NP - There is Still Journalism - It's Just Not Here

[C. F. Abel]

Thanks for this, by the way.

C. F. Abel
Chair
Department of Government
Stephen F. Austin State University

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry
about the answers." 
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of rich
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2011 8:35 AM
To: Joseph Tracy
Cc: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: NP - There is Still Journalism - It's Just Not Here

I think it boils down to the initiative on the part of any individual
to stay informed; like good music or good sex it takes some sweat to
find the well-informed, those perceptive enough to teach us something
we didnt know before in a compelling way.
Being in the library trade for a part of my career I have to say it is
the last bastion of social equality (some may the the best) where
anyone anywhere can find a refuge to the sickening glut of nonsense
out there. an example: I grew up on Long Island in a mostly moderate
Republican county. it has since become less than moderate. when i
recently visited I saw firsthand the devastation of the mortgage
crisis--large swathes of the main drag abandoned with weeds growing in
parking lots, shops about to close, very empty restaurants at dinner
time and the plethora of for sale signs on homes if they hadnt been
abandoned in turn themselves, the festering racism against latinos who
you usually see walking everywhere to their crappy construction jobs
or back to a rented house filled with twenty-something lonely guys.
Anyway, the one place during my recent visit that made my heart a
little bit lighter was the local library that I used to go to--with
its refurbished Jules Verne type architecture, outer wings looked like
Nemo's ship, a great improvement over the bland building I used to
happily enter as a kid in the 70s.
Inside you saw posters of understanding, many children of many nations
and colors holding hands, actors encouraging kids to read, heck even a
small coffee machine. Behind the circulation desk a muslim woman (in
full dress) checking out books for a small family. I was tempted to go
up to her and quietly whisper to her that I was glad she was there.

We lose libraries, well I doubt we'd have much of a soul left.
Rich


On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 10:48 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>  It just keeps getting worse. NPR has gone the same way,  My local library
is going the same way . All  its new books are crap. I wonder how many have
just turned American pop news off and gone to selective browsing.  The
battle of the soundbites. The distant uprisings and wars. Words like linked,
tied,  took out, Lot of 1984.
> On Dec 7, 2011, at 10:12 AM, David Morris wrote:
>
>> http://www.intothestreet.org/
>>
>> There is Still Journalism - It's Just Not Here
>>
>> The corporate news media is still serving solid, nourishing
>> journalistic food to the rest of the world. Here at home, Americans
>> are fed the journalistic equivalent of candy and soda pop. For proof,
>> just compare the covers of three international editions of Time
>> Magazine to their domestic U.S. edition for the same week. (7
>> examples)
>