Yeah, well, I'm not all that successful when it comes to breaking bad habits. It took me years to kick cigarettes.
Some that I've been trying to break lately include:
*Listening to all forms of talk radio, especially the shows whose hosts would seemingly enjoy pulling the wings off of live flies, assuming the flies weren't deemed conservative enough. Say hey, Stigall!
*Checking in on certain hateful blogs written by irrational and/or disturbed individuals (hey, there's more than a couple of those out there, so don't be thinking I necessarily mean your work of evil genius, Butter Cup).
*Snacking on M&Ms and crackers before dinner, because, that's bad for my lovely figure.
*And writing columns or blog posts on anything having to do with a certain mayor of a somewhat major Midwestern city whose wife's strange habits are a political liability and ...
Hey, wait. That last one.
While I've had only limited success in breaking those other habits, the mayor thing is the one bad habit where I have yet to fall off the wagon.
What is it now? Something like two and a half months since I've written a column or blog post on that particular individual, or anything having to do with...
Nope, not going to fall into that trap and ruin my string of 76 days going you-know-who free. Unless you count the column on July 29, when I merely mentioned that official's name in a column that had nothing to do with him, per se, or, well, you know.
Oh, and there was a quote, too. But it was boilerplate. His name could have been Mayor Smith.
And as for his former press aide who started telling secrets on the guy over the summer , ...uh, well, I'm not all that interested in his career advice, either.
Cold turkey feels good after writing far too many items on that particular"topic" in the last several years. In 2008, my tally was in the double digits. My editor even noted it in my performance evaluation. He said it wasn't a criticism, mind you. But who knows? Maybe.
So this year, I had it down to 10 or fewer mentions in the first half of the year -- columns and posts combined. And this during a recall!
But summer came, I decided to cutback and, as it turns out, there are things to write about other than the inside baseball that is Kansas City politics.
Instead, I've written about severed deer heads, a newspaper war in Osawatomie (Friday's column). The Tour of Missouri. KCK's economic development grab, a downtown strip club sign.
Writing about that other topic became a crutch after awhile. If you wanted to, you could write about City Hall intrigue every day and, guess what. Most people could give a rat's whatchamacallit.
Not saying the local media should avoid writing about the aforementioned official or the campaign others will wage against him in an election that is more than a year away.
Just saying that I'm more than happy to be taking a break.
After all, if you can't say something nice about somebody...
Yeah, well, strike that. I write a newspaper column, after all.
-- Mike Hendricks