In the Star Wars world of journalism, the “Force” would be the code of ethics journalists fall back on when writing a story or covering an event.

Those who might resemble the likes of Luke Skywalker, Hans Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda are those who have paved the way for us, either in our personal lives or in the journalistic world. Those people are different for everyone. For me, it would be people like my father, Bill Ball, Randy Cope, Ken Cope, Joe Sullens who taught me the difference between personal writing style and correct grammar, and Shelly Arth, a person who was a typesetter and proofreader when I was at the Marshall Democrat-News in 1978 and is now the publisher.

Darth Vader would be so many different things in our journalistic world. But to me, it takes on two dreaded evils in our profession – unethical behavior and the dreaded and feared “typo.”

I recently wrote at length about the unethical behavior that the national mainstream media is guilty of regarding their coverage or Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. So I won’t go into detail about their despicable behavior in castigating the Palins’ oldest daughter Bristol.

But in that column which was published on Wednesday, the evil typo lord Darth Vader reared its ugly head and bit me right where it hurts. Not only did I misspell “embarrassing” wrong in the headline – which was indeed embarrassing – but I also used the word mainstream two different ways (both wrong) and misspelled Barack Obama’s name.

The criticism I got made me feel like I would imagine Sarah Palin feels. But there’s one difference – I deserved my criticism, she didn’t.

I got embarrassing correct in the story but didn’t spell check the headline. It is one of those words that I have problems with, along with privilege. Spell check would not have caught main stream or Barack since it is a proper name.

My only excuse is that I messed up, went too fast and did not effectively fight off Darth Vader.
I appreciate all those who have tried to steer me back on the right path by urging me to rely more heavily on the Force.

However, this column has allowed me to think back about some of my other more humorous typos that I have written and some that others have committed.

I once wrote that “The Angelic Choir will sin at the Baptist Church.” Obviously, they were supposed to sing.

I wrote a story about Don Barkley, the acting dean at Bethel College. Only I wrote that he was acting dead.

Some others that you might find humorous are:

• Teacher strikes idle kids (I hope they ducked);

• Drunks get nine months in violin cases (They must be small drunks);

• Two sisters reunited after 18 years in checkout counter (That is a long time to wait for a bargain);

• Couple slain; police suspect homicide (Duh, ya think?);

• Astronaut takes blame for gas in space (That’s what you get when you eat the freeze-dried bean dip);

• If strike isn’t settled quickly, it may last a while (Wow, what genius);

• Legislator wants tougher death penalty (Yeah, let’s kill them twice);

• Woman improving after fatal crash (New miracle drugs);

• Red tape holds up new bridge (Must be Duct Tape);

• Ground beast: 99 cents lb. (I wonder how tough it is?);

• Kellogg’s pot tarts $1.99 box (Wow, that’s cheap for pot);

• Chef throws his heart into helping feed needy (I hope he cooked it long enough);

• New vaccine may contain rabies (I’d rather get it that way than from a dog bite).