Tuesday, November 14, 2017

news missing, warmth remains

The warming sense of community once exuded by the local newspaper has faded into barely-veiled advertising and safe-sex press releases about various "boards" and "officials" in this small city's small newspaper.

And yet, with winter in the offing, the Daily Hampshire Gazette still delivers a warmth in its capacity to fire up the wood stove. It's not the same warmth of news reporting, but I do appreciate the wood-warmth even as I miss the news-reporting that the newspaper once provided a bit of.

In an era of safe-sex and dwindling-dwindling-dwindling news -- the capacity to turn over rocks for the benefit of readership -- I guess paying for a little kindling has to be expected.

Merchandizing by merchants -- what the hell else did I expect?

Viva the Donald Trump motif!

2 comments:

  1. Newspaper to light sticks of cedar kindling to ignite pine quarter rounds to create a bed of coals for a load of oak. It's the only heat source I've got here, and it's getting to be too much work. Not sure how feasible or affordable a propane solution might be for this old wreck of a house that barely protects against the elements. I will not move. I will die here. Whether collapsing while cutting wood or shivering for want of wood I cannot say.

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  2. Forget newsprint, look into Fatwood.

    Sorry that your sense of community garnered through a newspaper is gone. In some areas there’s a site called NextDoor dot com. In my area it serves some of the same purpose as a neighborhood newspaper does, plus it’s a community bulletin board. Further it’s Moderately interactive. In other neighborhoods it gets take over by folks with agendas.

    My last conversation was attempting to convince a neighbor that the smell wafting through regularly was pot and not a skunk infestation. In the process, I learned that we had more small wild life besides squirrels in the area than I thought.

    Anyway, your town, Northampton, is already on NextDoor, so check it out.

    As for diminishing reporting, I don’t know what to say. “Ya gits what ya pays for” comes to mind. So does “stupid is as stupid does.”

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