Disappointment

A long-time small pleasure is morning coffee and the newspaper. This morning the wrong paper was delivered -- The NYT arrived instead of The Dallas News.   Disappointing. What could I read with my coffee?

 

I picked up the most recent World magazine, the one with a cover shot of a Japanese mother and her children picking through the debris from the earthquake and tsunami in March,  and caught up on the news that no longer grabs headlines here.

The consequences of the tsunami aren’t cleared up, literally or psychologically. Piles of trash and human pain abound – the Japanese “. . . want people to listen and they are asking for hope.”  (article)

God was good to shake me awake, reminding me that the comfort of a routine, simple pleasures, are not rights; life is not about me enjoying what I like.  Life is more than counting my blessings – it is being a blessing: thinking about others – serving and giving and getting over mistakes that other people make.

This brings me to a concluding disappointment – one that comes not from another person’s error, but a deliberate ploy.  Watching the news, one might think that the run for the White House now matters.  Tomorrow all the breathless reporting of the polls, etc will not matter. What will matter is if the voters understand the issues. My hope is that more reporters and their bosses will report the news about

·      How our kids are performing academically (and socially);

·      What it’s like to use a hospital’s services;

·      How we make crude oil into gasoline;

·      Why can’t we get mortgages;

·      What’s involved in getting a BA today, compared to fifty years ago;

·      How do farmers make money;

·      What is the history and science of water and air pollution in the USA;

·      What is capitalism;

·      What is socialism;

·      What is the history of pirates in the western hemisphere;

·      Why do people want to come to the USA

·      What is the state of our public libraries and museums?

That would fill week’s worth of programming – and I could learn something I might be able to use tomorrow. But the advertisers might not agree.

P.S. Within an hour the distributor for The Dallas News swapped papers.