Of course I should be trying to remain neutral about all of this. That's what we, as journalists, always try to do. Until, that is, the moment arrives when in good conscience, we cannot avoid taking a stand.
And this is that moment. One of JFK's favorite quotes comes to mind: "The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality."
The saying is sometimes ascribed to Dante; it may simply be apocryphal. Whenever a quotation like that comes to light, I like to think of it as received wisdom from ages past.
Most such pearls of wisdom come via our oral traditions, since writing covers only a portion of our time here on earth.
And when it comes to oral memory, I do have my own peculiar twist.
Where I grew up, the public schools placed kids into tracks, one of which was College Prep, and that's where I was tagged. My main goal in school at that time was simply to escape notice as much as possible. I rarely spoke out in class, hated when I had to give speeches, and kept a close watch on the clock for closing time.
For their non-academic classes, the girls were all sent to Home Economics while we went to Wood Shop. No exceptions. But working with wood didn't catch on with me; I bungled whatever candlestick or coaster we were expected to be able to create and probably flunked as a result.
Luckily, Shop didn't count toward your GPA, so it didn't prevent me from prepping for college.
Honestly, the main thing I remember about high school is how much my mind wandered; I rarely tuned into the formal proceedings because my brain was always drifting far, far away.
In retrospect, there were a few practical skills it might have been nice to learn, like (1) how to type and (2) how to take readable notes. But I didn't learn either one.
And I can't to this day. How, you may fairly ask, did I ever succeed as a journalist?
It's a good question, because I never used a tape recorder during interviews, either. My best guess is that I developed a very good memory for what people say and how they say it. Call it my own oral tradition.
To this day, if you call me up and tell me, say, six things about your current life; in a followup conversation a week later the odds are I'll be able to repeat those six items to you without hesitation. I must have been so traumatized by the responsibility to get things right as a young reporter that I developed this odd skill as a career survival mechanism.
Or maybe I learned it as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Afghanistan, where no one could write, and history was passed down orally generation to generation.
Anyway, when today's professional reporters interview you, they often will do a soundcheck part way through, just to make sure their recording device is working properly. If it isn't they have to start over again. (BTW I don't know how to operate a recording device properly. I have issues with buttons.)
One time recently when I was the subject of an audio interview, the device failed to record my words. I surprised the interviewer by simply repeating them word-for-word the second time. She looked at me with a startled expression, one I've long become accustomed to -- that I must be some kind of freak.
It is oddly ironic, however, that I never learned to type or take shorthand, because my father could do both expertly, and unlike me he grew up on a farm. In fact, he was one of the U.S. military's stenographers taking notes at the Nuremberg War Tribunal.
But I never was much good at learning things from my Dad, with the exception of how shockingly horrible the Holocaust had been to a boy who grew up on a farm outside London, Ontario.
Plus my Dad was really good working with wood. We have his candlesticks everywhere in the family.
What my kids will inherit from me, besides those candlesticks, are words. Hundreds of thousands of words.
Security sources in Pakistan and Afghanistan told Arab News that Zawahiri was dead, possibly succumbing to asthma following 'breathing issues'. (Mail Online)