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| My lunch with the Tribune |
I
enjoy reading my daily newspaper to find out what’s going on locally and in the
world. Of course, a lot of the news beyond the local, I’ve already heard on the
radio. I always read the obituaries to see if by any chance I’m in there –
that’s an old joke my father used to say a lot. The only news I don’t follow is
the sports page and not much of the celebrity news, either. I love the comics
and save them for last – sort of a dessert, as you will, after all the tragedies
going on in the world.
One
feature I really like is the human interest ones. A little over a week ago,
there was an article about American pediatrician Alan Jamison who was treating
patients with Ebola. His medical missionary group pulled him out early as a
precaution, but the 69 year old retiree plans to return. “This is where the
need is,” Jamison explains, “This is my calling.”
Hospital
volunteer Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly were already in Liberia when the
outbreak began and they decided to stay at the charity run ELVA hospital in
Monrovia to help. Richard Sacra, a 15-year ELWA veteran, immediately
volunteered to leave his family in suburban Boston and return to the hospital
when Writebol and Brantly got sick. Jamison also worked there. Rendi Murphree,
an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will
soon be leaving for Monrovia, Liberia, to work at the airport screening
outbound passengers for the Ebola virus. These are just a few of the many
volunteers who are fighting this dreaded disease for no financial reward only a
strong desire to help where help is needed.
Another
article in the Tribune also caught my
eye. It got a lot of hype. It seems that women celebrities have had their nude
photos hacked. Poor women. Yes, hacking is wrong, but I have to wonder why they
had nude pictures on the web when everyone knows hacking is a reality. Also, I
guess I also wondered if they didn’t want people looking at them in the nude,
then why did they have the pictures taken at all. Okay, I guess I’m a bit of a
prude, but it’s hard for me to feel sorry for them when ISIS is brutally
murdering people, people throughout the Middle East are losing their homes,
lives and families, and many people in Africa are dying from Ebola or from the
fighting going on throughout many areas of Africa. The Ukraine is suffering
from an invasion, and wildfires are a serious problem in the west. And then
there is Central America, neighbors of ours who live in fear from the crime
cartels.
I’m
retired on a fixed income, but I do give to some charities. Unfortunately, I
think I’m on the mailing list of almost every charity in the country and much
as I would like to, I can’t donate to very many of them. Of course, some I send
a donation once a year, but then that means I get begging letters from them
every month. One of the charities, I do
donate to more than once a year is Doctors Without Borders. I think these brave
and caring doctors, nurses and others who risk their lives to help others
deserve all the help they can get.
Back
to the daily newspaper; in addition to news and ideas for blogs, it’s a
wonderful place to find characters and plot ideas.
Do
you read a daily newspaper?
How
do you get your news?
I get news from the radio (NPR) and internet feeds. I do read the local paper when I’m up north. The Iron County Reporter is a weekly. In Savannah, the newspaper holds no interest: it doesn’t have much national or international news and its local is mostly about crimes, which I don’t need to pay money to read about. And I’m not attached to local sports teams.
ReplyDeleteI’ll also watch the nightly news on PBS, but mostly the weekly reports.
~ Jim
I get world and national news from the Internet. I used to subscribe to the NY Times online until they ticked me off with their biased news. Now I look at many online news articles rather than go with one sources.
ReplyDeleteI like local news, which I overhear while my husband has it on around five p.m. The oddball news like the one Kara picked up on--in which the Great Dane ate 43 1/2 pairs of socks--amuses me. They also caught dolphins getting high off puffer fish. There was a film of a dolphin with a Sean Penn (Fast Times At Ridgemont High) look on its face. It was funny, but then knowing they are intelligent, I wondered what troubled them enough to want to escape reality. It was a bit disturbing.
I have to admit that I hate hearing the news. It's so bad. At the beach, I rarely take note of outside events. I'm happier that way. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
I read the local newspaper mostly out of habit. It has become more a place for ads than a place for news.
ReplyDeleteI'm an avid daily reader of the Washington Post, which even in my rural area is delivered to the house (well, to the end of the driveway.)
ReplyDeleteSundays, I read the Post and the Harrisburg Citizen-Patriot. Sometimes I get the Baltimore Sun on Sundays, too, but that begins to really add up in both money and time spent. Sometimes I leave certain sections of the Sunday papers for later in the week, especially if I have a doctor's appointment (all too frequent these days!) Then I bring a section or two to read in the waiting room, and I don't have to lug it home again.
I hang on to my daily newspaper subscription, though I barely have time to read it any more. Biased reporting, shoddy grammar, and an overabundance of "celebrity news" are driving me away from most news outlets, though I hang on, driven by a sense of responsibility for this crazy world. How can we make decisions if we're not informed? It's just such hard work now, having to sift through the stuff that doesn't matter (oh no! somebody hacked my nude pics that I left lying around) with the stuff that does (a health crisis).
ReplyDeleteI get my news from a variety of sources. For international news I watch BBC, Al Jazeera, and CNN. I sometimes read the Washington Post or Wall Street Journal online.
ReplyDeleteI receive the most current news from Twitter and Facebook feeds. If there's an earthquake in S. California, I'll read about it a few minutes after it happens.
I don't read newspapers or listen to the radio. My news comes from the Internet or from TV. I plop in front of my computer in the morning and spend a few hours catching up on news and networks before doing some work.
ReplyDeleteWhen I really want some international news, I watch BBC America.
Patg