EM can’t make it all the way through:
I enjoy your writings. It is refreshing to have an apparently informed and literate commentator. I would like to make a suggestion. I have noted in your writing, there tends to be a flurry of gbblety-gook toward the end. As in this article, you write of second and fourth circuit imprint, blah, blah, blah.
I hate to admit. I completely lose interest and close the window. I am not advocating you dumb-down your writing. This flourish is just unnecessary and very unreadable. It would be nice to not have to reread to understand your close.
It’s true that most people aren’t familiar with neurosomatic circuit theory, but that expected lack of familiarity doesn’t justify leaving it out. What EM considers to be a flurry of nonsense is actually a summing up, in which I have neither the space nor the inclination to further explain the subject.
Of course, I have to admit that the entire topic today may well be gobbledygook, but it’s INTERESTING gobbledygook, which suffices to justify it. I assumed everyone else would have this week’s theme of Immigration is Bad pretty well covered.
DO concurs:
I saw EM’s comment on your 4/3 blog, and I have to agree. I am a 52-year-old, professional, college-educated lab manager for a tech company with an MBA, and more often than not I give up halfway through your column because I can’t figure out what you’re trying to say.
There’s a difference between “dumbing down” and being clear. You seem to take great pains to emphasize your intellect and education by peppering your writing with nearly incomprehensible, obscure terms. Your general position and topics are usually timely, interesting and relevant. I only wish I could enjoy them more fully.
Don’t be afraid to employ more “common” English. You have a great deal to say. More people will hear it if you speak our language.
To hear some folks tell it, you’d think I was sitting down with a thesaurus to write my columns. The truth is that most of the time I dash them off in 30 minutes on Saturday afternoon, and not only do I not spiff them up with a thesaurus, as the more perceptive of you have noted, I don’t even spell check them.
Today’s column was admittedly on the unusual side, but I’d just finished reading Prometheus Rising the night before, only a day after the lecture, and I was intrigued with the connections I’d discerned between the two. Since I had put off starting the column until Sunday afternoon, this was a case of WND getting stuck with either a) whatever happened to be on my mind, or, b) generic commentary on the news cycle.
In my post-syndication freedom, I have decided that there is no longer any reason to go with (b), so you can safely expect further strangeness to ensue any time I don’t have a specific column topic in mind. Which reminds me, some of you were worried and emailed me to ask me if I was out of favor with WND after Mr. Keyes was featured on the top of the page last week. The commentary editor emailed me this:
Keyes writes for us whenever the spirit moves him, though he used to be a regular feature on Mondays. But he does have a national following, so we promote him strongly when the opportunity arises.
Your writing is unpredictable, interesting, intelligent and cohesive, so why on earth would we want to drop you? Barring a major screw-up on your part — which I regard as highly unlikely — if one of our editors ever got a notion to let you go, you can be sure I would be fighting hard on your behalf to keep you. OK? And just so you know, I’ve argued to acquire, keep and drop a sizable number of our writers over the last five years and I seldom lose — I say that not to brag, but to reassure, since I know I can make a solid case on your behalf if the need arises. So tell your readers to relax.
After today’s column, I imagine the emphasis is likely on the “unpredictable”, but then, I get the feeling this particular editor would rather slit his wrists than edit 10 virtually identical columns on the topic du jour.