• Greg Brooke, manager - industry relations, Navistar International, Chicago, IL.
• Brian Crenshaw, account executive, Eisbrenner Public Relations, Greenville, SC.
• Scott W. Fowler, vice president - market development, Jacobs Vehicle Systems, Bloomfield, CT.
• Carl Goeb, public relations account supervisor, Leistra Associates, Grand Rapids, MI.
• Bruce D. Grimm, publisher, Mercury Services, Longview, WA.
• David G. Jacobs, marketing director, American Towman Magazine, Westwood, NJ.
• Larry J. Polas, contributing editor, Transport Publishing, Chicago, IL.
• Peter Powell, vice president - marketing, Air-Weigh, Eugene, OR.
• Emily Burgin Roberts, editor, The Trucker, Little Rock, AR.
• David L. Sparkman, editor, Business Trucking, Alexandria, VA.
• Ryan Vaarsi, news and products editor, American Towman Magazine, Westwood, NJ.
• Wythe Walker, president and executive editor, The Trucker, Little Rock, AR.
• Jack Whitsett, staff writer, The Trucker, Little Rock, AR.
• Ray Wittenberg, publisher, The Trucker, Little Rock, AR.
• Ellen Voie, freelance writer, Amherst, WI.

TWNA'S Mission

Founded in November 1988, the Truck Writers of North America is an organization of professionals involved in generating, gathering, writing and reporting news and information about trucks, trucking and the trucking industry. Among TWNA's objectives:

• Improve the quality of trucking journalism.
• Promote a positive image for the trucking industry.
• Continually improve relationships between the truck trade press and manufacturers and suppliers.
• Serve as an information source and referral service for the non-truck trade media as it reports on the trucking industry.
• Function as a watchdog over the non-truck trade media and respond to inaccurate, incorrect or biased reporting on trucking industry-related matters.

T-Shirts for TWNA?

What should go on the T-shirt? Here are some suggestions:

1. "Hungry..." on the front followed by "…for News" on the back. TWNA logo on the breast and "Truck Writers of North America" and an outline of North America on the back to enliven the design. Maybe add a cartoon image of a trilby hat with a "press" ticket in the band hung on one corner of the TWNA logo ("just to drive home the fact we're scribblers").
2. "No food, no booze, no ink for yous" on the front; TWNA logo and "Truck Writers of North America" on the back.

Letters

On the same subject, I noticed one builder who shall remain anonymous that included a disk with art that ranged in size, and therefore resolution, from a paltry 1 by 2, 46K file to a respectable 4 by 2-ish with several hundred K. They had nearly 700K left over on the disk. For mercy's sake, if you're going to give out digital files, make sure they are high res and reasonably large.

You know, this could be getting into the realm of standards for this sort of thing. Should we poll our production staffs for what they consider minimum standards for digital files?

Thought the following article might make for a good laugh in the next issue of The Dispatch. -- Evan Lockridge Newport's RoadStar Radio News

Nation's Experts Give Up: "From now on, you're on your own," say experts

June 16, Washington, DC -- Citing years of frustration over their advice being misunderstood, misrepresented or simply ignored, America's foremost experts in every field collectively tendered their resignation Monday.

"Despite all our efforts to advise this nation, America still throws out its recyclables, keeps its guns in unlocked cabinets where children have easy access, eats three times as much red meat as is recommended, watches seven hours of TV per day, swims less than 10 minutes after eating, and leaves halogen lights on while unattended," said Dr. Simon Peavy, vice-president of the National Association of Experts. "Since you don't seem to care about things you don't understand, screw you. We quit."

"My final piece of expert advice," Peavy added, "is that all of you people should just go f--k yourselves."

Michael Leland, until recently a Department of Energy advisor specializing in planetary energy-use infrastructures and a leading expert in petrochemical and fossil-fuel depletion, maintained that the experts' mass resignation is justified.

"Last year, I testified before Congress that at the current rate of consumption, the planet's supply of coal, natural gas and oil would be gone within 40 years, and they looked at me as if I was some sort of crackpot," Leland said. "What's the point?"

"We'll say it one last time before we pack up and go: In 20 years, you'll be up to your asses in old folks," a written statement from the National Advisory Council On Aging read in part. "Since America has not yet begun making preparations for the explosion in its senior population, we recommend that you begin research on federally funded, hydroelectricity powered 'eldercution camps,' where the teeming hordes of the aged can be disposed of quickly and painlessly."

According to Peavy, despite the vast amounts of scientifically proven and historically sound advice provided by the nation's experts, the National Association of Experts could cite no instances of advice being followed in the manner they had intended.

"Public reaction was favorable to the news that a glass of wine a day can help prevent heart attacks," Peavy said. "Of course, most people figured that eight glasses of wine a day must be better than one. And many Americans reacted well to the news that eggs probably wouldn't kill them outright. Aside from that, they've pretty much ignored every word we've ever said concerning just about everything."

Because the experts' advice was barely followed, the mass resignation is expected to have little impact on the lives of most Americans.

"Go ahead, America," Peavy said. "You don't need us. Watch all the topsoil go down the Mississippi. Transport your children in baskets on top of your SUV deathmobiles. Keep playing with your cute and cuddly pal, the atom. Press your nose against the TV screen for even more educational "3rd Rock From The Sun" enjoyment. Use plentiful gasoline to burn book-readers at the stake. Don't eat anything but sugared pork lard. Do whatever you want."

Despite its negligible impact on the population at large, the sudden dearth of experts is expected to be devastating for the American media, particularly TV newsmagazines, which have come to heavily rely on experts for their incisive, time-filling punditry.

"How in the world are we supposed to do a story on how the Internet is changing the face of Christianity without Internet and Christianity experts?" said Dateline NBC executive producer Russell Ross. "How can we report on the stress-relieving impact of whale songs without top psychotherapists and marine biologists to offer their perspective? Without the insight of professors and best-selling authors, a TV special report has no credibility. It may well mean the end of American telejournalism as we know it."

According to FDA spokesperson Jonathan Landau, the exiting advisors will be missed, but the nation must move forward.

We, of course, are deeply saddened to lose America's most knowledgeable individuals in every field," Landau said. "But at the same time, it's important to recognize that their advice, however well-informed or well-intentioned, was almost always impractical."

Landau said he plans to fill his own vacant advisory positions with "positive-minded, people-friendly sexperts, advice columnists and astrologers" as soon as funding can be arranged.

The Windbag Theory: The boss' verbosity increases in direct proportion to the severity of the company's problems.