news

Losing the News: The Future of the News That Feeds Democracy (Institutions of American Democracy)
$24.95
Each day I walk from my lonesome hermitage across the border to freedom in Mexico, to buy the daily El Diario published in the Ciudad Juarez, and read it over guacamole and lettuce.

This newspaper each day is as substantial, with more sections than any Sunday edition in the USA. On Sundays, in fact, it is twice as big.

And each day I find international news agencies such as Agence France Presse and Reuters giving the news, nothing but the news, and all of the news, from around the world.

Even the daily Hollywood section makes that look interesting. How does that poor Brad Pitt put up with it all? And that beard?

Today, Veteran's Day, I read in the Mexican daily a long article by a writer for El Diario, Alberto Ponce de Leon, examining in great detail the fact that one in four veterans in the USA are homeless. Did that make the news today in the USA? Citing credible sources such as the National Coalition of the Homeless and the Department of Defense, and visits to Fort Bliss, and an interview with a homeless vet El Paso, Ponce de Leon finds that at some time 400,000 are found homeless during the year. Almost half of them are Vietnam era vets, but also from the Second World War through Iraq. Two thirds served our country for three years or more, with a third in combat zones.

These statistics speak for themselves; the professional and verifiable manner in which they are nakedly reported does far more to expose the truth, the news, than any overheated rhetoric from Fox or Rupert Murdoch or Rev. Moon's Washington Times.

So why can't we have such professionalism here among our own journalists, where we require the truth to keep our republic well informed and our democracy true?

Doesn't sell advertising. Heat, not light, is required to drive profits.

The New York Times, our supposed journal of record, has as majority owner now the Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, who holds it almost as a charity, as a point of pride, not as a profit making enterprise. The Boston Globe, its final remaining competition in the NorthEast, is now a franchise of the Times and going under, whereas my dad as a boy sold newspapers morning and evening on Boston's mean streets, when the number of newspapers were without number.

Now they can barely survive, and go under without outside support.

What's going on?
READ THIS BOOK!

Let me share one more item from my local daily paper. On page 12A in El Diario's ample Opinion section (which normally runs well over a dozen pages) dated October 15, 2009 we find an editorial written by Attorney Sergio Conde Varela, a gentleman who in his photo appears pushing seventy years old and who writes with great insight and bite, entitled The Tsunami Against the Press.

Atty. Conde writes that in number 168 of Le Monde Diplomatique there is an article signed by Ignacio Ramonet, former director of that magazine, which reports that no less than 120 daily newspapers have fallen into bankruptcy in the USA. The article points out that The Times and the Independent of London, the Paris Le Monde, Spain's El Pais, and other such well-known newspapers are in bankruptcy. Loss of advertising is blamed in the article.

The Christian Science Monitor has ceased its paper edition. The Chicago tribune, the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle have fallen into bankruptcy, and Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is losing two and a half billion euros (imagine how much that is in REAL money!).

Attorney Conde Varela concludes his article praising El Diario de Ciudad Juarez, which I also do. I have found it true and reliable, and a great joy to read, and, as Conde points out in others, I make a fierce effort to get it every day, and as Conde writes others do, I save its articles, such as this excellent editorial which I have now saved a month. In fact about every few months, I find I need to clear out my tiny pickup truck cab (single wide) and the kitchen floor and other places of all the newspaper which has accumulated, and lamenting each leaf, I consign them to the trash, lamenting strongly still losing that all important article, e.g., on the latest length and color of Brad Pitt's new beard.

A newspaper is the backbone of democracy. Look at Tom Paine. Look at Ben Franklin. Look at what very little remains, and weep.

Through my literary tears, as an act of civil resistance, I volunteer at my local US paper as a photojournalist for these past years and have often sent by e-mail from Mexico a handful of articles a day, dozens of articles a week, ever under the proud, brave and mighty motto: Often Published; Never Paid! Sunday night in fact I went to the scene of a shooting to take photos and do interviews, and Tuesday they were published.

Yesterday my editor there left me urgent e-mails to call him, and I had to come to Mexico just to get a phone connection to his offices thirty miles from the border. He said he wanted to start paying me free-lance. I begged he not turn my greatest joy into a job. My long passed grandfather the photojournalist for the Boston Record-American might understand, and smile upon me for adding my own little grain of sand keeping American journalism alive.

READ THIS BOOK, and please, please, please, Buy a newspaper TODAY!

This award winning study is the best book I have received through amazon, and vine, the most important book any of us can read, and it is the best written book because it was written by a true newspaperman.

Much has described it here. Please let me add this as well, my personal testimony, my personal plea for our newspapers, the backbone of any real democracy.

NEW Laptop/Notebook AC Adapter/Battery Charger Power Supply Cord for Dell Inspiron 1150 1420 1501 1505 1520 1521 1525 1526 6000 6000D 6400 8500 8600
$7.20
This was totally incompatible with my Dell Inspiron 1520. It inconsistently delivered power, so it flickered between attempted plug-in mode and battery mode every half second. Without the battery, it doesn't work at all. With the battery, it doesn't charge, and if you have different display dim settings for plug-in/battery, it will flicker between them every half second. This was a complete waste of money. Dell's authentic adapters are a rip-off in price, but at least they work. This adapter is a Dekcell brand, and does not work.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon - 2010 Wall Calendar (Size: 11.5" x 11.5")
$19.99
Twilight New Moon 16-Month Calendar 2010. Months Sept. to Dec 2009 are on one page, Jan. to Dec. 2010 are on seperate pages. The Images are from New Moon. Size of Calendar is 11 1/2" x 11". Still sealed.

Touch
$43.99