What is Wordsmith?

By popular demand, Wordsmith is back! Once again, Tom wrote a verse of what might be a song someday, and he’s stuck with a bad case of writer’s block. Please help Tom by contributing the next verse.

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[We would like to thank Brian Weinstein, user @AttendanceBias, for the Attendance Bias podcast and for this post. -Ed.]

Hold on a minute. Before you read any further, let’s time-travel 15 years into the past. Need a little help? Here’s a quick summary of where we were, as a nation, in the late-winter of 2009:

President Barack Obama has just been inaugurated for his first term as president. Seinfeld is airing a quasi-reunion episode via the genius of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. The Yankees won the World Series a few months earlier, and the Pittsburgh Steelers just won the Super Bowl. Taylor Swift is a successful but niche country artist, while The Black-Eyed Peas and Lady Gaga are at the top of the pop charts. And in the world of film, Heath Ledger just won a posthumous Oscar for his iconic performance as The Joker in The Dark Knight.

Are you there yet?

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