Conrad Black is my new anti-hero and favorite writer. He gets read. He gets read because he writes big and is extremely knowledgeable. 

Dip into his life. His colorful and controversial carrier is legend. Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour PC (Can.), OC, KCSG, (born 25 August 1944, in Montreal, Quebec), is a British biographer, financier and newspaper magnate. He is married to Barbara Amiel, a well-known columnist.  See his Wiki now for a good bio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Black). Also see him on TV. CTV will be running the Shades of Black, December 4 (http://www.channelcanada.com/Article1629.html). Tom Bower's dual biography Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge is scheduled to be published this month. The guy has nerve - he faces over 40 years in jail and tens of millions in fines. True to form, Conrad Black goes bold and on the attack recently stating "The U.S. Marines couldn't keep me away from this trial."

In the face of all of this he keeps writing with candor, intelligence and clarity. His piece in today's National Post was wonderful (http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=fd0e504b-ca01-4403-9422-bddb93160a4c).   

He takes on a big topic, with a big title "America's problems run deep". Suck in the first three paragraphs:

"Astonishingly, President George W. Bush did better in Tuesday's mid-term elections than Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, popular Republican presidents, in 1958 and 1986 respectively; and much better than the Kennedy-Johnson Democrats mired in Vietnam in 1966, and the post-Watergate Republicans in 1974.

 

The ululations of joy of the Democrats seem premature. There is a lot of peppy talk in some of their more effusive circles, of impeachment hearings because of Bush having misled the country over weapons of mass destruction prior to entering the Iraq War.

 

This would be a Weapon of Self-Destruction for the Democrats. The criminalization of policy differences has been the bane of the American system for over 30 years."

Just love it. How he can put out anything while facing such disaster is beyond me. I'd be jacked up on my  reality killer and be reduced to flipping channels hopelessly. I'm going to my local book and coffee emporium to get his biography on Franklin D. Roosevelt. Conrad Black purchased at auction a collection of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt's private papers and produced this bestselling biography, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Champion of Freedom, in 2003.

My point here is that nervy writing born of great research and bold use of language makes for great writing. Good inspiration for bloggers trying to drag out notable "content" from banal topics.

And oh, when I'm buying his book I'm also going get a big yellow highlighter and mark up it up. I want to channel Conrad Black.