Read All About It

I almost did the unthinkable the other day. I almost canceled my last daily newspaper subscription. I didn't stop delivery of the San Jose Mercury-News; but I seriously considered it. I found myself staring at the renewal notice and wondering if it was really worth the money.

I can't think of a time in my adult life when I didn't subscribe to at least one daily newspaper. There have been long periods when I subscribed to two daily papers. For a while we even had three papers delivered to the house every day. After spending about 15 years in the newspaper business, being an editor will always be part of my self identity.

I gave up my subscription to the Santa Cruz Sentinel when I moved back to Aromas. It was an easy decision because, to be frank, the Sentinel has become a terrible product. The Sentinel has never been a great paper, but it was usually at least mediocre, with some very good aspects -- I've always like Wally Baine's columns and the photography was pretty good. And, while the coverage was shallow, it was at least broad enough that I had a general idea what was going on in the community. But when the Ottaway group sold the paper to Media News, the paper went to awful with hardly stopping at bad.

The Mercury is following the same sad arc. Since its sale from Knight-Ridder to Media News, the Merc has lost news hole and gravitas. It's diminished in size and influence.

I've gotten into the habit of cruising the online version of the Sentinel -- 10 or 15 minutes is all I really need. Then I peruse the paper version of the Merc. But I find I only read the Sports section -- and that's mostly because of the late scores. As for the rest: the state, national and international news, I've already read most of it online before I went to bed the night before.

Some of my favorite sources are Internet versions of traditional newspapers such as the Washington Post and New York Times. But a lot of my information comes from blogs that I check every day. My reading list is at the bottom of the page. Check it out and you can see what important to me: politics, sports and beer -- not necessarily in that order. (By the way, I would be interested in your favorite blogs. Hit the comment button and let us all know what we should be reading.)

I know I'm kind of late to the party. Casey and Tim and most of their friends get all of their current events online. I doubt that Casey reads one newspaper a year and she is well informed. So, I am willing to admit that online news has a lot to offer. But I'm not giving up my newspaper until it's pried from cold , ink-stained fingers.

Economy-sized Dread

Ok, all of you who are scared crapless by the current state of the economy, raise you hand.

Anyone who doesn't have their hand up is either:

1. Independently wealthy
2. Lying
3. Not paying attention

I grew up believing that another Great Depression could not happen in my lifetime. Supposedly, the economists had it all figured out and, while we may have bumps in the road called recessions, we would never again face the economic devastation that we did in the 1930s. Maybe not.

I am hardly an economist so I may not be qualified to speak about fiscal policy or monetary policy. But I am pretty aware of my surroundings. And I don't like what I see. All around me I see people being laid off, programs being cut, and retirement accounts being drained like a leaky backyard wading pool.

My hope pretty much rests in Barack Obama coming to our rescue. He's a smart guy and he seems to have a bunch of smart guys and gals on his team. He has a plan to pump a lot of money into the system to do things that should be done anyway.

But partisanship may get in the way. Already the Republicans are dusting off the Herbert Hoover game plan and working on ways to kill Obama's plan. It's not like the Republicans have a lot of credibility. After all, it was their Greed is Good philosophy that got us into this mess in the first place.

But I am less worried about fixing blame for why the economy tanked than I am about getting the economy back on its feet. I just want the politicians to be solutions oriented.

I propose that we all make a pledge to vote for politicians of either party who work collaboratively to solve this issue. And let's make a pledge to vote against politicians of either party who insist on putting their own re-election ahead of doing what is necessary to ease the pain.

Hell, we could even start our own political party. We could call it the All for One and One for All party. Who's with me?

Raise your hand.

Happy New Year

It's been nearly a month since my last entry. It's not that I didn't want to post. I tried a couple of times, but I just couldn't write anything. The holiday season was hard for me this year. This was the first Christmas season since becoming single. The spirit eluded me.

I love Christmas. I love the traditions. I love cutting a tree. I love decorating the tree we just cut. I love going to Advent season church services. I love the Christmas Eve service. I love Christmas morning and family dinner.

At least, I used to love all those things. This year, it felt like all of those things were the property of other people -- not me. It felt like they had been stolen from me.

The gloom finally began to lift at the traditional carols and stories Christmas Eve service. The Christmas story is one of hope and promise. It is hard to not be inspired.

But the mood finally broke at the New Year's Eve party hosted by my friends Gary and Katy. It was a small group, but nearly everyone there was a good friend. There was one moment when I looked around the room and saw a group of good friends who have lived in Aromas for years and who were perfectly comfortable with each other. There wasn't any posturing. Everyone accepted everyone else for exactly who they are. It was safe.

Laura asked me if Aromas felt like home. It certainly did that night.

So on to 2009 and beyond.