A Correction

"Barack Obama is the first President to come from Illinois since Abraham Lincoln," as I wrote in yesterday's post. Not true. We're forgetting Ulysses Grant, also from Illinois, a two-term President. They say Grant's Presidency was notable for corruption. But I have heard different. Rod Garcia, who got his doctorate in history from UCLA, said that Grant made some notably progressive proposals and has gotten a bad rap.

Anyway, General Grant and Mr. Lincoln, working as the team from Illinois, kept our nation united. That is a fact, and that was my point -- and both their records will serve as a guide and inspiration to our next President, Barack Obama.

Furthermore, Grant's Memoirs is one of the finest books every written by a victorious general. His prose style is so direct and clear, Grant's writing is a model for any serious non-fiction writer.

But I want to go back to my error. It's the nature of blog-writing that there is no one to check up on me, before it goes on the air. When I worked for the Wilson County News in South Texas, I had an editor with a gimlet eye. She would look at me once in a while and say, "Are you sure? Maybe you should get back on the phone again and make sure you have it right."

After she approved the copy, it went to a proofreader, a retired high-school English teacher -- she was bulletproof, she caught things that the editor missed. And my copy, under my byline, got published in the newspaper, and I was sure I had something solid -- something that I knew, to the best of my ability, was correct and true. And on top of all that, I got paid every week.

That's newspaper writing -- which is rapidly disappearing. There are no more newspaper jobs. Why do you think I work at the hospital?

So you end up with a blog, which is free and error prone. You get what you pay for.

Now, watch Ernie Kovacs and the Nairobi Trio on Youtube.