This past Saturday, I stumbled out of bed and down to my stoop to grab the morning paper.
I've related before about how much of a morning person I am, so I won't bore you with the gory details. Suffice it to say, it takes a little while to clear the cobwebs from the corners of my mind so as to make some sense of the words before me.
I read the newspaper every day, first thing, right off the bat. OK, maybe it's not the first thing I do. Alright, it's not the second either, but you get my drift. It's in the top 10.
So, there I was, sitting with my eggs and a glass of tea, opening the Daily Record as I have for the last 18 years since I've lived here.
Ah, yes, a bite of breakfast and my news for the day. There's the weather report, letters to the editor by the same folks as usual and a photo of Dick Trammel.
My day is complete.
I then opened the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette section. The headline of the staff's leading editorial read in large print "Outrage of the Year."
Wow, what happened? I proceeded to read.
Seems the Demozette writers are appalled our state legislators are tinkering with term limits and asking voters, among other things, to extend the terms by two years.
Term limits? That's the outrage of the year? That legislators could spend 16, rather than 14, years in seats I wouldn't have if they were lined in Elvis' finest gabardine?
Oh, Henny Penny, the sky is falling!
The word "outrage" is used not once, not twice, but three times in the scoop, and six times, technically, as these editors were so appalled this is the second running of the editorial, believing it worthy of reprinting "in hopes of keeping the voters of Arkansas on guard."
I'm on guard, alright. With Merriam-Webster and Black's Law dictionaries.
We throw words around with cavalier attitude. Perhaps in a world of 24-hour news, the Internet, social media and hundreds of choices seeking our constant attention, folks have leaned toward the shocking to become noticed.
But words have meaning.
In secular society, the noun "outrage" means extreme anger, a strong emotion caused by injury or insult. The term also has a legal meaning. The tort of outrage involves behavior that "shocks the conscience."
It isn't just any slight indignity such as how I feel toward drivers puttering at 60 mph in the fast lane.
No, it has to be ghastly conduct so extreme as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency and to be utterly intolerable in a civilized society, says the Arkansas Supremes.
Think "Fatal Attraction." Glenn Close's bunny boiler moment as Michael Douglas' adorable little girl comes home. That, the court might say, is an outrage.
Even if we agree that indeed, this term-limited behavior is outrageous, is it really the most outrageous event of the year?
So far, we've had tornadoes wipe out towns and homes. A commercial jet vanished and yet to be located, while another was shot down and the remains of its passengers lay in a field, kept from their grief-stricken families.
Here in a few days, the world will mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. Beginning July 28, 1914, and continuing for four years, more than 16 million people were killed and 20 million wounded.
These are stories that grip the human soul. These are headlines that shock.
Whether you're for term limits or against them is really beside my point. I was all for term limits in the mid-1990s before I saw firsthand what happened to the halls of our Capitol, where the power has merely shifted from the politicians we elect to the lobbyists and department heads we don't.
If the general populous were to get a good look at the political underground of Little Rock, I'm confident term limits would be increased, if not abolished altogether.
But that's not my point. Good people can disagree on such things.
My point is words matter. When folks use strong language to describe seemingly inconsequential things, it shows me a lack of perspective.
There are tragedies, heartache and real pain and suffering in this world, and to label the extension of term limits as the "Outrage of the Year" is ... well, outrageous.
Even with cobwebs in my corners, I know that much.
NW News on 07/24/2014