Refer Madness

Five columns a week is a lot of writing for me and a lot of reading for you, especially considering that this is not my only blog. Besides, there's a lot of good stuff out there that I don't need to write because somebody else already did. So we're introducing what we hope will be a weekly feature: Refer Madness, in which we send you off to other exotic outposts in the Blogosphere to read what's been written and posted on other walls.

Since one purpose of this site is to let you in on how news is cultivated, harvested, processed, packaged, marketed, and distributed, we're throwing in another insider term: refer, in this case with the emphasis on the first syllable, as in RE-fer. Journalists don't always deliberately misspell words when using them as jargon (like "lede" or "graf"); sometimes we just mispronounce them. That's the case with a refer, or a headline, blurb, photo or graphic on the front of a magazine, newspaper, or a newspaper section front, referring the reader to the story somewhere inside. In a news "budget" meeting, in which editors sort through the day's stories and decide what gets published and where, you'll sometimes hear an editor say, "We can refer that," meaning that the story has a high enough priority to get a headline on the front, but not quite high enough to land there itself. So it's both a noun and a verb. Questions? Post 'em in the comments field for this post. Now on with the first edition of Second-Day Lede's Refer Madness:

Apocalypse November!: South Knox Bubba, point man of the legendary Rocky Top Brigade, has outdone himself and everybody else in the Blogosphere today with a dramatic and hilarious piece of political commentary. Bubba, the entire editorial staff of Second-Day Lede (that'd be me) is giving you a standing ovation. Bra-VO and YEE-ha!

Exploding Twenties: The most linked-to news item in the Blogosphere is a disconcerting one, and it's sorta kinda related to yesterday's post here about sci-fi genius Philip K. Dick's fictional solution to the problem of counterfeiting. I don't know if it's true (can't spare the Twenties to find out), but it's got some interesting photos. Speaking of Philip K. Dick, I included a link to the official Philip K. Dick site yesterday, and this morning I went back to check it out in more detail. Good news: even though Dick died in 1982, he's got a new book coming out March 9, it's all his writing and never before published in its entirety. Lies, Inc. is an expanded version of The Unteleported Man. I recommend the latter, and look forward to reading the former. Here they are (more refers below):





This next one is also a second-day lede on yesterday's post: here's a firsthand account from a computer science professor who served as an election judge on Super Tuesday, and his assessment of e-voting.

Finally, a refer not to a single post but to a whole category of news coverage. Here's today's Google News search on the term "gay marriage." What you find there will change as the news changes.

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