As you might expect from people whose business is publishing, we try to make the most of words. But we also acknowledge that people have long had a sort of love/hate relationship with language. After all, we’ve all grown up hearing maxims like “put your money where your mouth is,” “it’s only words,” or “talk is cheap” –
that is to say, what really counts is not what’s read or said.
And yet, everyone is also familiar with “The pen is mightier than the sword,” and “words have a longer life than deeds.”
No, it’s not all or nothing. In fact, part of what every person does each day is try to figure out which words count and which are just so much hot air. As you know, there’s no shortage of the latter out
there, whether in television commercials or the rantings of certain
radio shock-jocks who shall remain unnamed.
At psst! Magazine, we seek those words that seem to us to have the greatest significance not just for the moment, and not solely in a limited
or sensational arena. We look for genuine sentiment, but also clarity and credible evidence. Often these pieces are calls to actions, which, as we have all been taught, “speak louder than words.”
At times, these are words which provoke us to thought or debate. Some may raise powerful and even negative emotions. All of these
responses are valid and important. Of course, we can’t promise you
that you will agree with everything we publish – especially since we try to give more than one side of an argument. However, we do promise to provide you with interesting and provocative material, and we hope it will move you, if not to action,
to serious and fruitful thought.
Along those lines, we bring you an issue that addresses many controversial topics of the day: everything from a discussion of “partial-birth” abortion to an exposé of a major pharmaceutical company. And if our words seem at times a bit out of control, remember John Maynard Keynes admonition that “Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking.”
