I was talked into binge-watching a series of shows on cable TV, featuring totally dysfunctional — totally nuts — characters. The shows were weirdly entertaining.
A mother who’s given birth to three ethnically-diverse children, through her liaisons with three ethnically diverse partners, keeps trying, and failing, to make money. Even to the point of filming a reality show about her family, and rejoicing when her online production gets a few ‘likes,’ every now and then.
A chef, who’s in a strained relationship with her husband, who’s French, and she is, too, but not as French — attitude-wise — as her overbearing husband, is falling into a relationship with a chef from — I think — a South American country. They’ve both written cookbooks, and they’re both at a book-signing event at a bookstore. He requests her autograph on the cookbook she’s authored, and starts buttering her up, a bit.
Their somewhat formal conversation becomes increasingly casual, with subtle hints of flirtation blended in, and she winds up at his place, where he cooks up a tasty meal for her.
Other characters, trying to find themselves, are caught up in crazy life experiences. There’s the mother of a young child — the child’s having gender issues — and the mother, apparently, has made a ton of money in some kind of business — we’re guessing high tech — and sometime, in the past, the mom may have been some sort of secret agent… but then her husband is being investigated for something, apparently. And whatever that may be, could be awfully serious. And she’s, by the way, from a middle eastern country… so, as they say, the plot thickens.
There’s an au pair who’s gotten pregnant, and who’s feeling under the weather, most of the time, being waited on, hand and foot, by the family she’s supposed to be helping.
It’s kind of amusingly whacky, this TV series we’re watching.
Which brings me to what I was, first, planning to talk about, in this article; that old adage about the pen being mightier than the sword.
You don’t hear that as much, these days, probably because — even though people are still using pens — we’re in the age of PCs, and laptops, and smartphones, that have keyboards that writers are now writing on, mostly.
That old adage, written in 1839 by the English author, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, doesn’t sound nearly the same — if you say ‘The keyboard is mightier than the sword’, instead of ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’
So, even in this day and age, we’ve got to keep ‘pen’ in the adage. And in these whacky, sometimes less than amusing moments in time, we sure can use as many pens, as possible.
In articles and commentary about the workforce housing crisis, Daily Post Editor Bill Hudson, and others, like the founder and president of Strong Towns, Charles Marohn, for example, are shining the light on increasingly serious shortages of affordable housing, in communities, almost everywhere, including Pagosa Springs and Archuleta County.
There was a disturbing headline — “What Happens When Airbnb Swallows Your Neighborhood” — in Slate magazine, just recently. The journalist who wrote the story, Mary Wilson, (writing on a keyboard, most likely, rather than using a pen,) shined a light on short-term rentals exacerbating the affordable housing situation, just as Mr. Hudson and Mr. Marohn, (probably writing on their keyboards,) have been doing.
When there are crises, it’s good having people with keyboards — and sometimes, maybe, pens — throwing what’s possible at them. Shining lights and discussing possible solutions.
Because that 1839 adage, in the Free Dictionary, means that “strong, eloquent, or well-crafted speech or writing is more influential on a greater number of people,” than other things, like “force” and “violence,” as the author of the adage noted, all those years ago.
Mightier pens…
That’s encouraging!
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.