The powers that be have twice now condescended to the American public with warnings that in effect say "We don't have time to discuss this, just sign on the dotted line." The first time was with Henry Paulson on the bailouts and the second was Barack Obama and the stimulus. There is a pattern of ominous events going on in Washington. They (both parties) have big plans, the timing right now is opportune, almost providential.
Now that Barack Obama has been elected, and there is no chance for the "other half" of America to throw a monkey wrench into the process, they can use terms that previously had to be encoded. Just today, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair met and were freer with their urging a "new capitalism" upon the world. But that is not the topic for today, newspapers are.
We are in this mess, partly, because we are not an informed populace anymore. I have at times wondered why I think and write incessantly on these things. My only explanation is that I do not spend much time at all on sports. Whereas my early life revolved around these grown men playing boys games for enormous amounts of money, today I couldn't tell you the name of eight Pittsburgh Steelers, and those only because their names are emblazoned everywhere in this city. As I write this (9 PM,) much of America is watching two universities play football in what they think is a great accomplishment for two institutions of higher education.
Generally, newspapers and traditional American values have not been the best of friends. But I will say this for them. I believe they are misguided and not malicious. I don't believe that they are cut from the same cloth as Michael Moore, Bill Maher or George Soros. In the classic film, Bridge on the River Kwai, Alec Guinness, as the British Colonel, built the enemy a bridge, eventually saw what he did and before he died uttered "My God, what have I done?"
When these editors do awaken, we are going to need our newspapers. It is said that Napoleon Bonaparte once uttered this phrase "A good sketch is better than a long speech." Did that lead to "A picture is better than a thousand words." We are an "image conscious" society, but images alone can fail to portray truth, as the photo of the little Vietnamese girl, running away, blistered from napalm conveyed incorrectly that American planes had dropped the napalm; nor did the photo of the Saigon police chief that put his gun to the head of the Viet Cong and fired, inform of the atrocity that the guerilla had just committed.
What do we do in this culture when we are bored? Well, the old hit song Countin' Flowers on the Wall gives us a clue with "Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo. Captain Kangaroo was an image to watch. Television cannot be our source for information, nor can the computer. As I write, Drudge has about thirty news leads on his site of which I personally consider about half to be legitimate news. Of those half, I "clicked on" two. Had it been a newspaper, I would have, at least started reading all fifteen articles. There has been a lot of studies done on why newspapers are failing, maybe they need to address the qualitative differences between newspapers and their competitors.
Now that Barack Obama has been elected, and there is no chance for the "other half" of America to throw a monkey wrench into the process, they can use terms that previously had to be encoded. Just today, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Tony Blair met and were freer with their urging a "new capitalism" upon the world. But that is not the topic for today, newspapers are.
We are in this mess, partly, because we are not an informed populace anymore. I have at times wondered why I think and write incessantly on these things. My only explanation is that I do not spend much time at all on sports. Whereas my early life revolved around these grown men playing boys games for enormous amounts of money, today I couldn't tell you the name of eight Pittsburgh Steelers, and those only because their names are emblazoned everywhere in this city. As I write this (9 PM,) much of America is watching two universities play football in what they think is a great accomplishment for two institutions of higher education.
Generally, newspapers and traditional American values have not been the best of friends. But I will say this for them. I believe they are misguided and not malicious. I don't believe that they are cut from the same cloth as Michael Moore, Bill Maher or George Soros. In the classic film, Bridge on the River Kwai, Alec Guinness, as the British Colonel, built the enemy a bridge, eventually saw what he did and before he died uttered "My God, what have I done?"
When these editors do awaken, we are going to need our newspapers. It is said that Napoleon Bonaparte once uttered this phrase "A good sketch is better than a long speech." Did that lead to "A picture is better than a thousand words." We are an "image conscious" society, but images alone can fail to portray truth, as the photo of the little Vietnamese girl, running away, blistered from napalm conveyed incorrectly that American planes had dropped the napalm; nor did the photo of the Saigon police chief that put his gun to the head of the Viet Cong and fired, inform of the atrocity that the guerilla had just committed.
What do we do in this culture when we are bored? Well, the old hit song Countin' Flowers on the Wall gives us a clue with "Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo. Captain Kangaroo was an image to watch. Television cannot be our source for information, nor can the computer. As I write, Drudge has about thirty news leads on his site of which I personally consider about half to be legitimate news. Of those half, I "clicked on" two. Had it been a newspaper, I would have, at least started reading all fifteen articles. There has been a lot of studies done on why newspapers are failing, maybe they need to address the qualitative differences between newspapers and their competitors.
