Speak Out 9/12/07

By R. Joe Sullivan

The beef

WHAT'S THIS? Speak Out with a byline? I thought Speak Out was supposed to be anonymous. When did you change the rules? And why didn't you let us know? This is typical of the Southeast Missourian.

Knickers in a knot

OK. CALM down. This may look like Speak Out, but it's not. This is a column that resembles Speak Out, because I know how important the pithy, witty, catty comments and thank-yous for lost purses are to so many of you. There's a reason today's Speak Out is being written by me and not by you. And believe you me, I'd much rather you had written today's Speak Out.

Swearing at God

THERE ARE, I swear to God, days when I wish Speak Out had never been invented. Here's why: Speak Out doesn't just happen. First, there's all the work you do calling the Speak Out hot line or e-mailing or snail-mailing your comments. All those comments have to be put into a computer file for editing. After that process, headlines are written, the spelling is checked and Speak Out is ready for the world of print. All that is a lot of work. We're not talking minutes here. We're talking an hour or more every day -- more on Mondays, since all the Speak Out comments from the weekend are piled on. So when the computer gobbles up all the work you've done and won't spit it out, we have a mess. That's what happened Monday, which is the same day this column is being written. If I sound a teensy bit testy, there's a good reason.

Dog ate my homework

THERE ARE, I swear to God, days when I wish computers had never been invented. We could have spent those billions of hours creating a comfortable pillow or an easy-open lid that's really easy to open. And we wouldn't have spam. When you want to contemplate heaven, think about no spam. Euphoric, huh? So the fact that you are reading made-up Speak Out today has to do with a computer glitch, which I know sounds an awful lot like "My dog ate my homework." Believe what you want. You do anyway. But this was a computer snafu.

Same as Macedonia

COMPUTERS, OF course, are something we can't live without in First World countries. Without computers, electricity, flat-screen plasma TVs, drive-through windows, automatic transmissions, Botox, no-trans-fat snacks with more than 1,000 calories and deep-fried food served on a stick, we would be no better off than Macedonia, which, by the way, ran a quarter-page ad in Monday's Wall Street Journal offering attractive investment incentives. There goes Macedonia's GNP.

Honesty is best policy

AT SOME point, after all those Speak Out Comments had been compiled and edited Monday, they poofed into thin air. Thanks to the earnest efforts of Brad and Renda (people who actually know something about computers), I was able to (a) confirm my worst fears and (b) partially recover some of the missing comments, which will be recompiled and re-edited and, if God has taken pity on me and you for fear of having to endure another one of these made-up columns, re-presented to comment-starved Speak Out addicts starting Thursday. You are not reading them today because, quite frankly, after the hours lost dealing with vaporized Speak Out on Monday, it was easier to write this mish-mash than to give you the real stuff. You have to admit, I'm honest.

Thanks, readers

NOW YOU know everything about the Day the Lights Went Out in Speak Out Land. Thanks for your patience. The real Speak Out will return.