward Pressman' in the New Yorker mag. Nothing like that around today that I know of. Liebling was, for my money, the most entertaining journalist in the country in the middle third of the 20th Century. Contemplate this great lick, the opening lines from his biography of Louisiana politician Earl Long: 'Southern political personalities, like sweet corn, travel badly. They lose flavor with every hundred yards away from the patch. By the time they reach New York, they are like Golden Bantam that has been trucked up from Texas – stale and unprofitable. …' Know anybody writing today that has better chops that that? Today is Liebling's birthday … bow your head in a moment's homage to an ace writer.