Road Apples by Tim Sanders
June 7, 2010

An honest journalist answers his critics
Share |

Last week’s column about theological disputes elicited a few questions from readers. Rather than quote each and every query verbatim, I will attempt to answer them in the popular Q and A format.


Q: Early in last week’s column you said you had only told one solitary lie in your entire life, and that was when you were a youngster. Do you really expect anyone to believe that?

A: Yes. If I hadn’t expected anyone to believe it, I would have told an altogether different story. I was trying to validate my journalistic credentials.


Q: Then why, in a column you wrote several years ago, did you state that you were an inveterate liar because you were a journalist, and lying was part of a journalist’s job description?

A: When I wrote that, I was ... I was lying. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Come to think of it, that was the single, solitary, youthful lie I was talking about last week.


Q: You certainly were no youngster back then. As I remember it, you even had the same photo above your columns that is there today.

A: That photo is a hoax. The editor thought it would be humorous to put the photo of a really goofy looking, elderly guy with a vacant stare and a stupid grin above my columns. That is a photo of someone in his late 50s or early 60s. If I’m not mistaken, he was a carnival barker, and the editor gave him a couple of bucks and a pint of gin to pose for the shot. I am much better looking and far younger than that old goat.


Q: In last week's column you used the term “misspoke.” I’ve heard a lot of politicians use that same term lately. Just what is the difference, if any, between “misspoke” and “lied?”

A: That’s easy. In the English language, “Misspoke” is always preceded by the first person singular pronoun “I,” while “lied” is always preceded by the third person singular pronoun “he.” Except when women or large, unruly crowds carrying signs are involved. For example:


LIED: “He’s a dirty, lowdown scoundrel, and he purposefully LIED when he said he had no earthly idea how that bag full of cash wound up in his freezer.”

MISSPOKE: “I was mourning the recent death of my dear, departed ex-mother-in-law, and heavily medicated ... and also in a hurry to get to church, which I attend regularly ... when I inadvertently MISSPOKE and said I had no earthly idea how that bag full of cash wound up in my freezer. I seem to remember now that I mistakenly put it there on the very same evening that I, through no fault of my own, wild with grief, tried to slip four bags of prime pork ribs into the night deposit slot at my bank. I have no further comments at this time.”


Q: I checked that column carefully, and by my count you managed to offend the Pentecostals, the Methodists, the Church of Christ folks, the Catholics, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Baptists. After a week or so to think it over, do you regret that?

A: Yes, but it wasn’t my fault. I ran out of room. I also had an absolutely true story about an Episcopalian and an emu, another one about a Mormon, a squirrel, and a broken bicycle chain, and a third about a wrestling match between the late L. Ron Hubbard and a tiny space alien who looked exactly like Tom Cruise, right down to the antennae. I hated leaving anybody out, and would have included them, and possibly some true stories about Mennonites and Unitarians, too, but newspaper space is limited.


Q: True stories? Like your character Erwin’s theory about Lot’s wife turning into a burning pillar of fire, illuminating the night skies so the Israelites could see her from afar and follow her into the Land of Canaan? Were you drunk or something when you wrote that?

A: I resent the implication. I am a journalist, and I only report what my sources tell me. I have no control over the accuracy of their statements. And by the way, I think I showed remarkable restraint in not mentioning Erwin’s contention that the Israelites almost starved in the desert because Moses had cast their bread upon the waters when they crossed the Red Sea. Nor did I mention his theory that Jezebel was hung atop the Leaning Tower of Babel to be rung only in case of a Great Flood. And did I describe how he thought that nobody had the slightest idea how many commandments there were until Moses wrote the Book of Numbers and taught the Israelites how to count? No, I did not. Erwin also believed that Philip baptized the Ethiopian Unicorn on the Road to Morocco, but if I’d mentioned any of those details, I’m sure you would have accused me of “misspeaking.” I don’t make this stuff up, I just report the facts.


And my favorite question went something like this:


Q: If that column had any funny parts in it, why didn’t I see no LOLs anywhere?

A: I hate to admit it, but I was out of acronyms. My wife and I had already squandered our entire monthly allotment of LOLs and ROTFLOLs on Facebook, either telling our friends what we thought was funny, or indicating when they were supposed to laugh. I did manage to find an old BLT in my desk drawer, but I couldn’t make it fit anywhere, so I donated it to a local church group who’s compiling a cookbook.


I believe that covers almost all the questions about last week’s column. They are legitimate questions, and I answered each one with all the journalistic integrity I could muster.