Newspaper Disaster

I am heartsick over what is happening at the Boston Globe.  I love newspapers.  I love everything about them, the paper, the ink, the advertising (not the stupid color inserts, the real advertising), the fact that I can carry them around with me and tear out the things I want to keep or remember, and most of all the news reported by real trained reporters.  I worked for the Washington bureau of the Wall Street Journal as a "New Assistant" more than 30 years ago.  I saw how the best reporters in the business did their jobs and how intelligent they were.  From what I see happening at the Globe, those days are long gone.  Now all we hear is how in trouble the Globe is (along with lots of other papers in this country) and about layoffs, cutbacks, boo-hooing about how the internet is cutting into the readership, blah-blah-blah.  Well, after the latest boneheaded move by the Globe, I am ready to cancel my subscription, although I know I won't because I can't bear to be without the paper.  

Awhile back the Globe decided to publish its "Weekly" editions on Thursday as well as on Sunday.  (First bad move.)  My guess is that they did it to compete with the Community Newspapers which are published once a week on Thursday in the surrounding towns.  For example my paper is The Chelmsford Independent.  These papers print the same kind of stories the Weekly editions printed.  Maybe this move looked good at first, but clearly it didn't work because they have just stopped printing the Globe NorthWest and have divided us all up between North and West.  Smooth move Globe guys.  Now Carlisle, which is contiguous to Chelmsford, and Concord, which shares a state representative with Chelmsford, are in the GlobeWest and Chelmsford is in the GlobeNorth.   When you look at the towns and how they were split, it certainly looks like the division was made by someone who doesn't remotely know the area.  

Here's another gripe.  I called Customer Service because I received the GlobeWest instead of GlobeNorth today, the roll out day for this new and decidedly unimproved paper.  Guess where the young woman was who took my call?  Manila.  As in across the Pacific Ocean.  Now I'm really angry.  We are not talking a multinational corporation.  We're talking the Boston Globe which thinks it is the paper of the Hub of the Universe.  ARGHHHHHH.

I have no idea who is making these lame brain decisions at the Globe.  Here are two things I think they need to take into consideration:

1.  Who is their readership?  Stop looking at all the people who say they read newspapers on-line.  Look at who is really buying and reading the paper.

2.  What do they want to read about?  I want to read about my community and the communities surrounding me.  I want news about state and local government and information about community activities in my town and the surrounding towns.   

The Globe is driving me away from the newspaper by taking away the local news that I need to know about and getting rid of the local calendar info and putting it all on-line.  There is no doubt that getting information on line is fast, but nothing replaced having that paper to stick in my bag and carry around.  As an aside, my huge fear is that movie theatres will all stop advertising in the paper.  (The Tyngsboro AMC  stopped advertising.)  BIG mistake.  There are many times when we are out and either a show is sold out or we decide at the last minute away from the house to go to the movies.  I whip out the trusty PAID listings and look to see where we can go.  This does not mean that lots of people aren't taking out their phones and looking things up (I have an IPhone, but I still want that newspaper and will pay for it).  It means there is more than one way to deliver information.

It almost seems as if the people who own newspapers want them to fail.  Maybe the shake-up in our economy will bring about a renaissance or maybe that is just the romantic in me speaking.   Time will tell.

How can anyone keep up? Here comes Lent

How anyone has the time to really keep up a blog isn't clear to me, unless they really want to be a writer/commentator.  There are so, so many issues in our families, towns, states, countries, the world, the universe that it is impossible to stay on top of it all.

Lent is coming right up.  It is a chance to reflect and try, very, very hard to not be distracted by the unnecessary.  Yesterday afternoon my husband and I were talking at lunch.  We were discussing current events and he asked, "What is important in life?"  (We were discussing big philosophical questions over tacos.)  Without a lot of thinking, what popped out of my mouth was, "Love yourself, love your family, love your neighbor, take care of the animals and the plants, the earth and the sea.  That pretty much says it all for me."  You can decide for yourself what is important if you go back to those precepts.

Peace.

Where Have I Been?....

Once again life got away from me.  This blog is just an electronic diary that someone may stumble on via the ether now (or later) rather than by digging through all my old books when I'm dead and gone.  I suppose most people blog or write a diary for themselves, not really for anyone else.  It is the one place there isn't any editor/English teacher looking over your work and you can say pretty much whatever you like.

The last month has been mostly working on getting the opera Hansel & Gretel up for Illumination Opera.  It took all my waking hours, but now it is over and there is more music to learn, Christmas is almost upon us (Lessons and Carols Sunday - my favorite service of the year), and all the dreary house chores are still waiting for me.  How I wish with all my heart that I was like Martha Stewart.  I have suddenly realized that I have such a great imagination that I have imagined how nice the house could be so well that I don't feel like I actually have to DO anything to make it happen.  It is pretty daunting anyway when you have to do it all yourself.

There are so many things to write about seriously, but I just can't today.  Here's what I want to know now:  Why is Jennifer Aniston in our face everywhere, everyday?  She must have the greatest publicist on the face of the planet.  I have not seen any indication this woman has any real talent at all.  Other than having snagged Brad Pitt and having had the incredible good fortune to be on Friends, she has done nothing of merit that I know of, but she continues to be thrust in our faces.  I sure wish the little boy in the Emperor's New Clothes would show up and point out (I started to say that she was naked, but apparently she just posed nude for GQ, so that would be pointing out the obvious) how little talent she has compared with thousands of other actresses. After World Peace, Ending Famine, etc., my wish would be for Editors all over the world to come to their senses in the new year and stop featuring JA or anyone else whose fame is just being famous.  Don't tell me about how JA has become a great humanitarian because there are lots of people who have been walking the walk for a very long time who are more deserving of press.  

That's my rant for the day.

Onward and upward

History Has Been Made

I am so proud of my country and couldn't let this historic night pass without saying how much I wish my father could have seen Barack Obama become President of the United States.  He would have been so happy.  We would have been dancing around our living room.  

Now we have to get to work. 

God bless America.

Hair On Fire

The NYT reports today that the President says privately it is a darn good thing he is the decider during this economic crisis.  This from a man who ran his own oil business into the ground and I don't mean he drilled with success, just the opposite.  According to the story today, Bush had to be told that he needs to reassure people that everything is going to be o.k.  Imagine the POTUS needing to be told he needs to be a LEADER.   In a truly bizarre twist, the fact that he hasn't may be a sign that he actually KNOWS that everything is not going to be o.k.  

All the people we have been told were the great financial gurus are spinning like dervishes. Everyone's hair is on fire and no one knows where it will all end.  So why should the Decider? 

We were in California last week.  Boy, do I miss my home state, even after 33 years of living in the east.  My daughter-in-law said there is a German word for the place where your heart is...Heimat.  That place is definitely the Bay Area. If the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, I think the best place to be would be there.  You can actually sit with the windows open this time of year, no air-co, no heating.  Sunshine, sunshine, sunshine...did I mention sunshine?

Anyway, back to financial inferno.  On the plane back home the movie was "Kit Kittredge".  A kid's movie set in the Depression.  It is all about home foreclosures.  Have we gone back to the future?  Are we going to have to start taking in roomers (we do have three empty of people bedrooms)?  I have low-grade fear.  You know that thing that is always there, even when you aren't thinking about it.   I have always said that if we go down, everyone will be going down with us.  We got out of the market and moved to cash just before the first crash.  Not because I'm brilliant, but because my husband is.  He also cashed in so we could purchase our first new car in more than 10 years (we drive cars until they drop and I have bought junkers to drive in the snow) literally a month before the crash.  If he hadn't done that, we wouldn't be driving that Highlander Hybrid that's in the driveway.  We are very, very, very lucky.  I fear for us, but not as much as for those living on the edge.  When the "Decider" made his first calming speech a couple of weeks or so ago, who did he blame for the troubles?  Here are his words:

"Easy credit - combined with the faulty assumption that home values would continue to rise - led to excesses and bad decisions...Many borrowers took out loans larger than they could afford assuming that they could sell or refinance their homes at a higher price later on."

I don't deny that this is part of the problem, but I don't think the collapse is because of people trying to buy homes or flip houses. I'm still trying to figure out how the banks can give you only 2% interest on savings, charge 24% interest on your credit cards and lose money.  Somebody has some splainin to do. 

My last comment is about an interview with a broker on NPR.  In essence he said he wished Paulson would just shut up because everytime he made a comment the market went down.  I'm not waiting for any comments from the Decider.  The election can't come too soon...VOTE OBAMA-BIDEN.

One Debate Down...

Tonight was the first debate.  I'm sorry to say that I am disappointed in my candidate.  He let McCain interrupt him and he also kept saying that he agreed with McCain.  The Republicans will certainly use that to their advantage.  All in all it lacked energy and was, frankly, boring.

The most exciting part of the night came after the debate when Biden did the follow up.  He was dynamic, energetic, positive.  And then who spoke on behalf of McCain? Uh, that should have been his running mate, right?  Nope.  She is missing in action, so who stepped in?  Rudolph Giuliani. 

How pathetic.  The Republican VP candidate can't be allowed to speak on her own.  Get this:  a friend told me that given McCain's age, health problems, etc., actuaries say there is a 66% chance Sarah Palin would become President in McCain's first term.  I'm with Jack Cafferty, that does scare the hell out of me.  God help us all.

When will he learn?

Here I am back thinking about Clinton.  Bill, not Hillary.  Would Bill just shut up?  Could he just say nothing, if he can't say anything nice about Obama?  He continues to give aid and comfort to the Republicans that we don't need right now.  Has he forgotten that he was the leader of the Democratic Party?  Has he forgotten that he got us into this mess?  Has he forgotten that the Republicans have used every dirty smear they could think of against him, his wife, and his daughter?  Now is not the time to say anything, and I mean anything, that could possibly be construed as positive about McCain and Palin.  Just STOP calling McCain "my friend."  McCain is most certainly not your friend Bill.  He is an acquaintance, but not a friend.  Those swing voters, you know, the ones who voted for you, are needed now.  Any bit of praise you give to McCain/Palin will be an excuse for those voters to say to themselves, "Well, Bill thinks they're ok."  The First Dude doesn't need your advice, so just keep it to yourself.