LOUD MOUTHS

       I have ranted on this topic before. Maybe I've ranted too many times. 

       I just hate to see the loudest brainless people get wall to wall coverage in the press. Everybody picks on Trump as getting too much mileage from his outlandish behavior and comments.  Recently, he's been making about half the items in a news feed I follow. As more lawsuits pile up and outlandish comments are made the press coverage is more and at a feverish pitch. 

      I'm tired of hearing all these news items. 

      Recently a new premier was chosen in my province, Alberta. She was chosen by members of her party.

     She campaigned on some extreme right wing policies. Now that she has got started , she's come up with some pretty wacky ideas.

     She sees our federal government as the evil of all evils. She's got a proposed piece of legislation that will allow our province to pick and choose what laws we will abide by and those we will not obey.   These rules have been in effect since the beginning of our country. Yes, they change and adapt as the years go by. So she wants to take everything she can from the federal system and not contribute to that system. Of course she has enough warped logic to make this sound good.

      But, she is  mouthpiece and is getting lots of press.

      I'm not saying these people should not get any press. We have to know people's ideas if they have any. We have to know what is correct  so that we can make decisions about what to support. 

     Okay, I'm not going to ask you for a solution. There is a solution but it'll never happen.

    The press today is to make money. The press puts out what makes the most money for them. So they've found out that outlandish things get good ratings. 

    So I guess I'll have to rant once in a while about what I think is  major problem. 

    I don't think I'll post the next rant!

WHO DO YOU TRUST?

     I come from and age when communication was of high quality, reliable and trusted. For most of my life, I've been able to read things and accept them as fact. 

    When I was brought up, we had no TV, not an awful lot of radio and only a couple of weekly newspapers. We did know what was going on in the world. In fact, we knew a lot about the world. 

    I remember hearing Hitler speak. He was scary and as a little boy , I recognized that. I remember a broadcast describing troops loading on ships to come back to Canada after the war.

   Most of all , as an adult, I've appreciated well written news items. Items that were in clear writing and had been well researched. We could rely on the news we were getting.

    Over the years, the news industry has cut staff so there are fewer good writers and they do not have time to do thorough research on a topic. Things have become very sloppy. Errors were easy to spot. 

    With the news business becoming weak as in not good quality, an opportunity was set up so that unscrupulous groups found out that they could produce news features that could be twisted so that their extremist ideas could be  widely publicized.

    Large and profitable news organizations have been formed to pass off slanted material as truth. They are making fortunes. Unfortunately many people are believing and influenced by the garbage they put out. 

    The the war in Ukraine, I realized that both sides are peddling their own views of the war. I pick the Ukraine as the good guys. That's easy. But I have recognized that the Ukrainians are spinning the story the way they want the world and Russians to see it. 

    So recently , I've had to ask myself , "Who do I trust?"

    So for those whose eyes aren't glazed shut, who have we got that we can trust? 

Bring Me Back a Present

     When I taught middle school I had a newspaper unit for one of the grades. We looked at all the parts of a daily paper starting with the header and ending with classified ads. We looked at headlines, first sentence of a story, editorials ..absolutely everything. The assignment was to make a scrapbook with about 10 different examples from the paper. The assignment was easy but it made the kids look through a newspaper. I killed a few birds with this stone. It got the kids reading and had them look at writing for a purpose. We did the crossword as a class and generally rooted through the whole paper. For a fine finale we took a field trip through a daily paper and saw how the paper was produced from start to finish.

I think I might need some new glasses

   I hope that some people found newspapers. I know the odd one is working for a newspaper but not likely from my newspaper unit.

   When  someone would tell me they were being taken out of school for a trip, I would look them in the eye and say, "You have to bring a present back for me!" A nervous distraught look would come over their face which said, "Is this guy for real?" I would give them a few seconds to be uncomfortable. The odd one would say ,"No way." Others might say, "Well , what do you want." Usually I got them off the hook and said , "Bring me back a newspaper." A look of relief  flooded across  their face and they enthusiastically said , "Oh sure!" I told them they didn't have to actually buy a newspaper. Their would be newspapers that they could pick up.

    So when they came back with their newspaper , I would make a big deal over the paper and we would briefly go through the paper and pass it around. Later on when they were going away they would ask me if I wanted a paper. Then they would come and say , "My Dad's going to Russia. Do you want a paper?" Some time later they would proudly come in with a paper. 

   I made a lot of mileage out of this gag. Quite a pile of newspapers built up over the years. Sadly there wasn't a lot of storage space so I had to clean out the closet from time to time. When I retired I disposed of all the newspapers that were left. Many memories went with the newspapers I collected. 

    "Bring me back a present" was a lot of fun.