Reading "Arugulance" and then writing it

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?After reading the first draft of “One of the Open Secrets of Grant Writing and Grant Writers: Reading,” I suggested that Jake lay down for a while, as he seemed to have worked himself into a frenzy over the subject of no reading versus some reading versus close reading versus . . . well, you’ve gotten the idea from reading his post. So, it was with some surprise that I found myself (here it comes) “reading” the Sunday New York Times yesterday, when I came across Maureen Dowd’s column.

Ordinarily, I don’t read her column, as she is usually even too cynical for a inherently cynical and grizzled grant writer like me. This time, however, the headline caught my eye because it used the term “arugulance,” which I learned is shorthand for the arrogance of the grow local/buy local/shop at Whole Paycheck movement. As luck would have it, I had been writing a federal grant proposal over the weekend for a client that plans to expand access for low-income folks to a nearby urban farmers’ market to reduce obesity, et al. There in the Times I found the perfect term to sum up my project concept. Jake, I stand corrected. I guess I should stop watching Idol and ’50s Westerns and get a subscription to some esoteric periodicals instead.