Page 7 - Gentle Reader News Today

"I didn't get a harrumph out of that guy."

What it was, was football.

Ooh-wee. We'd bet not many people expected these kinds of TV commercials and radio spots in the Arkansas U.S. Senate primary this year. After all, this is a red state with a senior GOP senator who hasn't been in trouble, of any kind, that we can remember.

Forgive us, Gentle Reader, for we base this editorial on what was leaked this past week out of the offices of the United States Supreme Court.

"Designated Roth contributions: Under section 402A, a participant in a section 401(k) plan, under a 403(b) salary reduction agreement, or in a governmental 457(b) plan that includes a qualified Roth contribution program, may elect to make designated Roth contributions to the plan or program in lieu of elective deferrals. Designated Roth contributions are subject to federal income tax withholding and social security and Medicare taxes (and railroad retirement taxes, if applicable) and must b...

Call this a form of focusing our minds. Because we're not sure if Gentle Reader has heard these things before. And because we need to write them down to really believe some of them.

I don’t read a lot of poetry. Not because I don’t enjoy it, but because poetry is not…

It seems some lawmakers in this state have been trying to get abortion on the agenda for this fiscal session of the General Assembly. Gentle Reader needn't wonder why. Election managers, and their candidates, need headlines to put in commercials. There will be elections in the fall. And primaries come early summer.

Paul Greenberg once advised his editorial writers to allow letter writers the last word. If we responded to every letter, we'd never do anything else. So just let it be . . . .

Imagine an editorial in an American newspaper getting so much pushback. Oh, for the days of Greeley or Mencken or McCormick or Greenberg--that is, the long-ago days--of editorial writing. When an editorial could say something without having to pass it through seven or eight (or more) editorial board members, all the better to water it down. Some of us still believe the editorial board was invented to keep newspaper publishers out of the line-of-fire from readers. "Well," publishers can...