No Lessons Learned

Before there was hurricane Katrina, there was Ivan. Before the devastation of 2005, there was the near miss of 2004, a category five storm hurtling across the Gulf of Mexico that, had it hit New Orleans, would have done everything Katrina did, but, instead, it took the turn to Pascagoula, and everything was fine (at least for New Orleans). For some people, that was proof enough that the worst would never happen. 

And then it did. 

Before the Nov/Dec '92 issue of The Hearsay, there was the Jan/Feb issue the same year. Both issues alluded to other publications (the latter to SPY a real magazine that was actually funny; the former to an unintentionally hilarious book, SEX, published by Madonna in 1992). I drew the cover art for both. 

All issues of The Hearsay were sponsored by one or another of the big law firms downtown. The sponsorship rate was $500 and covered the per issue cost of printing 350 copies. Other than sending them a copy of their issue for their files, there was no communication between the editors and the firms.

The Jan/Feb issue, with the theme "great pretenders", included the usual mishmash of articles ranging from mildly amusing to dreadful, authored by law students relentlessly nagged by the editors to please just submit something, anything, or by law students whose writing no one ever wanted to read.

An article in the second category pretended to be postcards describing despicably punny, unfunny adventures. One adventure, set in Egypt, tastelessly alluded to the crucifixion of Christ, and made a bad pun turning "jury" into "jewry."

  

As a co-editor, I suffered from the embarrassment of publishing such trash, but balanced that with the knowledge that the magazine was just good, clean fun.

Then, as I told the Jewinskis in a letter: 

I was confronted by a member of the class who demanded of me, on behalf of all the jewish students at the law school, an apology ... and, if the apology was not offered ... he threatened to send a copy to Goodman and Carr, the sponsoring firm, which would waste no time in calling the Dean and have The Hearsay laid to rest forever.

The upset student didn't know Goodman and Carr already had a copy. 

I told him I was sorry that he'd taken offence, and told him we would publish any rebuttal he thought appropriate to write and submit. Of course he did not do that, and he did not blow the whistle to Goodman and Carr.

Because my co-editors and I were lawyers in training, every subsequent issue of The Hearsay that term (so, two more issues) included a disclaimer that has more words in it than this post. Highlights were:

... articles are written in the spirit of satire ... we would never print an article motivated by prejudice ... we cannot be the final arbiters of what is appropriate ... sorry if past articles ... have caused offence ... we'll adjust our editorial policy ...

By the beginning of the next term, my two co-editors had gone on to their glamorous legal careers. That disclaimer was never again seen in the pages of The Hearsay.

I didn't "adjust" the editorial policy either, because the Jan/Feb issue was proof enough to me that the worst would never happen.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen