The net that shall enmesh them all
Edited, Written, and Published by Josh Nossiter
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
Take today's New York Times. Please. The lead story is about the economy going further into the toilet. Elsewhere on the front page we learn that broadcast TV is on life support, along with liberal arts colleges and the sport of cycling. Peering inside we're told nuclear armed Pakistan is on the way to becoming the next Somalia, Ireland's about to become the next Iceland, Argentinean farmers are mad as hell, US officials behaved horribly at Guantanamo, and US flyers are giving on the job training to Afghani pilots – with neither speaking a word of the other's language. Can you say plane wreck? In Pashto? And US troops are going to be in Iraq through 2011.
The news, in other words, is all bad. Very, very bad. Now granted that some, perhaps even much, of it happens to be true. But who wants to be assaulted with an eyeful of terrible news first thing in the morning? It's like drinking a shot of vinegar instead of coffee.
So here's a modest proposal to save newspapers everywhere. Instead of the multi-section editions that appear now, segregating general news from the arts and business and sports, print a two section newspaper instead. Section one is good news. Section two is bad. What's that? Section one would have too much white space? Maybe. But it all depends on how you define good news. Did you catch the reaction to the performance of the GOP's young hopeful, Bobby Jindal, the other night? Or how about the anger southern GOP governors are arousing with their talk of rejecting federal funds for extended unemployment benefits? Meanwhile have you read the name Cheney lately, or Rumsfeld or Bush? There's good news out there if you but look for it.
©Joshua C. Nossiter, 2009
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A NOTE TO READERS ***Update***
Another three week plus hiatus, from April 30th until May 23rd, again due to Yahoo Geocities dismal service.
There was nothing new at The Nossiter Net between March 3rd and April 26th, 2007, nearly eight weeks. The reason: tech sabotage. Yahoo Geocities, the host for this site, denied access for the entire period. At one point, they even managed to lose all the files. In many discussions with Yahoo staff, no clear explanation was forthcoming. No one seemed able to fix the problem. Ruling out the possibility of Dubbya’s revenge, I finally wrote to Mr. Terry Semel, Chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Inc and described the ordeal the page had undergone since the beginning of March. A week later, a helpful Yahooo engineer named Jason called. He had my letter before him. Though he couldn’t do the repairs on on the spot, he promised a fix by the next day. That was April 26th, nearly two months after shutting me down in the first place.
The Nossiter Net apologizes, which is more than I can say for Yahoo Geocities.
