Category: Personal

MEA CULPA, TRUTH AND AN EXTENDED BREAK

Let me come clean.  

That brief mental vacation I told you I was taking from this space nearly two months ago was a Trumpian-like figment of my imagination.  Put another way, I lied.  

Not wanting to overshare boring details of what seemed like a minor health matter, I borrowed a concept that frequently pops up on Facebook these days, something to the effect that:  “I’m sick of all the politics and will take a break for a while.”

At the time, it seemed almost noble to be temporarily hobbled by the blathering punditry class and its inane obsession with spinning every ubiquitous blip into a narrative of doom.  These political prognosticators declare the Biden presidency dead at least once week.  They saw the less-than-elegant exit from Afghanistan as a fatal flaw.  They are sure Biden’s inability to shutdown COVID in its tracks will ruin him, despite the fact that the biggest impediment to herd immunity is the MAGA crowd’s refusal to mask up and get vaccinated.   Now they are warning that Biden will tarnish his image for all time by giving up on spending programs he campaigned on, all in order to get a compromise package through one of the most closely divided and divisive Congresses in recent history.  Can you imagine what a dismal, chaotic mess the theatre world would be in if Shakespeare had treated every mundane action as an arc to the final act? 

The truth is that I am a committed political junkie. Tortured journalism is annoying, but it’s not going to push me away from my daily fix.  So I lied. My defense is one of mitigation.  I refer you to that noted tome on prevarication, The Oxford Handbook of Lying, by Simone Dietz. Although my fib would be heavily sanctioned by the “absolute-moralist” faction of serious thinkers on this subject, there is a more utilitarian caucus that would spare me the gallows.  This reformist movement notes that lies that are socially harmless or based on benevolent motives or consequences, fall short of evil.  Obviously, Donald Trump never read the memo on this subject.  

Here’s the real deal:  I’ve dealt with respiratory issues for some time, mostly the result of collateral damage to my lungs from successful cancer surgery and radiation 10 years ago.  It was all quite manageable until this summer when my symptoms worsened.  I was scheduled for a mind-boggling round of appointments within the ever-expanding universe of Johns Hopkins Medicine.  I thought it best to let the blog go dark for a bit in order to focus on my medical adventure.  I figured I’d be back on the keyboard by mid-September.

Well, the best laid plans and all of that stuff.  It turns out that I have a rare and stubborn lung infection known as Mycobacterium Avium Complex, MAC for short.  The treatment consists of four heavy duty antibiotics, one of them administered intravenously.  I’m told that it could take several months to eradicate the bacteria. Once that happens, I will continue taking at least some of the antibiotics for as long as another year, to guard against a return of the offending organisms.

I have so missed researching and writing this blog.  I didn’t realize how important it was to me until I took my so-called break.  Unlike many retirees, I neither build nor fix things.  I don’t like crossword or jigsaw puzzles.  I’ve never had much interest in sports.   But reading the news, thinking about issues, and trying to figure out what it all means has kept me fairly sane these past five years.   Unfortunately, the side effects of my antibiotics have made it far more difficult to sort it all out.  A cognitive haze has definitely settled in.  My doctors tell me that it will likely lift once my body becomes accustomed to the antibiotic regimen.

So there you have it, as the TV news folks like to say.  My story is neither compelling nor poignant; neither riveting nor amusing.  In fact, it’s not even interesting.

But I can assure you of this: It is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

You can also believe me when I say, I look forward to returning to this space as soon as the medicinal cobwebs leave my prefrontal cortex.

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HOW TO GO AWAY WITHOUT LEAVING WHERE YOU ARE

Despite the digital revolution, newspapers have hung on to a few quaint artifacts from the ink-stained days of yore.  One of my favorites is the little placeholder marking the spot of an unwritten column.  The Washington Post, for example, acknowledges a writer’s absence by running this line below the column’s standing head: “So-and-so is away. Her column will resume when she returns.”

Of course, So-and-so has been filing columns from home since the pandemic forced a redefinition of the workplace.  She hasn’t set foot inside the Post newsroom for 18 months. This begs the question: From where is she away?  If she is taking a stay-at-home vacation, she is not away at all. Did she feel obligated to pack a bag and go somewhere for a bit, just so the newspaper’s declaration that she is “away” retains accuracy?  You never know when the Post factchecker might be on your trail.

Those are just some of the things I’ve been thinking about while trying to take a bit of a break from following the news of the day, such as it is.  Sometimes the cumulative weight of the daily newsfeed gets to be a tad too much, and you really need to get away for a bit.  But who wants to go anywhere while the delta variant runs wild?

I figured now is a good time for a short break.  This blogsite just had its fifth anniversary.  I can’t thank you enough for playing along with me these past few years.  I pontificate in this space primarily for the purpose of thinking stuff out. The older I get, the more cognitive exercise I need. But to know that a whole bunch of smart people actually read what I write is a wonderful bonus that I will always treasure.

I won’t be gone long. Please know that I am away, and that my blog will resume when I return.  Meanwhile, I will focus intently and singularly on this ontological query: How do I get to “away” without leaving the house? That ought to send me rushing back to the world of infrastructure bills, filibuster reform and, back by unpopular demand, the Taliban. 

Catch you later.   

SEARCHING FOR CLUES TO HAPPINESS ON THE DEATH OF MY BROTHER

There is nothing quite like death to make us think about life.  I’ve been doing just that sort of thinking lately, in the wake of my kid brother’s sudden death.  Although the state of mourning is never a destination of choice, it provokes a welcomed, if temporary, escape from the inertia of everyday life, from dreary headlines and other constipations that our social media diet foists upon us.

The Nelson brothers, Bill in foreground. (Drawing by Nan Nelson.)

I know that I will soon return to my avocation of ruminating about matters of politics and policy. But not right now. Not yet. In this moment, my thoughts are singularly trained on the life of my brother, Bill, my only sibling, who died a couple of weeks ago.  In almost any other situation, I would probably keep such thinking private.  But Bill’s life was a bit different, and therein lies a lesson worth sharing. 

In the early 1960s, when he had to repeat Kindergarten, my brother attracted the label of “slow”. When the redux didn’t take, he was called “mentally retarded”, back before that term was sanitized into “cognitively impaired” or “intellectually challenged”.  Then came “special needs” and “learning disabled”.  

Had he been born 20 years earlier, Bill would likely have spent most of his life heavily sedated in a dreary, crowded state hospital for the “feeble minded”, the label du jour of the early and mid 20thcentury.  Fortunately, we, as a society, wised up considerably since then. As a result, Bill spent the last four decades in various group homes where he savored relationships with his staff and housemates and was fully engaged in community activities. He sang in concerts, competed in Special Olympics, worked in a sheltered workshop, went camping and fishing, played BINGO with nuns, watched movies, went out for ice cream and attended so many parties it made my introverted head spin. 

Bill Nelson, age 63. (Photo by Melissa Nelson.)

This thinking I’ve been doing about life goes way beyond the fact that we now treat those at the low end of the IQ scale better than we once did.  Instead, my focus has been on all of the ways Bill totally surpassed us so-called normal folks when it came to experiencing joy, happiness and the unadulterated bliss of human connection.  

I never met a happier person than my brother.  Never mind the fact that he eventually lost his sight and ability to walk, Bill packed his life with sustained joy.  He had a passion for people, for connecting with them, staying in the moment with them and making them laugh.  If anyone – a nurse, a social worker, a relative – excused themselves to go to the bathroom, Bill’s line was always the same: “Don’t fall in the hole!”  It didn’t matter if it was the first or fiftieth time you heard it, laughter never failed to ensue.   

He had an affinity for old TV sitcoms, particularly I Love Lucy, and had committed most of the episodes to memory.  Borrowing from that deep well of television trivia, Bill endowed almost everyone he met with a nickname from a TV show. He called his van driver Fred Mertz, a visiting nurse Roseann Barr, his physician Dr. Kildare. One poor aide with a bray-like laugh got the title of Mr. Ed.  It brightened all of their days, none more than Bill’s.

A younger Bill on the lanes.

The contagiousness of Bill’s joy was readily apparent at the funeral home.  The ritual of viewing the deceased in a casket is typically a somber, tearful experience.   To be sure, my brother’s mourners let their tears flow.  But as they stopped to view his remains, there were instant smiles and suppressed laughter.  Bill was wearing a tee-shirt with his picture on it along with his mantra: “Don’t fall in the hole!”  A large I Love Lucy throw was draped over the casket. It was vintage Bill connecting with people, even in death, in his own unique way.

Here is something else about my brother’s relationships with people:  They were all positive. One recent study showed that 20 percent of those surveyed were permanently estranged from at least one relative. Another found that 40 percent had experienced family estrangement at some point in their lives.  And who among us has not dealt with seriously fractured relationships? Well, Bill, for one.  

One of the symptoms of his “disability” was a child-like acceptance of the people in his life. His expectations were minimal.  He just wanted them to be nice to him.  Once they passed his nice threshold – and virtually everyone did – Bill immediately took them into his life and accepted them for who they were.  There was no judging, no grudges, no resentments, no jealousies.  

Academicians who study this kind of stuff, have found that people living in 1957 were happier than in almost every year since then.  In other words, despite a higher life expectancy, a growing Gross Domestic Product and a reduction in the work week, not to mention a smart phone in almost every hand, people are far less happy now than they were 62 years ago.  A Stanford University study suggests that a key reason for declining happiness is that people are focused on the future rather than on the here and now.

Bill could have told them that.  He was a here-and-now kind of guy, totally absorbed in the joy of the moment.  His only thoughts about the future were focused on anticipating the pending delight of his favorite things, like seeing friends and family,  petting a cousin’s dog, taking a trip to the Dairy Queen, or to anyplace that served hamburgers and fries.

The conundrum I’ve been wrestling with these past few days is not about how a “mentally challenged” man ended up with more sustained and persistent happiness than anyone I know.   The research, after all, bears that out. An analysis of 23 correlational studies on the link between intelligence and happiness ruled out every potential connection, except for one. It found that people with learning disabilities were happier than everyone else. 

Bill enjoying a book. (Photo by Melissa Nelson.)

This is what leaves me baffled: How can the rest of us, if we are so darn smart, achieve the level of happiness Bill had?  What is it about our intelligence level that seems to produce so much angst, and anger, and dread, and resentment?  Thanks to our brain power we, as a society, have clearly surpassed all expectations when it comes to technological advancement. Yet, we are as collectively unhappy as we have ever been.  

I’m not smart enough to figure this out.  All I know is that I want to spend the rest of my journey here traveling in my brother’s footsteps.  That means accepting people as they are, setting aside differences in order to connect through our similarities.  That means savoring the moment, living in the now. That means finding joy in everyday life, in a sunset, a child’s smile, a dog running through the park. None of that, of course, will make the very real problems and conflicts we face – in the world and in our own lives – disappear. But maybe, just maybe, if we can capture some Bill-like happiness, it might put us in a better place to work on those issues.  It’s worth a try.

THROUGH THE BLURRY LOOKING-GLASS OF PAIN AND PILLS

As I closed out my 2018 pontifications, I promised a return to this space in early February. Deadlines are sacred, as I learned at a ridiculously young age from a crusty old editor who insisted that every story didn’t have to sing, but by God it better be on time.  So here I am: on time, but not quite singing.

The purpose of the hiatus was to retreat from the madness of daily news and the brutality of winter, which is apparently now referred to as the polar vortex.  My wife, Melissa, and I snugly nestled ourselves in a beautiful ocean-front condo, fully prepared to soak up a month of Floridian warmth and serenity.  Then, right smack in the middle of paradise, I slipped on a wet kitchen floor and went into a graceless tailspin that ended with my unfortunate merger with a now badly dented wall.  I broke three ribs.  (For avid readers of Gray’s Anatomy, they were ribs 4, 5 and 6.)

There was a time when rib fractures were treated by tightly binding them with tape. That diminished the pain and allowed for healing.  Turns out that approach also caused reduced lung function and frequently brought on pneumonia.  The current protocol for broken ribs, based on the very best medical science available, is to sit quietly for approximately six weeks while enduring a pain level prohibited by the Geneva Convention.  

Well, that is a slight exaggeration.  The torment is mitigated through the wonders of opioid pain medication. You know, the stuff that is currently killing 130 Americans daily. All things considered, wrapping my chest with duct tape seems to be a safer course of treatment.  But I was never that good at science.  So I am following my doctor’s orders and “managing the pain” with Percocet, taken strictly as directed.  

As a recovering drunk with almost 39 years of sobriety, I’ve always regarded pain medication with heavy trepidation.  Yet, when confronted with serious, heavy-duty, mind-crushing pain, you are given a Hobson’s choice. You are either in a state of being where it’s impossible to focus on anything but the pain, or one where the pain subsides but cognitive functioning is reduced to the level of endlessly staring at one of those old television test patterns.  I chose the test pattern, but can’t wait to turn it off. 

That would not always have been the case with me.  In the insecurity and anxiety of my youth,  I would have devoured those pills in order to create the illusion of euphoria that comes with building an existential wall around everything you don’t want to feel or deal with. Fortunately for me, opioids were virtually unheard of in the 1970s. Back then, alcohol was the go-to drug for many of us searching for an emotional and cognitive anesthetic.  It too kills through abuse, just not as quickly as the little pills cranked out by Purdue Pharma. I could so easily have been among the hundreds of thousands who died from this insidious addiction.  The only force holding me back now is my obsession with sobriety manifested in a choice – no, an insistence – to absorb every aspect of life without a perpetual numbing of my perceptive filters.  Well, except for mind-numbing physical pain.    

Having completed four of my six weeks of broken rib recovery, the pain is slowly subsiding and I am lowering my Percocet dosage.  I would not have been able to formulate even these meager and feeble sentences a few days ago.  I’ve tried to follow the news, but it all seemed like a hazy, dream sequence.  I was able to grasp some elements but couldn’t for the life of me process them, or make sense of them.  

Believe me, this medication is, in no sense of the word, recreational.  You wouldn’t believe the hallucinations it caused me.  I watched a clip of the State of the Union speech the other day. There was Donald Trump, in my drug-addled state, talking about unity, coming together, curing AIDS and empowering women.  I know.  Crazy, right? That’s how strong this stuff is.   Not only that, but I somehow got this inane notion that Virginia’s Democratic party was on the verge of collapse because of a lack of male leaders who had not worn blackface or been accused of sexual assault.  That’s what happens to a brain on opioids.  

This is all by way of saying that my commentary will be back in this slot as soon as the ribs heal, the drug regimen ends and all of the mental cobwebs disappear.  Surely the world will look clearer and saner then. If not, at least I can write about it. Thanks for your patience.   

TOO MUCH TRUMP? HERE’S A PAUSE TO REFRESH

Oh what a year it’s been in Trump World.  Among the 2018 memories:  shithole countries, nuclear button sizes, a very stable genius, porn star hush money, an unexecuted order to fire Robert Mueller, a presidential declaration that Steve Bannon lost his mind, and a three-day government shutdown.

And that was just January.

Fear not, dear readers, the other 11 months will not be summarized in this space.  Given our current environment, the journalistic masochism of year-end reviews constitutes cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by Article VIII of the Constitution. Besides, there seems to be an intense desire for a  break from Trump overload.

For all the false superlatives he spouts about himself, this one is true: the American people have taken more breaks from thinking about, watching or listening to Donald Trump than they did under any other president.

Trump Fatigue Syndrome was the Urban Dictionary’s top definition of the year.  Google it and you will see millions of testimonials from folks suffering from too much Trump.  Hundreds of celebrities and others have shared their agony of the “Trump 10”, a reference to weight gain brought on by Trump-induced stress eating.  Media outlets cranked out endless reports of people dealing with Trump fatigue by invoking cold turkey news blackouts (here, here and here).  It has been reported that House Speaker Paul Ryan decided to leave public office largely because of Trump fatigue.  Even Kanye West, a rare celebrity to embrace the president, ended the year taking a break from Trump news, saying it was “all too much”.

And therein lies the predicate behind the decision to take a brief break from producing this blog.  Melissa, my editor and wife, and I are headed south for a month or so.  Barring unforeseen circumstances, I anticipate a return to this spot in early February.  It’s not that I’ve succumbed to Trump fatigue.  For reasons only a good shrink could dissect, I can’t take my eyes off this train wreck.  Its every facet fascinates me.  

What I want to avoid at all costs is reader fatigue. And so it is, on the theory that a brief absence may make the reading fonder, that I bid you adieu for a spell. Thank you for following me, or at least checking in every once in a while.  Our connection means a lot to me.   Happy New Year!

ODE TO A HERO WHO JUST HAPPENS TO BE MY WIFE

Melissa Nelson is retiring this week as director of collective bargaining for The NewsGuild-CWA, the union representing media employees and other workers. In the infamous words of Joe Biden – as cleansed by the AP – that’s a big f—ing deal. So big, in fact, that this space is giving a temporary pass to the inanity and profanity of national politics, in order to pay tribute to a genuine hero.

So as to avoid being Sean Hannityized, let me disclose a potential conflict of interest: I have a spousal relationship with Melissa. But I also spent 31 years working for the same union, and copiously followed her amazing journey, drawing more and more awe with every step she took. In other words, I’m an expert witness. This is my testimony:

When I met her, Melissa was an advertising artist at the Hearst paper in Albany, NY. The labor movement really needs to build a monument to the Hearst Corporation. If that outfit hadn’t paid its women artists considerably less than their male counterparts, the NewsGuild would be without one of its greatest legends. Worse, I would still be single. Fortunately, the injustice of pay inequity ignited a passion in Melissa that propelled her into the calling of union activism. It was an all-consuming tour of duty that went from rank-and-file agitator, to local president, to full-time Guild staffer in Philadelphia, to directing the national union’s collective bargaining operation in Washington, DC.

That last sentence, particularly for those who don’t know her, is opaquely encyclopedic. Every union has activists and staff. What Melissa brought to the table was a unique package of style, substance, class, and grace, all served with a special sauce of forceful and respectful advocacy.

Melissa Nelson teaches new Guild leaders about collective bargaining.

To me, Melissa’s breakout moment came about 25 years ago. This is when I knew for sure that she was destined to play a key leadership role in the union. It started as an ordinary exchange at the bargaining table. She was making a pitch for one of our proposals. A boorish, over-testosteroned management guy, accustomed to the centuries-old rooster game of one-upmanship through interruption, tried to cut her off. Melissa was in mid-sentence when he flashed a sneering smirk and said, “Well, that isn’t true . . . “ Without skipping a beat, Melissa leaned across the table to face her adversary. In a quiet, calm-but stern voice, she said, “No, no, no. Do not interrupt me. I wasn’t finished. You need to listen to what I am saying, and then it will be your turn to talk.”

I braced myself for a major explosion. I had verbally dueled with this troll many times and knew he was not easily quieted. There was a momentary silence, the two of them leaning deeply into their respective sides of the table, just staring at each other. Finally, the management guy spoke, using a tone that reflected a meekness and contrition I’d have sworn was not in him: “I’m sorry, Melissa, please continue.” Damn! I later asked the troll about the exchange. He called it a “flashback to elementary school”, adding that he almost said, “Yes, teacher.” It was an amazing moment.

The anecdote perfectly captures Melissa and her rare and immensely effective communication style, one that is firm, assertive and honest, yet delivered totally free of threat or hostility. The volume is low, the tone pleasant, and the verbiage tight and succinct. The result is a message laced with respect, thus inviting respect in return. When it comes to managing conflict, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Melissa has spent decades using that style to make life better for so many people: victims of sexual harassment, unequal pay, unjust discipline, discrimination and mistreatment; employees in search of better pay and working conditions, dignity and respect. Her voice, so carefully crafted in her estimable manner, has carried with it all the voices of the workers she represents.

But that’s not all, not by a long shot. Melissa’s real gift – her legacy – to this union is her uncanny ability to connect with members, local leaders and staff in a way that amps them up, makes them stronger, better, more confident. She has spent years perpetually plugged into the lives of Guild activists from coast to coast. She knows their strengths and weaknesses, the content of their contracts, their management’s every quirk and idiosyncrasy. She also knows the names and ages of their children, their family vacation plans and how their parents are doing. To her, leadership is, at its core, relational.

Somehow, without the use of a single algorithm, Melissa has spent the past decade using all of that instinctively processed data to guide, mentor and advise an entire national union, one person at a time. We’re in the middle of dinner, and someone from Kenosha calls in a panic over contract negotiations. Or a bankruptcy in Boston. Or more massive layoffs in Denver. Or the sale of the paper in Akron. And in each case, I smile with wonder and pride as Melissa calmly and confidently listens, reassures, offers needed information and counsel, and then guides the caller to land the plane safely. Each time that happens, the union grows a little stronger because the folks on the other end of those phone calls are learning and building confidence, secure in the knowledge that they are not alone.

This has not happened without taking a toll on Melissa. The stress has been enormous, and its chief cause has been the exponential increase in the demand for help, and an insufficient number of hours in a day to provide it. As a result, her voicemail and email inboxes are perpetually jammed by cries for help. How do you triage all that? Is a layoff more critical than a bankruptcy? Which do you take first, the pay cuts call or the pension freeze? This has been her life. And despite the stress, it has brought her enormous satisfaction from knowing that she has made a difference.

Through it all, Melissa never once unplugged – not from her phone, her email, or any other form of engagement. She is constitutionally incapable of disconnecting. She knew that most of the people reaching out to her had workloads every bit as hectic as her own. They were counting on her. There is no way she wouldn’t be there for them. That’s because Melissa saw her work, not as a job, but as part of a movement. For the movement to succeed, leaders need to keep on moving. And that’s just what she did. As a result, she can retire now fully assured that the movement she nourished with every ounce of energy she had will keep right on moving. After all, those movers learned from the best.

JOURNALISM’S FUNERAL MARCH LED BY CORPORATE VULTURES

Eons ago, I covered the Minnesota Legislature for the St. Cloud Daily Times. It was approximately 1970, and I was paid $1.45 an hour, the then prevailing minimum wage. Thanks to my parents, I was able to pay for my Greyhound Bus trips to and from the Capitol in St. Paul. The newspaper had been in the hands of a local family for decades. The publisher was a miserly old Dickensian character who deeply resented having to shell out money for a news operation. One day, I was chatting with a coworker who sold ads for the paper when Scrooge staggered up to us, moderately anesthetized by a long martini lunch. He slapped the ad guy on the back and slurred, “asset”. He poked me in the chest and said, “liability”. That was pretty much his business plan.

Little did I know then that those were the good old days of journalism. Owning a newspaper was a license to print money. Advertisers had few viable alternatives for marketing their wares back then. The formula was simple: subscribers read the papers for the news and then stumbled onto the ads. The result was newspaper profit margins ranging from 30-something to 40-something percent. Scrooge wouldn’t pay my expenses to cover the legislature because that would diminish his profits. Besides, he knew he could get the work on the cheap because I wanted the experience and the story clips to get a better job on a larger paper. As a result of this capital-labor symbiosis, he got rich, I got hired by the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and more importantly, people in St. Cloud got to read about what their legislative representatives were up to.

Those days are so gone. The once idealistic, if naïve, illusion that for-profit journalism is a calling, a search for the truth, a check on those in power, has been brutally shattered by sheer, unbridled greed. It’s capitalism run amuck. Yes, the Internet knocked newspapers for a loop. Ad revenue plummeted. Pages, stories and jobs were eliminated. But for the most part, these media companies struggled to survive, to reinvent news delivery on multiple platforms, to find some way to make their product – journalism – relevant and vital.

Then the hedge funds took over. Newspapers across the country have been gobbled up by vulture capitalist companies for the sole purpose of sucking all remaining value out of them, and then letting these once vital community assets die or go bankrupt. Their business objective is the direct opposite of viability. They just want to pick the bones, sell off the real estate, fire upwards of 90 percent of the journalists. It’s the same thing that happened to Toys R Us. The gigantic toy retailer was hurting from online competition, but was still profitable when purchased by a vulture fund. Rather than scaling back and finding a way to keep the operation going, the new owner simply bled it until it was no more, at a significant profit for its shareholders. Since 2004, Julie Reynolds writes in the Nation, “speculators have brought and sucked dry an estimated 679 hometown newspapers that reached a combined audience of 12.8 million people.”

As tragic as the Toys R Us implosion was for the 31,000 workers who lost their jobs without a dime in severance pay, the dismantling of community newspapers moves the needle to an even higher level of evil. Consumers can still obtain their favorite Hasbro action figures. Former newspaper subscribers, however, have nowhere else to go to find out what is going on with their local school board, city council or municipal leaders.

When I worked for the St. Paul Pioneer Press in the 1970s and early 1980s, there were well over 200 journalists on staff. That number now stands at 25 and falling, thanks to its current owner, Alden Capital, a private equity firm that acquired Digital First Media (DFM), now the second largest newspaper company in the country. This outfit has zero interest in journalism. In fact, it makes money by dismantling whatever journalism was left. DFM is leaving its footprint of news annihilation across the land. Once clearly one of the ten best newspapers in the country, the San Jose Mercury News has gone from a news staff of 400 to 40. Denver once had 600 journalists reporting the news at two papers. Only one remains, The Post, and Alden, true to its 90 percent reduction rule, has taken the newsroom count to around 60. The same thing is happening all over, from the Orange County (CA) Register to the Boston Herald.

These newspapers are being gutted, drained of all remaining value. Despite the fact that Alden’s media properties are operating on profit margins as high as 20-some percent, there is no pretense of maintaining ongoing viability. The strategy is simply one of managing decimation in a way that maximizes profits until death arrives.

Think for a moment of all the local news stories that have mattered to us over the years: city building inspectors on the take; school administrators doctoring test scores, police corruption, school busses that fail safety inspections, sexual harassment at City Hall. The list is endless. Those are the stories that come from reporters sitting through endless meetings, cultivating sources, pouring through public records that ordinary citizens don’t have the time to look at.

Killing a newspaper is not like killing a toy store. “Democracy,” as the Washington Post motto has it, “dies in darkness.” It’s a death brought on not only by authoritarian tyrants, but also by the sheer immorality of unregulated capitalism. Life in a civilized society demands that we weigh conflicting rights and values in order to remain true to our core principles. Surely, there must be a way in which the interests of corporate billionaires can be tempered just enough to prevent the premeditated slaughter of the public’s right to know. We need to find that way before the darkness consumes us.

MY HOLIDAY WISH: NO MORE YEAR-END REVIEWS

Just one year ago, the biggest quandary for many of us was how to get through the holidays without decking a gloating red neck relative wearing a MAGA cap. The challenge this year? How to avoid those painfully insufferable year-in-review retrospectives. It was bad enough the first time. Inflated inaugural crowd figures. Alternative facts. Muslim bans. Death and hate in Charlottesville. Scaramucci’s 10-day reign of terror. I’d rather have a colonoscopy without anesthesia than be forced to meander down that memory lane.

That’s why we are closing the shop for a few weeks and heading to a warmer clime, one where it is easier to tune the outside world out for a spell. By “we”, I am including Melissa, my lovely bride and diligent copy editor.

Together, we have produced 108 blog posts since initiating this endeavor in the fall of 2016. It has been the perfect retirement activity for me. I am congenitally unable to pound two boards together, paint (either a portrait or a wall), repair small machinery, hunt, fish or perform other manly arts. Since all the good mall benches were taken, I decided to give blogging a shot.

It has been an immensely enjoyable and rewarding experience. Researching various issues, thinking them out, and expounding on them – all without giving a hoot about a publisher’s profit margin – has been a dream come true. So thank you, dear readers, for making it possible to start a new “career” at this late stage of life. Old journalists don’t die, they just blog away! I will be back doing just that in late January. Meanwhile, Happy Holidays to all of you.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Thanks to the kindness of readers, my year ends on a rich and rewarding note. This is my 45th blog post since I stumbled into this bizarre post-retirement avocation in late August. As those who’ve been with me from the start know, my use of the word “stumbled” is not figurative. I fell, broke two ribs and, presto: there I was, memorizing WordPress code. Okay, the chain reaction wasn’t quite that immediate. I saw a doctor first. Then, to take my mind off the pain, I turned to Facebook with frequent pontifications, some of them undoubtedly enhanced by prescription drugs. They were all too long and ponderous in a medium built for brevity. Friends suggested that a blog might be a better venue.

And here I am, ending the year with my 45th post, just as the nation prepares to open a new year that will usher in its 45th president. The only difference between the two 45ths is that mine does not involve nuclear weapons. Still, in the interest of numerology, I am more than ready and eager to swiftly move on to Post Number 46.

You can count on that happening well in advance of President 45’s inauguration. Meanwhile, I am taking a bit of a break. I realize that the notion of a retiree going on vacation is an adventure in redundancy. The person who really needs the rest and relaxation is Melissa, my copy editor and wife. She spent another grueling year trying to improve the lot of news industry workers as their union’s ( The NewsGuild) collective bargaining director. As if that were not enough of a challenge, she also nursed me through another medical odyssey and fly specked my prose in this space. So, as the Trumpian crowd filters into town in advance of the inaugural festivities, we thought it would be the perfect time to escape to St. Augustine, Florida for a couple of weeks. Melissa deserves the break. I’m just along for the ride.

That means, absent a sudden rush of profundity that just can’t be held back, this space will be dark until sometime after January 13. With the addition of wishing all of you a very Happy New Year, that closes out my 45th blog post. If only the 45th presidency could be just as short and sweet!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Sunday is Christmas Day. Including the one in the following Clause (holiday pun intended), I have now used the word “Christmas” three times in this paragraph. I will hit number four in two more sentences. I believe that should establish my conservative bonafides, maybe even land me a gig on right wing talk radio. Trust me, this will not be a rant about Merry Christmas versus Happy Holidays, our culture’s ideological litmus test for distinguishing between left and right, pluralism and solipsism, inclusion and claims of political correctness. Those pieces of commentary are as abundant as fruitcakes right now and there is nothing new to say. However, if you have not read enough on this subject, I highly recommend E.J. Dionne’s insightful rant in yesterday’s Washington Post.

I want to take this discussion to another level. Why is it that those of us who embrace Christmas, either through faith or inertia, make such a big deal out of it? And it is a big deal, involving weeks of planning and preparation and consternation. This not to undervalue Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Three Kings Day, St. Lucia Day, the Solstice or any of the other seasonal offerings. On the contrary, they strike me as models of temperate celebration. Christmas is a holiday on steroids.

Many therapists use an intake tool to measure a new patient’s stress level. It assigns points for various traumatic life events experienced within the past year, like death of a parent, divorce, moving, loss of a job and Christmas. Yes, Christmas, the only holiday that comes with stress points. Google “Christmas depression” and you will find 46.4 million entries. Substitute the other holidays for Christmas and you end up with a mere fraction of hits. “Solstice depression,” for example, has only 576,000 offerings and most of them involve Seasonal Affective Disorder, depression from lack of sunlight. Christmas, on the other hand, offers up resources like: “A Depressive’s Guide to Christmas,” “Understanding & Coping with the Christmas Blues,” and “Five Doctor-Approved Tips for Overcoming Christmas Depression.”

Most of those pieces tell the same story: Our expectations for creating perfect moments of euphoric joy and connectedness over a two-or-three-day period are grossly unrealistic and, to one extent or another, destined to fall short. The massive lead-up to Christmas, which seems to start in earnest around Halloween, pulls on our fragile and edited memories of Christmases Past, laced with Norman Rockwellian images and a longing for deep familial bliss. Someone once described this delicate pot of emotions as “being homesick for a place we’ve never been.”

While we ponder, as Mary did, all of these things in our hearts, we return to earth with a jolt on or about December 25. That’s when the whole family gathers and Uncle Ed is drunk again and Cousin Rodney appears in a Trump cap with antlers and Bernie-supporting Niece Glenda pastes a “White Nationalist” sign on Rodney’s back and takes a swig from Ed’s bottle. That’s decidedly not what Norman Rockwell painted. Of course, he, too, was wistfully imagining a place he had never been, having suffered from depression most of his life.

Still, Christmas, even its secular version – with all the negatives attached – is well worth embracing, at least for those who chose to embrace it. Yes, we spend too much, buy too much, give too much. But the ritual pushes us to think of others, to give something to the people who matter in our lives, from family members, to coworkers, to the guy who, in the final days of print journalism, has our newspaper at our door by 6:30 a.m. every day. Donations for the poor skyrocket this time of year because we empathize more than ever with those in need. There is value in caring, even if it’s seasonal. The shrinks are right about tapping down expectations. Even a holiday as potent as Christmas is not going to suddenly and fundamentally alter human nature. What it does is remind us, in a big way once a year, that the essence of life lies more in kindness, love and human connection than in all of those other supposedly important things we throw ourselves into for the other 11 months of the year.

Many years ago, when I was working as a labor union rep, I found a greeting card that poignantly captured this Christmas duality of bliss and lack of permanence. I was so enamored with its raw honesty that I bought several boxes of them. They went, tongue in check, to a select audience of management negotiators I wrestled with over the years. The front bore an idyllic Thomas Kinkade-like scene of snow falling on a gigantic decorated Christmas tree with cherubic ice-skating carolers in the foreground. At the top was this greeting: “This Is A Season of Peace, Love and Understanding!” On the inside came the footnote: “But at 12:01 a.m. on December 26, it’s back to fuck you Charlie.”

In contract negotiations, as in life, you can’t always get a full loaf. Better to capture as many slices as possible than to end up with an empty plate. With that sage advice, I wish those who observe Christmas a very merry one, indeed. To my Jewish friends, Happy Hanukkah. To everyone else, may your special days and celebration bring you joy and happiness. Thank you all for enhancing my life by reading these words every once in a while.