I’ve written about subscribing to a “real American newspaper.” The paper that gets dropped at the end of my driveway every Saturday and Sunday is one of the “failing” papers that our always-aggrieved president regularly runs down for its “fake news.”
To call journalism “fake” exposes our bloviator-in-chief for the shallow huckster and carnival barker that he is at his essence. A man with small hands, a smaller heart, and who is totally clueless about the history of the nation he threatens to run into the ditch once and for all. For him, news is always “fake” when it’s not intended to flatter behaviors that are unflattering at best.
To malign reading and intellectual breadth and depth as “elitism,” is a solipsistic sleight-of-hand employed by lazy, shallow dolts who don’t, won’t, or can’t read. Bringing facts to these types is like arriving at a gunfight with a knife or worse: a sheet of paper.
But, to be well-read opens up a well-lit vista that is ever-expanding, rather than the world of the those striving at nothing. For the latter, their realm is a darkened square where the walls continue constricting, forcing out necessary oxygen.
I don’t expect every Saturday (or Sunday) to be a banner news day or one where The New York Times Book Review is bursting with books I want to run out and pick-up. Today, however, was a day when my book supplement had me jotting down notes and making plans to add to my ever-growing pile of “books to read.”
Saturday newspaper reading.