Repeated grumps

Readers know that I am no friend of the stew of verbal shorthand and intellectual laziness that infects most America media. Witness my losing battle against the term "NOR-easter." My vexation du jour is bullet. Here is an example of the potential of media to educate, a potential which is consistently disregarded. A bullet, by itself, is just a lump of metal or metals. But spread the word? Lord no.

I think the answer to both of these irritations is to return to the days when reporters were paid by the line instead of the meme. How easy then it would be to get them to say or write "cartridge" if that were the case. Likewise, we could expect the name of that there storm to get its "th" back.

Speaking of things missing. Either the coverage of New York's strict new gun control law seems to fall short, or the law itself has. Is it true that mental health practitioners must report any statement by a patient that involves gun violence? We're left to ask, well, suppose the patient threatens to set off a bomb? Or to drive a car down a crowded sidewalk? Or to hijack an airplane and fly it into a building? Is it OK not to report those? If true, don't doubt for a minute that psychiatric professionals, who don't want to cooperate with disclosure, will leap on such exceptions to excuse their actions.

If my speculations are unfounded, then why the fuck has no one reported the whole story?  It's the "noreaster" mentality, or absence of mentality. Nobody cares about anything but gun control, so why bother with all the facts?

As usual, I'll have to go scratch it out for myself.