Is It “Goodbye” or “Until We Meet Again?"

By

William D. Dannenmaier

Are newspapers headed for extinction? On October 8^th, 2006, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson published an article in the Financial Times (ft.com). In which he reported results of studies by the Jupiter research group. A survey of more than 5000 people in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain found that people were spending more time on the Internet than reading newspapers and magazines. Jupiter also reported that adults spend 14 hours a day on line as opposed to three hours reading. Many of the Internet hours may be spent on non-news, any experienced reader will confess that the hours they spend reading newspapers include the comic strips and gossip columns.

On October, 24, 2002, I wrote to Mr. Douglas H. McCorkingdale, Chairman, President and CEO of Gannett Corporation. I noted that Gannett Newspapers in major areas were suffering from a decline in readership. I said that if this were a decline from anticipated sales based on population growth they were trivial, but that if they were declines in actual sales despite area population increases they were serious and I had some opinions concerning the reasons for decline. As indication that I was not a crackpot, I reported my doctorate from Washington University and my last ten years working as a research analyst for the military. He never answered. The decline appears to have continued.

An article by Jennifer Saba, “Big Metros Show Severe Declines in Latest Circ Report” (Editor&Publisher.com, October 30, 2006) reported on the circulation sales of 22 major newspapers for the six month period ending in September (2006). Only the New York Post and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch showed increases in sales, 5.1% and .6% respectively. All of the rest showed decreases in sales. Lost circulation ranged from 8.8 % (Miami Herald) to 1.3% (USA Today). Uncertain as to whether these were absolute loses, in the sense that where ten papers were sold yesterday eight were sold today regardless of population growth or if they were losses based on anticipated sales from population growth, I telephoned Mr. Fitzgerald, Editor at Large for Editor&Publisher.Com. He was not available. In contrast to Mr. McCorkindale, Mr. Fitzgerald answered my call within two hours. He said that the losses were from past sales, in other words, did not take into account population increase.

Why are they declining? Why are newspaper and magazine (and television viewing) declining while the Internet is growing? My wife and I can think of several reasons.

Editors and reporters of newspapers and magazines are consistently Liberal, their reports are one-sided. This appeals to liberal readers (and writers) on those subjects on which they are liberal, but not to independents or conservatives or to liberals on subjects on which they desire other opinions. The Internet, to the contrary, permits all opinions, both liberal and conservative, as well as rational and irrational, sane and questionably sane!

Printed news is necessarily slow whereas Internet news is immediate and analyses are prompt. I have read news on the Internet that I saw the next day in the Wall Street Journal and three days later in my area newspaper.

Recently, reporters for the New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today have been found to have been highly creative in some of their articles. Sometimes they have simply made them up. As long as writers meet the prejudices of their editors they get published. No one knows how many decades this has been happening. Now comes the Internet, with its hundreds of thousands of readers with vast experience and hundreds of thousands of skills. Notice how quickly the sensational photograph of a bombing in the Near East was revealed to have been created. Internet users are quick to note the false and report it. Every case of plagiarism and false reporting that is brought to the attention of readers of the Internet reduces their faith in newspapers and television.

Having spent my childhood reading the funnies first, I now read the editorials first. I should have stuck with the funnies. For one matter, editorialists seem to have lost track of what interests me and people I know. An article by Hugh Hewitt, “Inbreeding among Royals, Pitbulls, and Editors,” (Townhall.com, July 12, 2006) examines this problem. He reviews the educational history of editors of major newspapers. With few exceptions most are from upper-class families and have attended expensive and exclusive private schools. Few, if any of them, have had the problem of wondering, month after month, if there would be enough money. They have not sold shirts, driven taxicabs or washed floors.

In my area of the country diversity is fashionable. The last time I purchased our area newspaper its editorial page had its usual four writers: one Chinese American woman, one Asian Indian woman, one black female and one black male. Of these, the three women were published on a regular basis and the man occasionally. Except for the usual conclusion by these black writers that the problem is the result of 250 years of slavery, the articles are amazingly bland.

Obviously their backgrounds permitted them to understand the concerns of an area in which the 2000 Census reported 95 ethnic Chinese, 269 Asian Indians and 24,000 blacks. I suppose the other 80,000 plus people, could go hang. (There are excellent, thoughtful, non-white writers who write as Americans for all Americans. Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, Star Parker and Michelle Malkin are good examples.)

Several years ago, in a conversation with the Publisher of the Clarksville Herald, I commented on the effects of loss of readership. He replied that advertising made money for the newspaper not circulation. But, will advertisers continue to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for ads directed at an always declining readership?

Common Sense

By

William D. Dannenmaier

Dr. Austin is a heart specialist. Not the dashing television type who consoles you over lost or unclaimed loves, he’s the type that slashes you open, takes out your heart, repairs it and puts it back in. In August or September he did this to me. I rather lost track of time during this procedure. Finally, on October 12^th, a now noteworthy day in history, he looked me over and said, “I’ve enjoyed meeting you, but we are finished and I hope I never see you again.”

I’m sure it wasn’t personal, at least I’d like to think so, it was just his way of releasing me. It had nothing to do with some of the games I played with the nurses, the one I remember best being who was fastest, me or them. Could I pull the wires out of my body faster than they could put them in was one. Eventually, to give them credit, they won, but they didn’t have an easy, one time victory.

But Dr. Austin wasn’t to get off that easily. We were in the same room and I had him in my sights. I had also spent over two weeks in the hospital and almost three under house arrest, with my bride being the warden. I wanted some freedom.

“Dr Austin,” I said politely, “when can I start doing some things around the house?”

“Just use your commonsense,” he replied.

“Deer and turkeys have destroyed my garden two years in a row, I planned on shooting some this year.”

“No hunting this year.”

“What if I only use a 22 rifle? It has no kick.”

“No hunting.”

“Friends with ponds have invited me to come and fish.”

“No fishing.”

“Look, these aren’t whales I’m after, just little sunfish.”

“Perhaps in November.”

“What about visiting friends?”

“No driving.”

“What if I just use my four-wheeler for those living nearby?”

“Stay off of the four-wheeler.”

“I was working on a porch on the roof and still have some painting and wood work to do.”

“That is not a good idea. No roof work, no painting. Also, no lawn mowing this year, riding mower or not, no raking of leaves, nothing involving your arms or upper arm movements.”

I quit with that, I couldn’t think of anything else to ask. (My bride shushed me when I started to bring up sex, she said we would solve that on our own.)

Two days later, discharged by Dr. Austin, I met with my cardiologist, Dr. Odom. We had a pleasant interview and, considering the possibility that he might be a softer touch than Dr. Austin, I brought up the idea of using commonsense to increase my freedom. He encouraged that idea. Relieved, I started over the list I had prepared for Dr. Austin.

Hunting? No. Fishing? No. Driving? No. Four-wheeler? No.

Frustrated, I said, “You are as bad as Dr. Austin. Dr. Austin said I could use common-sense, but everything I brought up, he vetoed. Now you are doing the same thing.”

Dr. Odom thought for a minute and then replied, “You know what the problem is? You don’t have any common sense.”

He left the room before I could think of a good answer to that. I had one in the car on the way home, but I’ve forgotten it now. However, he had discharged me also, so Gary Smith, my friend and physician of years standing was now in charge. I knew I could depend on him.

On my visit to Dr. Smith the next week, following the usual medical business, I brought up the woes of my incarceration at home and the lack of understanding exhibited by Drs Austin and Odom. Gary cleaned the slate quickly. “Bill,” he said, “before you start anything new, ask Sheila. She has common-sense.”

I thought about that on the drive home. Who wants to be common?

Memoir of a Moron

By

William D. Dannenmaier

There are only two requirements for qualifying as a moron medically, but they aren’t that easy to satisfy. I believe I succeeded in both. First, you must conceal from your family or anyone who might care about you any awareness that you may have a serious medical problem. Second, when you are finally forced to seek medical advice, enter on a breezy, cheerful, note and let the doctor find out how ill you are. I believe I qualified on both.

I thought it was fortunate that, on the morning of August 30,^th, I was home alone. I had not been feeling well for two or three weeks and there was some work that needed to be done. What better time for physical labor than when my bride was elsewhere and could not be looking over my shoulder asking if it wasn’t time to stop?

Specifically, I needed to put a concrete patch in my driveway in a spot that recent, heavy, rains had washed clear of gravel. I had an eighty pound sack of concrete in my shed awaiting this job. All I needed to do was cut a patch of fence wire to fit the gully, mix, pour and smooth the concrete.

I was surprised to run short of breath in cutting and fitting the wire, but sat down for a minute to recover. Then I discovered I had purchased cement rather than concrete. This meant I had to add about twenty pounds of gravel to the cement before mixing in the water and pouring. Every step seemed to take more energy than I had that morning, but I completed all and had reached the point where I tromped loose gravel on top of my newly poured concrete when a tremendous pain shot up through my chest, spreading to my back and then my arms. Even my teeth hurt. I sat down to give the pain time to go away and think things over. This took almost an hour.

I couldn’t drive. If I telephoned Dr. Smith he would insist on a hospital visit, which I assumed would take two or three days, but I had to pick up my 20 year old son, Andrew, at his college that Saturday. If I told my bride, she would telephone Smith with the same results. The thoughtful solution, at the moronic level, was to conceal and mislead. Tell my bride nothing. Tell my doctor, whom I trusted, only partial truths. I telephoned Dr. Smith’s office and avoided him completely. I told the receptionist that Dr. Smith had been wanting me to come in for a complete physical for the past few years – which was true. When we settled on a date, September 12^th, I added, “By the way, I’ve had a few chest pains recently; you might want to note that in the record.”

A good week followed, although I always seemed to be short of breath as I cut the grass and cleaned the garden. As the twelfth approached, I noticed a need for a bit more concrete in one spot so I opened a second sack, taking out what I figured I needed. Again, I added rocks, water, mixed and poured. Again that darned chest and back pain, but this time Sheila was home and watching.

Discussion followed. Sheila wanted to take me to the hospital but settled on permitting Dr. Smith, whom I had known for fourteen years and trusted, to decide. According to my bride, Dr. Smith said, “Take him to the ER at Baptist Hospital.”

From that point on, my memory is spotty. I remember nothing of the ride to the hospital, although I do remember having trouble finding my insurance cards when I arrived and being told I didn’t need them. Surgery was scheduled for the first thing in the morning (Sheila claims I was the first one taken in to surgery and the last one out.). I spent a little less than a week in the intensive care unit and more than another week in the pulmonary/cardiology wing after the time in intensive care. While I got to know many of the nurses and technicians working my case, I only remember the last few staff members who cared for me. Other events I remember distinctly included taking off all the wires (this was painful) to go to the bathroom by myself because no one would help me – in fact they tried to stop me. People coming and going and leaving my room door open, which irritated me – I took off the wires again to close the doors when no one was there. Listening to the nurses and technicians discuss the needs of all the wires.

It was this last eavesdropping which clarified my situation to me. Several weeks earlier I had read a short story in which a distinguished man and two young girls were perpetuating a swindle to steal all available money in a small town. Another stranger to the town - the town was full of strangers that day – managed to foil the plot and save the town. I was in an analogous situation, a distinguished young man and two young women stooping to technology to rob a town! I could only help by keeping them from wiring me up again. In the story the sheriff finally appeared and, sure enough, soon enough hospital security, the sheriff in my mind, was in my room. Instead of arresting the trio however, he simply talked to them and left. I tried to explain to the young man that he was supposed to be the bad guy and I the good guy and that he was messing things up. As in the story I read, I also tried to talk the girls, Lisa, whom I called Spiky, and Dee, out of their life of crime. The entire play was being mismanaged. Worse yet, two other girls, Michelle and Karla, showed up, this was two girls too many. Then Rachel, a slightly older lady arrived. This was all wrong.

Anyway, they replaced my wiring, one of them, I suspected Spiky, seemed to be nailing the wires into my flesh while Dee had wonderfully soft hands and was extremely calming as she smoothed new patches into place. Rachael had a quiet was of talking that was also calming, but perhaps not enough so.

Sheila said that when she arrived with me initially she was told that there were strict visiting hours for spouses, she could not stay. At five the following morning she received a telephone call requesting that she come and spend the day with me as soon as possible. Later this included night hours. Visiting hours were eliminated for her, but I don’t know why. Must be her personality.

My time in the hospital was extended to a bit over two weeks, and all of these people and I ended up on reasonably good terms as I came to see and appreciate their skills and their attitudes. Of course, none of them ever had the faintest idea what was going through my mind - that criminal conspiracy I was stopping - during all of their efforts to get me to obey the rules.

One thing one must admire about the medical profession however, is their ability to have a diagnostic term for every situation. Before leaving and during a discussion with Mike Troxler, who might have been the distinguished “criminal” in my earlier understanding, I asked if they had a term for people like me and he said, “Yes. You are a stubborn old fart.”

Political Correctness / Democracy’s Stupidity

By

William D. Dannenmaier

A report on BBC World Service (16 August 19, 2006) quotes former President Bill Clinton is quoted as saying, “The clash of values is more significant than religious differences,” in answer to a question on the war on terror.

Typical Bill: shallow and stupid: fodder for the thoughtless. Unfortunately, it is a view of those on the political left and accepted by many, particularly those who wish to be seen as politically correct.

Values are derived from religious beliefs. They differ according to the teachings of different religions. As one example, Christians and Jews adhere to the commandment, “Thou shalt not murder,” and attempt to avoid the killing of innocents in time of war. Under Islam, as practiced, it is perfectly acceptable to kill innocents if it expands the power of your particular Islamic sect. Those who deny this should consider the lack of outcry from the Muslim world when a group of “soldiers” of one Islamic sect took school children of a different Islamic sect off a school bus and murdered them. That, of course, is simply one example. The killing of innocents of all faiths continues throughout the world by terrorists in the name of “Islam” without condemnation or criticism by other Muslim leaders. They appear to follow no law other than the law of terror.

In the United States, our basic laws are provided for and based on the Constitution. The Preamble begins, “We, the People of the United States…” It doesn’t begin “We the wealthy” or “We the landed aristocracy” or “We the mullahs” or any other group privileged by wealth or status. The authors of the Constitution, even though themselves privileged, thought of themselves, first and foremost, as part of the “People.”

Added to the Constitution was the Bill of Rights, to emphasize that the power of governance was to be held by the “People,” not by any special group. At the time it was a revolutionary idea. To this day, no other nation and certainly no non-Christian nation has such a constitution.

It is true, that there was dissent as to which “People” should hold the power. It took almost seventy years to attack the evil of slavery and expand the integration of black Americans into society. It took much longer for women to attain full status under the law, but achieve it they have.

Who then wrote this remarkable document? Without exception, the founders of the United States were either devout Christians or steeped in the Christian faith. The values they held, which grew from their Christian heritage, permitted this thinking, this document, this nation.

Critics of Christianity point to the terrors imposed by Christians during the Middle Ages, but that is almost a thousand years in the past. All recent bloodbaths have been started by non-Christians. Stalin was not a Christian, neither were the military leaders of Japan. Hitler attempted to stamp out Christianity in Germany. None of the leaders of Vietnam, Cambodia or China, all of whom murdered millions, were Christian.

The “Christian” blood baths of the Middle Ages began when Rome adopted Christianity as the state religion. Christianity became politicized and as Rome fell, religious leaders remained faithful to the political leaders in the areas in which they lived. The message of that profound being, Jesus Christ, became secondary to political correctness in the teachings of religious leaders as they expounded on the “divine authority” of kings and princes.

Thankfully, that time passed with the establishment of the United States and its Constitution, proclaiming the rights of the people. Acceptance of the divine rights of kings is no longer politically correct. Neither is racial superiority.

Unfortunately, the “politically correct” lemmings have replaced “divine right” with “diversity.” This has been embraced, or at least accepted, by the leaders of mainstream Christian churches. All religions have value. All are acceptable. All are equal. That is simply not true.

Apologists for Islamic terrorism argue that it is the poor and disenfranchised of the Middle East who conduct the terrorism. But in France, Spain, England, Holland and the United States it is second and third generation men and women, affluent young adults, often university students and graduates, who are planning and conducting terror. Who is teaching them this?

What form of insanity welcomes, as equal to a society, members of a religion whose values include the killing of innocents and the destruction of the society that has welcomed them?

The “political correctness” of the religious leaders of the Middle Ages led to vicious and bloody wars. Will the “political correctness” of diversity and equality of values lead to demise of the democracies of Western Europe and the United States?

If steps are not taken, now, to proscribe the teachings of those who would slaughter all who do not hold their particular beliefs, our Western Civilization will be destroyed, but only following a blood bath that will make the millions who died during the World War II and under Communist regimes a minor preamble.

If the United States were to require the modification of Islamic teachings or outlaw Mohammedanism it would not be the first time the government required a religion to change its teachings. Ask the Mormons. Or, outlawed the religion entirely, remember the Branch Dividians at Waco or the Freedmen of Ruby Ridge.

Anyone who finds this article interesting should read Thomas Sowell’s “Point of No Return” column on Townhall.com, which has a different approach to the same topic.

Family Foibles

By

William D. Dannenmaier

As is true of most families, we have enjoyed laugher at themselves over the years. Many of these date back to the reign of my mother. Most of our “Mom stories” involve food.

I recall, mostly from tales told me as I was only six or seven at the time, a Christmas during the Great Depression. Like many during those days, everything was saved. Thus when Mom saw Christmas approaching and she had no money for a chicken, she took some Popsicle sticks, carefully preserved from the preceding summer. She purchased fifteen cents worth of liver from the butcher and wrapped it around three Popsicle sticks. These she cooked and presented to Ethel, Joe and I as “drumsticks.” Joe and I were happy with our “drumsticks” and began eating them immediately. Ethel, older and wiser, picked hers up, tasted it and announced, “It tastes like liver to me.” Joe put his down immediately but I went on eating mine. It took Mom years to forgive Ethel for that. Later she could laugh about it, but there was still a trace of, “Why didn’t she keep her mouth shut and let the boys enjoy their “chicken?” in her story.

Some years my mother’s birthday, anniversary and Mother’s Day all occurred on the same date. One such year, Dad splurged and bought my mother an expensive two-pound box of chocolates, a treasure for a chocolate loving woman during those years. She hid her treasure under the bed in their room, a room we children were forbidden to enter. Returning from a shopping trip, to her horror, she discovered an empty box. Three children were roundly, unjustly, condemned. The truth appeared in small bits of colored tinfoil in our dog Trixie’s droppings the next day.

As the depression lessened and Dad found steady work, my sweets loving mother had a desert at every dinner. Pies, cakes and muffins were routine. One Saturday a trip was planned to visit our cousins who farmed land Mom’s family had homesteaded in the early 1800s. She decided to make muffins to take, a treat we all loved and they seldom enjoyed. Mom made the muffins, let them cool and then covered them with icing and shredded coconut. When we were sitting about the table at the farm enjoying the muffins, Mom steadfastly refused to eat any, saying they were for our cousins. It was only years later that she confessed that she had placed them on the porch to cool. When she returned she found them covered with ants. Deciding that what we didn’t know wouldn’t hurt us, she brushed off the ants, mixed the icing and included the coconut to cover ant gnawings.

Friends and members of the family will be proud to know that Sheila and I and our brood are keeping the tradition alive. Until recently, my favorite story involved Andrew. We were preparing to return to the States from Germany and our furniture had been packed and removed. I purchased a used coffee table to use as a dining table for the children while Sheila and I simply ate standing up in the kitchen. One night she had chicken, which Andrew, four at the time, detested. I insisted that Andrew eat at least one drumstick before any desert. Soon Andrew appeared in the kitchen and showed me an empty plate. “Andrew,” I asked, “where’s the bone?”

“Bone?” came the reply. Then two big eyes looked up from a thoughtful face and I heard a soft, “Oh.”

Silently, I retrieved the chicken leg from the wastebasket, washed it off, handed it to my downhearted son and watched him eat it.

But now I have another one. Sheila was cleaning the cabinet and found some dog treats that I had purchased and forgotten. These included a package of dried pig ears. Sitting on the porch talking, our usual after supper pastime, with Stephen hovering nearby, I suggested we give the dogs a treat. Obligingly, Sheila went for the treats. I said, “Bring the pig ears.” Stephen straightened up, “You mean those were for the dogs?”

“You ate them?” I asked.

“Only one. It didn’t taste very good.”

Now perhaps Stephen will stop reminding me of a special treat he had purchased and hidden in the back of the fridge. Finding it, I took out two and popped one in my mouth before he could stop me. It tasted awful, but I chewed and swallowed.

“Dad,” he asked, “Why are you eating the food I bought for my crickets?”