A few people have come up to me in recent weeks and asked me, "What happened to your blog?"

My response, "You read it?"

"Yeah," they say. "There's a link to it right on the Daily Local News's homepage."

"You're right," I say. "Do you like the picture that goes with it?"

"No," they say.

"Neither do I," I say.

So, they're right. I ought to be keeping up with this thing.

Today's topic: word choice.

I recently wrote a story about the "local reaction" to Ted Kennedy's death. Local reaction stories are difficult. Man on the street interviews sometimes work, but in this case I thought they would not. Instead, I decided to call politically active Chester County residents - specifically, ones who do not currently hold elected office. I talked to a bunch of folks, and ended up using pieces of my interviews with former Chester County GOP Chairman Bill Lamb, Chester County Young Democrats President Dan Tyman, and former U.S. Senator Harris Wofford. Wofford was an excellent source, because he had known Kennedy for nearly half a century.

When casting about for a phrase to describe my subjects, I settled on this somewhat unconventional choice: "Members of Chester County's political class."

Today, I read the reader responses to my article. This one struck me:

"I've not read the article -- probably won't. The phrase "political class" is vile. Not that it is inaccurate, I suspect that it is accurate. Being hit in the face with a description that the people who run our beloved county are different from the rest of us is just plain sad. "

-tacitus

Tacitus is being too idealistic. I challenge him to provide a workable definition of "the rest of us." And it better not be "Sarah Palin."


Then there's this highly entertaining response:

"To the Editor:
"Your reporter’s ramblings about the sadness of a political “class” over the death of U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy displays a shocking lack of understanding of American democracy and perhaps a pathetic mewing for the end of the Cold War and for the Marxist thinking he self-evidentially espouses.
"His examples of this “class” could hardly be more hapless. Bill Lamb was a crime-busting DA back in the 1970s fearlessly busting up volunteer firehouses to confiscate illegal nickel slots. Harris Wofford was a U.S. senator from the Main Line who had his butt thrown out of office after the Commonwealth realized that he was what a tweedy-snot.
"One is shocked that the Daily Local News could manufacture and publish such unsophisticated rubbish. What next? A campaign for fluorinated water?"

Sandy Flash
Penn Green Road
Landenberg


Anyway, I promise that from now on I'll stay up to date with this blog.