Interesting story in the NYT about a voting-rights dispute in Mississippi. But what I found interesting, newspaperman that I am, was this line:

When [local political boss Ike Brown] drove off to federal prison to serve a sentence for tax fraud in 1995, he received a grand farewell from his political supporters and friends, including local elected officials; whites, on the other hand, for years have seen him as a kind of occult force in determining the affairs of the county.

“Occult force.” I have a very strong suspicion that the reporter, Adam Nossiter, was trying to gain admission to the Order of the Occult Hand, a secret society of journalists who have all managed to work the vaguely non-sensical phrase “occult hand” into their stories. (The preferred form would be something like “It was as if an occult hand…”)

But the key to membership is actually slipping “occult hand” past your copy editors — who, as time has passed, have become more aware of the gambit. So Mr. Nossiter remains, alas, a non-member. An auxiliary member, perhaps.

According to our archives, no staff writer of The Dallas Morning News has never entered the Order of the Occult Hand. But on April 26, 1976, we did run an Associated Press story on the actress Louise Lasser — check the first paragraph:

11 October 2006

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