Going Forward

The next time you are having a conversation with someone and they ask themselves a question and then answer it, please ask them to stop. Ask them to stop being a part of the problem and become part of the solution. I'm also looking for the name and address of the savvy spin doctor who came came up with this technique; I have some words for him.

Have you noticed this trend over the last half dozen years or so? A reporter stands there with a mike and the interviewee asks and answers his own questions. Here's an example from one of the masters, Donald Rumsfeld:

Q: So you expect this will be the tipping point, then?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't know. Am I hopeful? Yes. Do I think there are more positive things taking place than negative things? You bet I do.

That is brilliant. I mean he knows that there are only two and a half minutes alloted to his interview and if he can ask his own questions, he can also control his answers and how long he takes to answer them. And he therefore controls all of the soundbites. I actually don't blame the spin doctor who came up with this. I really blame what passes for journalism. Edward R. Murrow would never let some hair-brained politician ask his own questions.

I'm resigned enough to know this is normal for politics, that this how they do what they do, but I am seeing this turn up in corporate communiques and local news and god-in-heaven, even stupid athletes are now incorporating this into their daily drivel. I keep a baseball bat by the TV for the day I hear Kelly Ogle work this into 'My Two Cents'. I'm also hearing it in conversations. So please, people, stop this before it's too late.

Once this scourge has ended, I can then start on the newest strain of public vacuity - the use of 'going forward' as a replacement for 'in the future':

- Jackson says. "Going forward, we're not going to tolerate it.
- Do you think this is a real concern for developers going forward?
- It is a fact of life going forward that your husband will continue to be reassigned.
- So, going forward it is our intention to utilize our core skills of development.
- He's able to establish the right kind of relationship with the press that we need going forward," Bolten said.

Do you see how insidious this is. That's just one page of Clusty returns. Please. Just say no. Just use the word 'future' or 'ahead'. The world does not need the superfluity of gerunds being inflicted here. I still haven't made up my mind about Toyota's new slogan 'moving forward'. I mean it is referring to cars after all, but it is perilously close to 'going forward'.

While I'm waiting on the recipients of the next three projects in my knitting queue to decide what they want, I have made three more hats for African babies. I make these for a hospital in Kenya. Yes, they need stocking caps in Kenya; they have high mountains where the hospital is. The first dozen or so I sent were all pastel pinks and blues and they thanked me very kindly, but asked if I could please make them in bold colors so as not to show dirt so much. So here they are: