In praise of silence

This Newsweek article titled “The Devil Loves Cell Phones” – http://www.newsweek.com/id/219010 - by Julia Baird addresses something that’s peeved me for a long time: the constant noise in our society.  This is a beautifully written article, and makes the point in an almost lyrical fashion that when we eliminate silence from our lives, we are the poorer for it – emotionally, physically and intellectually.  We need spaces of silence the same way your eye needs some white space on this page.  We don’t need to be stimulated and entertained every minute of the day.

Baird’s writings remind me of when my dog, Bear, first came to live with me over six years ago.  He was a three-month-old puppy at the time, a gift from my daughter that Mother’s Day, and he’d been a pound puppy.  During those first weeks when I would turn on the evening news, you could tell the TV disturbed him a lot; he would whine and cry each night when the TV came on.  To this day when I have TV on in the evenings he goes into another room or lies on the deck outside until it’s time to shut everything down and go to bed.

Bear’s hearing is acute, and always has been – I’m sure that’s one reason the television makes him so uncomfortable.  But he’s also reacting to something that his physical system was never wired for in the first place: the overlay of noise, and lots of high-frequency noise at that, in his daily life.  It’s the same overlay we get as human beings, when we cannot go grocery shopping without music blaring throughout the store; cannot go to a doctor’s office without “musak” playing in the background; cannot even swim at the health club without music coming from the loudspeakers.  We treat silence as if it were a deadly poison.

We don’t have enough white space, enough silence, in our daily lives: enough space and time for reflective thinking, to gain the perspectives we need; enough space and time to adequately think through the problems that challenge us both personally and professionally; enough space and time to cultivate relationships the way they should be cultivated.

I read another article yesterday from somewhere that the most popular “Tweeters” out there – those with thousands upon thousands of followers – tweet as many as 50 times a day.   There isn’t time for reflective, serious thinking there, either – must less for their followers who read all those tweets.  We cannot absorb hundreds and thousands of messages a day and make sense of it.  We are overloaded.  We need some silence.

I’m lucky – I work out of my home.  I can control the amount of noise in my immediate environment, and of course Bear is delighted when I do.  I’ve wondered lately if this isn’t the way the balance used to be – that we lived quieter lives, and went to social and entertainment events on the weekends in order to break through our own daily lives and enjoy some time with others.  It seems to me, at least given the amount of traffic here in the Portland Metro Area, that most people live their daily lives in cluttered, noisy work environments, and go home on the weekends to get some peace and quiet – if they are so lucky to have that in their own homes. 

Is this not a little backwards?  Wouldn’t we all be more productive if we had silent spaces in our work lives – those wonderfully regenerative spaces where our creative minds could do their best work?  – those still moments where the answer which may have been drowned out with distractions before suddenly becomes apparent?   Wouldn’t it be better and more productive if, when we came home on the weekends, we’d had just the right amount of silence and white space in our lives that there was energy left over for being with people just to be with them?

I’d rather have the base-line of my working life be anchored in a kind of silence that encourages intelligent thinking and discussion, rather than have it be anchored in noise, over-stimulation, distractions and constant rush.  I’d like to enter public spaces – stores, medical offices, health clubs, malls and elevators – without being bombarded with constant noise disguised as music.   I know that’s asking a lot, and most people will never have that luxury.  But I think we’re far the poorer for it.

Our uninformed public dialogue

Last Saturday, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts wrote an article entitled “Get Ready for Conservative Bible” – http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/columnists/story/1287092.html.  The column appeared in this morning’s Oregonian, my daily newspaper.  Pitts makes a more universal point in talking about the fact that the Conservapedia web site is “correcting” the Bible according to conservative principles and interpretations.  That point is this: we are becoming a society where we only have to listen to, or read, information with which we agree.  Here’s how Pitts puts it in his column: 

“Rather than trust those beliefs to stand or fall in the free market of ideas, some conservatives now apply a kind of intellectual protectionism. So now you have your conservative newspaper, your conservative radio station, your conservative university, your conservative “facts” and, apparently, your conservative God, and you may build yourself a conservative life in a conservative bubble where you need never contend with ideas that challenge, contradict — or refine — your own.

“But here’s the thing: When no authority can be regarded as unimpeachable by both right and left, when no fact can be universally accepted as such, when anything you prefer not to believe is automatically dismissed as a product of “bias,” you impoverish intellect and render informed debate impossible.”

Those of us engaged in tracking new media and teaching it; those of us engaged in public communication of any type, whether making a living or just following trends, have been worried about this for a long time.  No, not worried about conservatives taking over the universe; worried about the larger point of how people are tuning out information, opinions and dialogue with which they disagree.  Complicating the issue is that it had become increasingly difficult to sort out truth from opinion from entertainment.  Witness the mainstream media last week, falling for the story of a complete 180-degree turn by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on its position regarding climate change:  http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/climate-change/whoops-reuters-acknowledges-that-hoax-story-on-climate-change-could-have-moved-financial-markets/ 

News moves at warp speed anymore, and in trying to keep up, much of which passes for news is just not credible stuff.  How do we educate our young people to have discerning minds without turning them into complete cynics?  How do we once again grow a country which is intellectually rigorous and willing to consider different information which may actually change our minds?  These are questions we’ll be having to answer for a long time in the future.

Career at a Crossroads: Managing your Career in a Recession

MARYLHURST UNIVERSITY

17600 PACIFIC HIGHWAY (HWY. 43) MARYLHURST, OREGON

Career at a Crossroads –

Managing Your Communications Career in a Recession

6:30-9:00 pm Wednesday, October 14^th:  Flavia Hall Parlor,

Marylhurst University 

Free and open to the public; RSVP requested at www.marylhurst.edu/homecoming 

 

Released Oct.1, 2009

The Communication Department at Marylhurst University and the Portland Metro Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) are co-sponsoring a free workshop for anyone working in, or interested in, a communications career from 6:30-9:00 pm Wednesday, Oct. 14, in the Flavia Hall Parlor at Marylhurst University, 17600 Pacific Hwy, Marylhurst, OR. Titled “Career at a Crossroads: Managing your Career in a Recession,” the evening will being with a wine and cheese reception from 6:30-7:00 pm. 

From 7-8:15 pm, participants will hear a panel discussion with experienced communications professionals from the Portland metro area; the list follows.  Panelists will discuss their career fields and what the job market looks like right now; what they look for in new hires; how someone can prepare for a communications career in their field or industry; and whether skills and knowledge from their field might transfer into a related field.

Following the panel discussion will be roundtable guided discussions.  Throughout the evening suggested tips, tools and techniques for strengthening one’s own position in the marketplace will be offered and discussed.

The evening will wrap up with an overview of a subsequent five-week seminar at Marylhurst offered for classroom credit, which goes into the issues of re-engineering one’s career at a much deeper level.  Finally, for those who interested, a discussion from 9:00-9:30 pm will focus on what it takes to be a free-lancer or entrepreneur.  People can stay to ask further questions at that time.

 

Panelists: 

• Dianne Danowski Smith, APR: Vice-President Publix Northwest Public Relations/Public Affairs
• Gail Dundas, APR: Senior Communications Manager, Intel Global Communications Group
• Benjamin Tomkins: Media Consultant and Journalist
• Amy Gaskill, APR: Public Affairs Specialist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• Bill Johnstone: President/CEO, Oregon Association of Broadcasters
• Tom Unger, APR, ABC; Vice President, Regional Manager, Corporate Communications; Wells Fargo & Company

 

Panel moderator:

• Kathryn Hubbell, APR, Fellow PRSA: Owner, AdScripts, Inc.; Adjunct Professor in Public Relations, Marylhurst University

 

For more information contact Kathy Hubbell at 503-669-8100 or Kathy@adscripts.com, or

Communications Department Chair Jeff Sweeney at Marylhurst University at 503-699-6269

From the beach at Yachats

The last few weeks seem to have been filled with a tumult of activity and voices and Yachats beckoned once again.  Here on the Central Oregon Coast, life is quieter and slower; Yachats is one of the most undeveloped parts of the coast (the amazing restaurants here not withstanding), and the minute I am within view of the ocean, I start relaxing.

Each time I am here, the hours for quiet reflection and thought bring me to a deeper understanding of whatever has been driving me just before I came.  Today, walking on the beach with Bear as the tide receded, I realized that I feel greatly privileged to be teaching, and I feel greatly privileged to still work with veterans who are sick from the anthrax vaccine. 

The teaching end of the deal was something I decided just about six years ago, when I made up my mind to go back to school and get a Master’s degree so that I could make the career switch.  I feel lucky that I was able to tell Mom about the decision in August of that year, just two months before she passed away. I wasn’t totally sure what I would do yet, only that I wanted to go back on the ship (www.semesteratsea.org) and that I wanted to go back to school with the goal of teaching in mind.  She was thrilled about both ideas.  I did go back on the ship, briefly, for an alumni reunion cruise to the Bahamas a few years ago.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu was on board, and that alone made the trip an incredible experience.  But I also found out that, contrary to my experiences at 19 on my first voyage, by now it was entirely possible for me to get seasick.  Our first night out at sea after leaving Fort Lauderdale was “a wild and stormy night,” and the ship was tossed around pretty strongly.  I had to leave a meeting in the student union and go outside for some air, and got very little sleep.  I’m not sure that a four-month semester at sea is any longer in my best interest, though I’m certainly going to look at some of the shorter educational voyages that are held every year.

Back to teaching: I’m enjoying it three times more than I ever anticipated.  I love the interaction with students, even though it’s primarily online.  I love the thoughts and creativity that come my way across the keyboard.  I love our live chats, and the SKYPE calls.  I’m working on putting a video component into our online classes, but that might have to evolve a little bit more.  Nevertheless, teaching is an enormous pleasure and privilege.

Working with veterans and active-duty service members – something I’ve done for over nine years now – is also a wonderful privilege.  I spent the early years not knowing how to handle things emotionally; the knowledge that our government has conducted more than one medical experiment on the troops over the years, usually without their knowledge, is appalling and tragic.  I could not believe this was my country.  But I’m also an advocate of changing a country from within, not throwing up my hands and walking off.  The anthrax vaccine was then, and is now, an unproven, dangerous drug.  Just ask the FDA where the peer-reviewed, published research studies are; they only exist for the original cutaneous anthrax vaccine, not for the re-configured vaccine that is supposed to protect against inhalational, or aerosolized, anthrax.  The years of bungling, sheer stupidity, greed and blatant attempts to save face are documented on the web site I run, www.mvrd.org- the Military Vaccine Resource Directory.  The vaccines are on my mind because while I was walking on the beach this morning, I called a vet in Michigan who wrote to me last weekend detailing his massive problems since being forced to take the anthrax vaccine, in one e-mail writing, “PLEASE HELP ME.”  The phone call this morning was the third for fourth time we’ve been in touch this week. He won’t need me constantly; I have a network of people whom I can contact who can and will reach out to help him.  It’s a good, close, caring community, but it’s a tragic one.  It’s a community that should never have to exist.

While I’m on the beach, these thoughts are in my head, but they aren’t swirling and noisy as they so often are at home.  They go deeper and quieter.  The sound of the ocean is a steady rhythm against life here; and the beach reflects the entire cycle of life and death and the tides that bring both.  I think often of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s “Gifts from the Sea,” and know what she meant.  Here – for someone who has spent a lifetime dealing with what it takes to establish those “mutually beneficial relationships” between a business or organization and its publics; who has studied and worked in public relations since 1980 – here my relationship with myself and the world around me settles into something peaceful and quiet.  Here I understand a lot more about the ties that bind.

Check your facts!

I’m on the same rant: I can’t stand it that our public discourse has turned rude, ugly and cynical.  I watched all of President Obama’s health care speech tonight, and was as stunned as a lot of people were when Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted out ‘You lie!” when the President said the proposed health care bill would not fund illegal aliens.  Folks, CNN.com does a pretty decent job of fact checking, and they’s run down a list of facts they checked from the speech here:  http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/category/health-care-fact-check/  What’s the verdict on the illegal alien bit?  “A new report finds bill could require illegal immigrants to buy coverage, but it clearly restricts subsidies to U.S. citizens and legal residents.”

Have we stopped teaching high school civics and government classes?  Have we not taught our young people how to check the facts before they open their mouths?

This is not a minor issue. For those of us in public relations, accurate research and fact-checking form the core of our credibility as professional communicators.  We have to know how to find out the truth and the facts (they are not synonyms) and we have to know how to communicate both the truth and the facts.  We try to anticipate how people might respond by knowing the people who are going to be receiving those messages; we try to get people engaged in the issue or concern at hand, because communication without action is merely information dissemination.

But we now live in a world where people choose what they want to believe with seemingly complete disregard for the facts and no compulsion at all to have respect for an elected government – a government at many levels which, they are probably loathe to admit, provides for paved roads, public schools, fire and police protection, and, oh yeah, provides social safety nets for the poor, the disabled and the unemployed.  Yeah, none of  it is perfect; the health care system in this country needs work and so do a lot of our social services.  Our veterans, for God’s sake – those men and women who put their lives on the line in the service of our country – too often wait years for adequate medical care, and go bankrupt and homeless in the meantime.  Our veterans – to whom we owe so much – are treated as disposable toy soldiers once they get home.  There’s a lot in this country that needs fixing.

So take your anger and your cynicism and channel it into helping these changes take place.  Don’t like what’s going on?  Get involved.  Knock off the ignorance, knock off the anger, knock off the insults and trash talk and do something positive with all that energy.  And if you don’t want to get involved, then quitcherbitchin’.  We need strong people and intelligent people and people willing to check the facts.    Anyone can protest; to make a difference, help create solutions.

President Obama’s Education Speech Today – why all the fuss?

O.K., I don’t get it.  I just watched the full video of President Obama’s education speech today – http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2009/09/08/sot.obama.education.entire.cnn -  and sorry, but I don’t see what the fuss is all about.  I DO see a lot of disrespect for the President.  I was trying to think of a time when a president greatly affected me when I was in school, and it was President Kennedy.  He had President Kennedy’s Physical Fitness Program in the schools.  I probably have the name wrong  after all these years, but I clearly remember mandatory phys. ed. class in which we all tried really hard to meet the standards we were told the President had set.  These days?  We have no mandatory phys. ed. classes and a nation full of overweight, inactive kids. 

I also remember the Peace Corps when it was first founded.  There are times today when  I still think about joining as a senior citizen.  Both then and now, the Peace Corps was a way of giving back, of making a contribution out there in the wider world, of displaying the fact that not all Americans fit the mold of the “Ugly American” from the book of so long ago.

Did we think socialism then?  We did not.  Did we lob rude, crude criticisms at the President then?  Not that I recall.  We had some respect for the office and for the man; and if the President wanted us to be physically fit, we were going to work on it.  Did we feel ruled by some kingship, as if our choices were taken away?  We did not.  As school kids – I was in junior high and high school in those years of his presidency – we had something, and some one, who commanded our respect. 

It wasn’t Camelot, we all know that now.  But in those days, there was no shame in respecting the office of the President and the man who held the position; and there was no outcry over being asked to fulfill our better natures.  He helped shape our dreams – most leaders do.  Why are we, in this country, so determined not to dream, not to aspire, but only to throw spit balls and whine and complain?

Social media, multi-tasking, and rapidly updating everything

I have a question: are we so involved in the minutia of our lives and others’ lives through the massive amounts of updating we’re doing on social media sites, that we’re losing sight of the big picture?  Do we even have the ability to stand back and look at the big picture anymore?  Isn’t there a massive disconnect going on here?

I ask because I’ve been privileged to spend the last 20 months serving on the national board for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), and one of our favorite sayings as board members is “Don’t get down into the weeds.”  By that, we mean our role is to provide vision and leadership for the larger picture of the organization; we’re to be some of the thought leaders our profession needs.  Being on the board definitely takes  a commitment of time; but the real commitment is that of being willing and able to think through the issues and problems set before us.  What does this decision or this wording mean to our members?  What are the consequences if we do this?  What are the consequences if we don’t?  Who will be affected, and how?  What does this mean for the future of the organization?  How do we communicate this issue to our members?

Then I come home from New York – or from whatever city we’re in – and suddenly I’m immersed into details of lives and careers, into multiple conversations, and into the need to update my own information as I “join the conversation” too, and there are times when I, as with most people I know. feel overwhelmed with the need to have my voice count, to be able to contribute.

Then I have to step back and ask, “At what price?  When do I carve out time for more contemplative thinking?  When do I carve out time for genuine strategic analysis and for stepping back and seeing an issue, a client, or a cause through a much larger framework?”

I’m of the Baby Boom generation, so I like to think I still know how to do this, even though my time seems filled up these days. But the younger generations – the Xs, Ys, and the Millenianals – are immersed in this “talk all the time in multiple venues” mode.  A report that came out today said that when these folks are multi-tasking, they’re really not doing any one thing that well, because they have trouble managing their time and sorting out their priorities; and it takes them a long time to change tasks.  It’s no wonder.  How do we emphasize the need for quiet thought?  How do we help them learn how to prioritize?  How do we teach them time management under these circumstances?

Sounds likewe need to bring back the corporate retreat but on a number of different levels; and that we should demand that people be unplugged. No cell phone, no BlackBerry, no laptops, no ipods, etc. etc.  My kids are going to laugh when they read this, because I’m the worst BlackBerry addict they know.  But I am perfectly capable of walking for long hours in the woods or on the beach, in blissful solitude and quiet; and it’s amazing how, when I do, all the chattering inside my head quiets down and certain things float to the top.  Those things which surface often surface with suggested solutions, too. 

Contemplative thought is good for a lot more than problem solving, though.  It’s also great for those of us working in creative professions.  If you need the great tag line for a business; the best ad, a great radio or TV commerical, or something witty to say online – then get up and walk away from your desk and out of the building if need be.  Let your brain go into other areas.  You’ve already programmed it for the  task at hand; now let your subconscous work for you. It will.

A lot of people know this principle, and understand it’s why great ideas can come in the shower, in your sleep, on a walk – your brain has been working for you the whole time.  

But if you’re always plugged in; if, even when you wake briefly in the middle if the night, your BlackBerry is blinking next to you, and so is your clock radio, then you’re not really getting a break.  Your brain isn’t being allowed to relax into its best, most creative, most strategic state.

And if this is all you know, and you’ve never learned to manage your time or set your priorities – you’re going to have nothing but trouble going to school or focusing on the job.  Maybe we need to create two new professional positions – one for the person who knows how to “get down into the weeds” and handle it; and the other for the person who’s going to arrange the quiet, contemplative retreat for everyone else!

Woodstock? Not this Boomer.

It all happened 40 years ago tomorrow, they say. The pundits and journalists and others who stand to profit somehow from the anniversary of Woodstock are acting as though everyone from my generation was either involved or must be nostaligic for the time and the event.
Not hardly. I remember all too well what my world was like 40 years ago tomorrow: I’d been married a week shy of a year, I was almost 4 months pregnant, and living with my in-laws in Walnut Creek, California. Unable to work, I went to school – junior college, specifically Diablo Valley Junior College. It was the second attempt at a college education that ended up spanning 13 years.
What was my mood then? I think I was just starting to feel the baby kick, and I remember the amazement of it all; I remember clearly, so clearly, being worried every single day that my unborn baby may not have a father, because my husband was overseas in Southeast Asia, fighting that war that everyone else was protesting. Did I protest? Are you kidding? There was no way I would have him be that demoralized. I wasn’t happy about anything that was going on; I didn’t understand war then, don’t understand war now, and have no wish to every see another member of my family face such a hell. Father, husband and son – that’s enough. They all came back. Sort of. Call it shell-shock, call it Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, call it whatever you want – no one who has genuinely been to a war zone comes back unchanged.
Woodstock? No. I saved up all the protest in my heart for another battle: the Pentagon’s continuous medical experimentation upon our service members, particularly through the untested, experimental and yet mandatory anthrax vaccine. For all the years I couldn’t speak out for the safety of my husband, I could and did speak out for the safety of my son.  My work and the work of many others is at http://www.mvrd.org.
And then I changed, too.

A summer filled with public relations of a different sort

The Chamber Choir Kalev from Estonia

The Chamber Choir Kalev from Estonia

Taking a breather here in the middle of the summer to talk about public relations of a different sort – the sort offered by Missoula, Montana’s wonderful International Choral Festival (http://www.choralfestival.org).  Every three years, choirs fly to Missoula from around the world to participate in a week-long festival of song, friendship and cultural exchanges.  The foreign singers stay with Missoula host families; U.S. singers stay in hotels and motels, university dorms, or with friends or family. 

I had the privilege of being the first public relations/publicity director for the festival, starting in 1987, and so worked on the first four festivals.   After I resigned at the end of the ‘96 festival, my daughter, Diana and I hosted for a couple of festivals, and at one point, simply attended the festival as tourists would.  We didn’t like that as much; we wanted to be involved.  So this summer, given that I’d kept my house in Missoula after moving to Oregon, we met at the house – Diana, all three grandsons (Christopher, 14; Brandon,10; Andrew, 15 months) and I – and our two dogs! – met at the house and got ready to welcome to singers from Estonia.

Turned out we had a day of reconstruction to do in the front yard first, which we accomplished with the help of a college student we hired for the day; the yard had been allowed to deteriorate, necessitating the hiring of a new landscaping firm.  But it got done, and soon we were in business.  Ülle Pärnoja and Enely Sepp were waiting for us in the lobby of MCT, Missoula’s Children Theatre, with other members of their choir and other host families.  The festival housing committee works hard to match the right singers with the right families, and in this case, they did a terrific job:  Ülle is a marketing researcher, and is married and has a six-year-old son; Enely is married and expecting her fourth child, possibly a fourth son!  They were the most gracious, ideal guests you could imagine.  They ate anything; they tolerated a lot of noise and chaos in the house; and the were unfailingly kind and grateful.  We were privileged to host them – and I, for one, hope to take them up on their invitation in five more years to attend Estonia’s massive choral festival in Tallinn, where 26,000 singers join voices for an audience of over 100,000.  Enely and Ülle has just come from participating in that festival, and were still on a high from the experience. 

Drummers at the Kootenai Pow Wow in Elmo, MT on July 17, 2009

The Choral Festival has long been a source of pride for me in my public relations career, and not merely because of initial “head counts,” when we were able to attract audiences of 35,000 in a town that had about that same population at the time.  What moved me the most then, and still does now, is that the International Choral Festival is, in its way, one tiny step toward peace and understanding between the nations.  The cultural exchange that takes place in the homes of the host families is amazing.  Missoula has welcome choirs from China, Taiwan, and Australia; from Argentina, Uruguay and

Members of the Estonian choir were invited to sing at the Pow Wow and were happy to do so!

Columbia to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia; from Canada, Cuba and the Czech Republic, to Finland, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, and more.  Diana and I once hosted two wonderful girls from Malaysia; I have close friends in Singapore (well, one migrates back and forth to Germany), in Poland and in Japan.  Others cherish memories of the choir from India or perhaps Slovakia or South Korea; from Uruguay and Thailand; from Bulgaria, Botswana, Spain, and Belgium. I know I’ve left some out, but you get the idea; the world comes to Missoula, and Missoulians love and cherish their counterparts from around the world and send them home with new understanding for everyone involved.

And I haven’t even started on the wonderful US choirs, who travel in from Georiga, Kansas, Minnesota, and other states to add their voices to the celebration.

If that’s not good public relations, I’m not sure what is.

Goodbye from me to Newsweek and Reader’s Digest

I know changed comes to everyone and to everything, but I’m having trouble this time around.  It started with Newsweek, the venerable weekly news magazine I’ve subscribed to for years beyond my remembering.  I don’t know who they let loose in the graphics department – a whopping bright-but-not-very-experienced batch of 20-somethings, I suspect – but the articles now look like ads, the type must be something like 8- or 10-pt. (very hard on my middle-aged eyes) and there’s a lot of reverse print where it’s unnecessary (also very hard on the eyes). Then someone got into the editorial suite as well, because suddenly there was a whole issue edited by Stephen Colbert – a stunt if I ever saw one -  and now they seem to have gone with a theme for each issue.  They’ve “fixed” something that wasn’t broken; and now I won’t be renewing my subscription.  I’m pretty sure people in my Baby Boomer age group must have been a staple audience for Newsweek all these years, but now I feel abandoned in favorof gimmicks and flash which make the magazine far more difficult to read; and in favor of the “flavor of the week” approach, rather than a simple recap of the week’s news with insightful analysis.  I like Fareed Zakaria a lot; but I’ll just read him online or catch him on CNN.

Somthing similar has happened over at Reader’s Digest.  Suddenly it’s the folksy version of “News McNuggets,” and again, the graphics have changed and are more difficult to wade through.  This latest edition, however, pretty well sealed it for me in terms of leaving; there’s a mountain of advice, and fewer of the kinds of stories that have always made Reader’s Digest an enjoyable, comforting and inspirational read.  Then I saw an article somewhere that said Reader’s Digest was going to tilt toward a more religious bent.  For that, I figure, there’s Guideposts and a lot of other magazines.  From Reader’s Digest, I wanted the jokes, the quotes, the stories of people who made it thorugh difficult times and triumphed; a small book selection – the content that was presented without a lot of flash; the small bits of advice that weren’t patronizing.

Everybody does flash now, and everybody thinks flash is substance.  Well, I beg to differ – it’s not.  Granted we have lots of bells and whistles at our fingertips online, and we can stay entertained for endless periods if we like.  But I like to read, and I look to read news of substance and stories that enlighten me in some way, that tell me something about myself in reflection, and about the world I live in.  I like to read.  Is there anybody out there anymore who also likes to read?    Good thing books are still being published.