PINE NUTS – Writing an Opinion Column Backwards
May 2, 2025 | McAvoy Lane
I have a hundred-page file in my laptop just bristling with short phrases and quips that I hope might spruce up a column someday, and that file has been most helpful over the past 26 years. But today I was struck by the novel idea of writing a column backwards. That is to say, why not start a column with a random bunch of locutions, and try to weave them into a single subject matter to make a point. So what the hell, let’s splatter some haphazard words onto this page, then see if we can make some sense out of it all. Here we go…
I have found there are times when it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than it is for me to write a column that is not high-sounding rot. Cervantes reminds us, “The best end aimed at in all writing is to instruct and delight.” I don’t see it! I can write a column to instruct, or I can write a column to delight, not both!
I believe I could write a column about her, but then I am only a dwarf star in her Milky Way, who could not run a successful tattoo parlor that also sells ammo and kitty-litter. But I feel too much delicacy to speak about it…
At the moment I am feeling nothing but tears and flapdoodle, soul butter and hogwash, and lunacy leavened by a cynicism to make no end of trouble.
In the fullness of time I shall write about a topic so provocative as to produce a desire for the consolations of religion. For as everyone who lives south of the North Pole knows, a journalistic journey of a thousand miles begins with the first wrong turn, just as internet feedback loops lead to self-fulfilling prophesies.
However, it has just occurred to me with great force that whosoever commands the seas commands the trade of the world, and whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world. The only difference between countries lies in their ability to swear musically.
What we need most now is a movement of humanity toward greater unification. But
the internet is keeping us from becoming a cultured people. Even movies are merely, “Kiss-Bang-Crash!” And internecine war is about kids on both sides getting killed. And too, in this general aura of badassery, one beautiful lady I know of is accepting remuneration as a spokeswoman for Xeomin, a brand of injectable Botox alternative that she says makes her look “less pissed off.”
Meanwhile, peace, progress and human rights remain our three inextricably linked goals. And when all is said and done, at the end of a 500-word opinion column written backwards, this bitter Earth is not so bitter after all…