Short And Sweet

Editors are editors for good reason besides the brain damage and warped personalities.

For months now, I ve been begging the editor of the Hartford Business Journal to allow me to write more than 700 words. I suggest 1,500. I suggest 5,000. I suggest a novella, spread over several back pages. I suggest that entire issues occasionally be devoted to Cohen, with appropriate marketing support such as my photo on city buses and billboards.

He refuses. In short memos, of fewer than 700 words. He explains that readers prefer short bursts of stuff, not wisdom that goes on and on like the Mighty Mississip .

I didn’t believe him, until I saw some recent disclosures from the T.G.I. Friday s restaurant chain, and subsequent Wall Street analysis, indicating that Friday’s is prospering by selling smaller portions at prices that aren’t much lower than their regular portions.

Yes, the Right Portion, Right Price menu offerings are sort of like selling the Hartford Business Journal at its regular price, while downsizing the Cohen Column to 700 words or something.

In fact, with the apparent success of Friday’s new half-a-chicken-wing without the skin entree, the editor wants me to write columns that are even shorter.

Here are a few samples. Let the editor know what you think.

RELL, DEMOCRATS SPAR ON CUTS

Gov. M. Jodi Rell and legislative Democrats can’t agree on what happened to all those proposed tax cuts. State Police have been called in to search for them.

N.Y. MAYOR IS FIRMLY NOT FIRM

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in dropping his Republican affiliation, explained that good ideas are more important than rigid adherence to any particular political ideology. New York City police have been called in to search for Bloomberg’s prior rigid adherence to any particular political philosophy.

BARACK SPEAKS TO THE FLOCK

After leading the national synod of the United Church of Christ in a prayer vigil for the Front Street development project in Hartford, Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama said that the Republicans had hijacked religion. Connecticut State Police have been called in to look for the missing religion.

IN THE FRONT, OUT THE BACK

While Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez claims he has tricked 1,500 new homeowners into moving to Hartford since 2002, mayoral challenger state Rep. Art Feltman says there have been 1,500 foreclosures during the same period. City Police have been called into search for new homeowners whose checks don’t bounce.

A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

State Rep. Gail Hamm from East Hampton, expressing lack of enthusiasm for new Department of Children and Families Commissioner Susan Hamilton, said the agency would do better with a change agent, rather than just another tired old agency hack. Hamilton called in state police to search for change — especially that new Idaho quarter that is really hard to find.

CITIZENRY MAY RUN AMOK

In the face of a state government budget surplus of about $495 trillion, and with a promise to cut the gas tax a little, for maybe an hour or two over the July 4 holiday, the gas tax was raised, instead. There is going to be absolute outrage and anger, warned House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero. State police were called out to search for residents who represented a threat to public safety, because of being, well, you know, outraged and angry.

LET ME BE CLEAR

Following four murders in Hartford over a weekend in June, Mayor Perez reassuringly explained: Let me be clear that violence cannot and will not be tolerated in this city. City police were called in to search for violent people and explain that, despite what they might have heard, violence would not be tolerated.

Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.