Bill Leader

I get hate mail and fan mail from all seven consents, so it is not at all new to me. Bill Leader is / was the Editor / Publisher of the newspaper for the employees of DFW Airport, an area as large as Manhattan and every bit as diverse. In my opinion, the guy was an idiot, so I wrote this letter to him to issue him a challenge - which he did not respond to. Anyway, I think you might find it interesting....

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Mr. Leader,

Let me begin by saying that I do read your articles. The reason I read them has changed over the years, but I do read them. The first few that I read I thought to myself “This must be a joke. Some sort of lampoon or something”. I soon figured out that it wasn’t… at least not intentionally.

Then came the phase where I read your articles because I thought, “Here is this guy writing for a mildly significant paper. Surely there is something I am missing here. Maybe he is on some sort of a higher plane than I am, and I need to try to understand this stuff”. That phase, too, soon went away, when I came to the realization that while you were on a plane, it was definitely not a higher one, and it was not under ATC control.

The third phase I went through was to keep struggling though huge piles of drivel in search of even one single pearl of wisdom. I thought surely there must be something here. Otherwise, why would this Bill Leader guy still be walking the streets a free man and not locked up in some dark, dank prison somewhere for the senseless and needless slaughter of innocent trees? I was convinced that I must be missing something.

I struggled though mound after mound of drivel about you recommending pay cuts for everyone except you, how to steal a lunch, and whatever else. I searched high and low (mostly low…), but I never found that pearl of wisdom. I am now convinced that it isn’t there, and it isn’t coming.

That put me into the phase where I am in now. I still read your articles, but my reason has changed once again. It’s sort of like hitting yourself repeatedly in the head with a hammer as hard as you possibly can. The only reason you have for doing it is because it feels so good when you quit. These days I read your articles, shake my head in silent disbelief, and I go forth in the knowledge that there is indeed someone out there who is worse off than I am and that there are jobs available for the mentally challenged.

I have to wonder why you bother. I have learned that there are three basic groups of people. There is the radical group who absolutely loves what you are doing, there is the radical group who absolutely hates what you are doing, and there is the majority group who either tolerates or flat out doesn’t care what you are doing. Generally, the only comments you get will come from one or the other of the radical groups. If I were to guess, I would think that the vast majority of comments you get come from the “hate what you are doing” group. I would be very surprised to learn that you ever received any positive fan mail.

I don’t really place myself in that group. I don’t really hate what you write. I just see it is wasted paper. Intellectual wasteland. Filler for the spaces you couldn’t sell as ad space. It bothers me that while your paper covers an area that is as large as Manhattan with a population every bit as diverse, the best thing you can come up with to write about is how to steal lunch. You should be embarrassed. With all the issues facing airlines and aviation in general these days, you can’t come up with anything better than that? At the very least, you seem to be lazy and unmotivated.

If you are indeed doing these kinds of stories in a futile attempt at humor, it isn’t working. I would say  “Keep your day job”, but that won’t work for you. In your case it would have to be “Get a day job…”.  Anything to keep you busy enough so that you wouldn’t have time to devote to writing these exercises into the limitations of human ignorance.

I was raised in a small redneck town. I was taught that you shouldn’t complain about anything unless you know you can do a better job of it yourself. Okay. I’m complaining. I can complain because I have absolutely no doubt that I can write something more interesting and topical on my worst day than you ever could on your best day.  It would also be something that was relevant (or at least topical) to your readers … a concept which you seem to have trouble grasping.

I’d be more than happy to send you sample articles if you would like. You can even print them if you want. Get some feedback from your readers. If they like my work, give me some of the space you are wasting with your ramblings, give me a by-line and I will fill it routinely, and with items of real interest. There is your challenge. Deal with it as you may.


Bill Brinkley AP / IA
CAS Analyst – MSC
American Eagle Airlines
DFW Airport

Bill.Brinkley@a.com

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