The Best That Never Was

Alex Beam, a columnist for The Boston Globe, has a wonderful article in the November issue of The Atlantic, looking at some of the best unpublished pieces of journalism. The article's called "The Greatest Stories Never Told" and looks at what Beam calls modern-day samizdat.

My favorite of those mentioned? An article written by the Globe's Thomas Farragher that "reproduced the Gettysburg Address, as if the speech had had to pass through the meat grinder of the Globe's main copy desk."

As written there: "Fourscore and seven years ago (can't we just make it 87 years ago?) our fathers (WHO ARE THEY?? Any mothers???) brought forth on this continent (North America?? Northern Hemisphere??) a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men (people, men and women, what???) are created equal. (Why don't we just say they founded the United States and leave it at that? Pacing's better.)"

Be sure to check it out-- great article.