Don't let country end up like my closet

My sad closet

It's a Sad Story

I've been working really hard recently to get my closets in shape. I worked the shoe and accessories closet pretty hard. Sadly, as you can see, it revolted and vomited all over my bedroom floor, which was pretty revolting itself. My cats have been climbing all over the mess (you know how excited cats can be around bodily secretions). I do not want them tracking shoe puke all over my house. Yuck!

Full Disclosure

It's not really shoe puke. It was actually a fashion emergency. I know, pretty shallow. I had to dig through piles of shoes and accessories, yet to be sorted, to get to a bottom rack in search of my lime green Merrill sneakers to go with my lime and khaki green outfit, with black accessories. Sweet. I know you'd agree.

Comment

These are the kinds of things I see, think and write about to distract me from the reality of white supremacists in the West Wing.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has two petitions on its website that I hope you will consider. 

One calling for the president-elect to honor his pledge to serve "ALL AMERICANS." 

Another to send the president-elect the message that Stephen Bannon has no place in the White House as his senior counsel. Bannon is the former editor of Breitbart News, which he, as editor, has called "a cesspool for white supremacist[s]). 

Make sure Bannon isn't the only one who is exercising his right to free speech. Make your voice heard. Sign these petitions now.

Southern Poverty Law Center

https://www.splcenter.org/news/2016/11/14/splc-bannon-must-go

Let's make sure our country doesn't look like my closet in four years.

"Dumb Anger, Dumb Plan"

I can’t take credit for the title. I traveled to it last night in a lovely Chinese novel, “Brothers,” set during the Tiananmen Square upraising. At a time that brought students and workers together to fight for…democracy. The protests around the country are not lost on me, yet, I remember panicked rhetoric after Nixon’s and Bush 43’s elections as well.

I have been searching all week for the words to capture my string of thoughts on the outcome Tuesday.

I went to bed Tuesday night secure in the knowledge that I would awake to the first woman president. My security was shaken by the first email subject line I read Wednesday morning: “This is a very sad day for our country.”

I immediately went in search of election results and was stunned by the amount of red that swept our country. Including my own state, Michigan, which went conservative for the first time since 1988 when President George H.W. Bush was elected. I reasoned thoughtfully:

1.     I must be in an episode of “The Twilight Zone” or for you younger readers “The Black Mirror.”

2.     I have to run this past Snopes. This has to be someone’s idea of a gag.

3.     Should I take the day off from work to mourn? It seemed just and appropriate somehow.

I listened to the week’s coverage of the election and was comforted by the thoughtful reporters and voices of our nation that reminded me that all of Trump’s supporters weren’t the hateful bigots that he is. And saddened by the realization that the same voters with the “dumb plan” to shake things up in Washington had put their Republican incumbents back in office. The very Washington insiders who have done nothing for the voters since they have been too busy blocking this administration for their own personal and political gain. “Dumb Anger, Dumb Plan.”

I was also comforted by at least one reporter on NPR’s Sunday All Things Considered, who acknowledged that while there were many hardworking and sincere reporters out there covering this campaign, the media as a whole didn’t do a very good job (my words) challenging a candidate who actually used a campaign stop to promote his new Washington, DC hotel and the media covered it. (International free advertising is exactly what the news media is apparently about these days --- free advertising and pandering to the base interests of the American people while the international media tries to legitimately cover our news --- much to their own entertainment.)

http://trumplandmovie.com/

Monday night, I had the opportunity to view Michael Moore’s “Trumpland,” with Moore himself at a rally in Flint. In the film, Moore reads an eloquent essay he wrote to the angry blue collar white American man. He readily acknowledges all of the reasons these men and their ethnic fellow Americans have a right to be angry. Yet, he cautions all voters that when one votes in anger there will be consequences to pay long after the moment spent in the voting booth. And those consequences, Moore reminds his audience, affect the whole nation. Getting even through one’s vote is a “dumb plan.” (I note the loss of union power over its membership in this union state with this election. While the unions might endorse Democrats, the workers are seriously conservative on social issues. I think the union members just taught their union leadership a lesson in independent minds and votes.)

I am fearful now for my students, friends, family and neighbors whose religions, cultures, races, disabilities, and gender orientation put them more at risk than ever before. Pundits had predicted that should Trump win, his legacy of hate on the campaign trail would give those, who supported for him because he gave credence to their ignorance, fear and hate, the license to act on their hate towards others unlike themselves. Other pundits predicted that had he lost, those same haters would have reacted violently toward other Americans and immigrants unlike themselves. I fear we may be in a “Catch 22” here. Win or lose, someone is going to get hurt who instead deserves the equal protections under the law that we claim are afforded to all.

I am fearful about our “right to know” as Trump has already prevented the media from reporting on his actions as president-elect. Our media are already in a tenuous place and Trump’s disrespect for the First Amendment and its role in our free and open society is concerning to say the least.

I am worried about human rights issues, the environment, and our Democracy as it becomes ever more vulnerable to capitalism with Trump at the helm and the Koch Brothers and others exercising their free speech rights with piles of cash. We worried about Clinton booking the Lincoln Room for a fee. What’s going to be for sale in DC with Trump as our CEO?

At this moment in time, I am going to choose to take comfort in the belief that the good and decent men and women who hopefully still exist in our Congress, will block Trump’s less lucid maniacal actions and protect the values that those of us were taught by our parents, teachers, family, and friends. You know, things like respect, fairness, honesty, kindness, generosity, equality, and tolerance.

But I will be paying attention and I won’t hesitate to voice my opinion and protest those actions that strike me as unjust.

I can’t help but wonder if our silent majority may have just gotten what it deserves. Stay silent, don’t act, it will all be OK, is a “dumb plan” too.

Musical Interlude: Songs for life

Music seems to attach itself to the different parts and pieces of my life. Songs trigger memories and maybe even preserve those memories for me. The soundtrack, I suppose, to moments in my time. They bring events, people, and emotions alive again for me…even if only in my mind.

There are a couple of songs that have traveled with me over time. Flexing their meaning to the changing path of my life and sticking with me. They remind me of how valuable each turn on the path is.

Kenny Loggins has long been my poet. Long ago he and Jim Messina teamed up to create the song that I have traveled along ever since.

"Watching the River Run" - Loggins and Messina, 1974

 

Although he died in 1981, Harry Chapin is still my storyteller. It's liking getting lost in a good book when he sings his stories. His "All My Life's a Circle" song puts life in perspective "from sunrise to sundown" and through the seasons of life.

"All My Life's a Circle" - Harry Chapin, 1977

 Perhaps they will speak to your life or help you put things in perspective. Enjoy.

Our Lady of the....

I first saw her on the porch of a neighbor sunning herself.

I didn’t run into her again until that neighbor passed away, her estate settled and her condominium cleaned out. About that time, I opened the dumpster to trash my trash and there she was lying on the heap…with a broken neck.

I wrestled her out of the dumpster. Loaded her into my Jeep and headed for the only artistic urgent care facility I knew of. My artist brother and his artist spouse. There, she received the care and neck support she needed to cement the healing. Since I lived then in an apartment style condo, I had nowhere to put her so she happily settled in their back garden on the edge of some Bay City cornfields.

Our Lady of the Garden.

(We thought about Our Lady of the Cornfield but flashes of a Stephen King novel nixed that idea.)

By 2008 and the economic plummet, the family was relocating to Tennessee for employment and my brother asked if I wanted. I was by then in a new house style condo in East Lansing with a yard. So Our Lady came to call and stayed. She found a perfect place on the edge of a dense woods and took to feeding the critters in the winter and watering others in the summer.

Our Lady of the Woods

Semi-retirement and new adventures took me to a home on a lake toward the middle of the Michigan mitten. We uprooted her from the woods, said goodbye to all of the critters and headed north. There, she settled down by the lake and spurred rumors of a new and deeply religious family on the lake. Instead, she partied with the best of us and kept up her watering duties.

Besides major storms and high winds sweeping down the lake and threatening her stance, life got particularly eventful when she was kidnapped in 2015. At risk of being drowned by my ex led to this mysterious disappearance. It still tickles us that we got away with such capers.

Our Lady of the Lake

You'll find Our Lady of the Lake to the far right by the boat

Last year, this portion of our lives together came full circle as I returned to the original condominiums at which I had met her. Again, I found myself with no place to put her and spent some time trying to find friends with yards who might adopt her and take her on her next journey.

But life had changed a bit at the Parkview Manor in Flint, Michigan (yes, Flint). Many green thumbed neighbors had transformed a barren forgotten backyard into a glorious, lush, colorful oasis for meditation, reading, sunning, and visiting.

And that’s how Our Lady of the Garden found her way home…with me in tow.

It’s all an adventure.

A Child of the World

I’ve always known I was a child of the world. I was kind of hoping that I was a child of the universe but sadly, a recent DNA test shows no alien heritage.

I didn’t take the test but my brother did. His children gave him and his wife the tests for Mother’s and Father’s Day this year, and I have since told them that it was a pretty darn good gift for me as well.

Before the test, when people asked my heritage I could easily respond: 75% German, 25% Irish – loosely rounded out of course. Now, I have to ask them if they have an hour? (My mother would have responded “American,” and that would have been the end of that discussion.)

A Benetton Ad that speaks well for itself.

My brother teased me through the reveal of our heritage. He asked what DNA I thought was running around my body. I gave him the usual, to which he revealed that our Western European heritage, including German, was just 37%. With my sense of DNA self already coming undone, I learned that this portion of my heritage could include ancestors from Poland, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, and/or Romania.

No wonder I have never particularly liked German food.

I’d known that my mother’s family immigrated as Germans to the U.S. but from Russia. This opened up a discussion between my brother and me about that side of the family. I knew that somehow we were descendants of Germans who had gone with Catherine the Great to Russia when she married the Tsar. What I didn’t know was that Catherine the Great had invited Germans to immigrate to Russia to help populate the huge country. However, the Germans didn’t assimilate well, kept to themselves and lived as Germans in Russia, including maintaining the German language. So, ultimately, while my mother was the first of the Sturtz children to be born in the U.S., she didn’t learn English until she started kindergarten in the mid-1920s.

Oh, now I get it.

Twenty-two percent of my DNA comes directly from Great Britain. No way! I’m British! No wonder I’m addicted to Brit Coms on HULU. OMG, I must have ROYAL DNA in here somewhere…but where? I must now insist that you all refer to me as Dame Donna or Lady DU. (I’m doing the Queen’s wave to you all.)

Another 20% of my DNA make-up is from Ireland. OK, so I wasn’t too far off and I do really like the accent. My grandmother, Edna Louise, was Irish…but now, who knows what else?

By this point, my brother and I have had several text exchanges as he continued to reveal parts of pieces of my heritage.

Twelve percent, he tells me, has been traced to Italy and Greece (I love Greek food! --- except stuffed grape leaves and lamb ;-). This portion of me can reach into Serbia, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia. Serbia, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia --- are you kidding me? Except for news coverage and restaurants, what do I know about this part of the world --- and yet their in me.

Now he tells me we’re down to trace regions for our DNA. Four percent from Eastern Europe --- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, and Moldova.

This makes sense to me since we knew that second cousins had traveled through some of those countries in the 60’s or 70’s in search of relatives and found them. Of course, by now, I am coming to understand the impact of migration on my make-up.

One percent of the DNA is solidly from Norway and other Scandinavian countries.

Less than 1% can be traced to Finland and Russia --- I told you those Germans kept to themselves.

The most interesting surprise to me was my West Asian and the Caucasus connections. Ancestors of mine could be traced to Israel and Palestine. (I make this point specifically. It wouldn’t be the first time that my ancestors found themselves on different sides in a fight.)

Yet also from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Iran. (These very people and places our politicians and hate mongers have tried so hard to teach us: 1. to hate because they are all a bunch of terrorists, and 2. that they like many other ethnic groups shouldn’t be allowed into the U.S. and if they are already here --- even the ones with citizenship --- should be shipped out.) Now what do I do? I’m truly one of them, even if just by a trace. Can I stay?

As I am writing this, I am listing to a discussion with Pakistani American parents Khizr and Ghazala Kham, whose son, Army Captain Humayun Khan was lost in Iraq while serving in the U.S. military. They came to public attention after presidential candidate Donald Trump attacked all Muslims including American Muslims.

How is it that we can so easily condemn all people for the bad actions of a few? (Which begs the question: Why haven’t we shipped out some of those crazy extremist Christians? I bet I could trace their DNA to somewhere else. Ok, I couldn’t do it, but I’d be happy to pay for it!) tee hee.

All of this also suggests to me that while I was raised Christian, my ancestors may well have been Jewish, Muslim, Greek Orthodox and who knows what else.

I’m a very diverse party of one headed to Taboon’s for my comfort food: Chicken Ghallaba. Middle Eastern food, I love it.

 Post Script: I have since received several website links from a friend that seek to prove that we can all trace our DNA to Mars. So perhaps I am a child of the universe after all.

My brother has advised me that since the Earth is in the universe, I can safely claim to be a child of the universe. So I do.

Now, I'm working on the title of Child of the Galaxy!

That's what friends do

We couldn’t find him anywhere.

We called out his nickname: Johno. We made jokes at his expense knowing his sarcastic chuckle or, when something really got to him, his deep huge guffaw would give him away.

He was with his grandparents we were told.

We had the whole place to ourselves. Well, except for the residents and they weren’t talking.

He died in February but wasn’t buried until June (Michigan winters and frozen ground.) We thought we’d find his grave easily enough. Yet disturbed ground or a new marker at least but John Clyde just wasn’t there for us.

John C. Brandon, 1990

I suppose that’s fitting. A bit of a joke on us since we couldn’t make it to his funeral. I arrived back in the state just an hour after his funeral ended.

The point is, he was always there as a very long term friend is and neither of us made it to his send off. We feel especially bad because I’d just talked to him about the three of us having dinner when I got back from my travels. And then he was gone.

He’d been confined to a wheelchair. Years of dialysis had taken its toll. So many health problems setting in and bodily systems shutting down. Still, always cheerful and ready to play.

John had come into my life with my first husband. Best friends since kindergarten they were. BFFs long before acronyms became the language of lazy teens.

While divorce often gives custody of friends to the spouse who brought them into the marriage, John was among the few who assumed joint custody quite comfortably.

Our politics were 180-degrees. We never hesitated to make sure the other understood our position ---- not always so respectfully expressed…yet somehow the overall respect remained and we remained in touch even though our lives took us in very different directions.

Since his death, we have both felt that we didn’t get to properly say goodbye or pay tribute to a loyal, decent, funny guy.

So, here we were on a day trip to say finally pay our respects in our own way. A CD of John Denver and a quart of milk (he was addicted to milk) replaced by a pot of mums because I couldn’t find the CD. But no luck and while I doubt he’s rolling in his grave (he was cremated), he’s definitely guffawing at us from above.

He knows us too well. We won’t give up. I’ll call the small town’s city hall and his address, section and plot numbers. Then, I’ll find the CD and we’ll make another day trip to say farewell because he was always a friend and that’s what friends do.


In memory of John C. Brandon (1955-2016)

Post Script 9.3.2016 - We found John after calling the city clerk for the burial plot. Just in time for his birthday. His nephew told us that a marker wasn't in place yet so we took our own...and his favorite drink for a toast.

Now Playing... John C. Brandon on piano with John Denver sitting in on vocals. Play on friend! Play on!

 

"Over and Next": Underrated for seizing life

“Over” and “next” are two of the most underrated words in the English language according to Norman Lear, creator of “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” and “Maude” among other groundbreaking television programs.

On a recent “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” broadcast on NPR, the 93-year-old was asked what he thinks has  contributed to his longevity in life and work.

“Over and next,” he responded without pause.

Paraphrasing him: When it’s over, it’s time to move on to the what’s next.

We often cripple ourselves reliving the past, paying penance for our regrets, and trying to undo what can no longer be undone. In the meantime, we’re missing what’s next.

“Over and next.”

Sound like a good mantra for those of us who strive to get the most out of our lives.

Watch a short video featuring Norman Lear.

Not Dead Yet

By HEIDI EWING and RACHEL GRADY | Jul. 6, 2016 | 7:44

At the age of 93, Norman Lear is still entertaining America. What’s his secret?

Stop Trump's hate

Trump's vote mongering among the gun toting haters of our country is making targets of our American Muslim and gay friends, neighbors, and co-workers for this same group. (As well as our immigrant neighbors. Remember, this country was founded on welcoming people in need AND protecting their religions as well. Imagine that ;-).

Each-ONE-of-us has to work to stop Trump's hate. We can't sit back and wait for someone else to do it for us.

We have to remember that across cultures, the majority of us are peaceful decent people. We cannot let the few fanatical haters justify violent actions against innocent people as defense of this nation.

Trump is giving those people permission to act on their hate every time he opens his mouth.

We have to stop Trump's hate. Denounce it and vote to defeat it.

Forget the "why"

“Why?” might play an important role in criminal investigations as it goes straight to motive but I’m coming to terms with the energy wasted by asking it in times of personal pain. It rarely seems that the answer can justify the effect and it --- to date --- has never been able to reset the course of life after the effect.

Recently, I learned that a very lovely friend from high school died too early from cancer. (Mid-50s, which seems to be common among women --- me, two cousins-who-are-sisters, two sisters-in-law, and too many other women in the chemo suite with me.) Our paths crossed because she was my brother’s high school sweetheart.

Looking at some Facebook comments about her, one poster wrote. [She was] “wonderful, positive, quirky and fun…I primarily remember her with braces” …as do we all. Smile.

It was her joy, energy and excitement with life the made her stand out. And while her path took her away from my brother, it did take her onto a career as a neurologist, marriage and three daughters. Her focus in life was to do good and I can only imagine the difference she made for her patients and their families and in her community.

My sadness manifests itself in the realization that someone so young and contributing so positively is lost too soon. Getting an answer to why, “cancer” doesn’t comfort the sadness or fill the void created.

A year ago one of my best friends in the GALAXY died far too young at 67 due to health issues.

In high school he was told by a guidance counselor that he wasn’t college material. He went on to Princeton, Antioch College, and Newark State College focusing on guidance counseling and education. He then spent the rest of his days inspiring school students to see themselves as college students, helping them prepare to get into college, and ensuring that they were successful once they gained admission.

I recall telling him more than once that he saved lives every day to which I’d get a humble little blush and tiny grin…maybe a chuckle from time to time.

What struck me most about him and still does is that he never had a doubt about what he was put here to do and just went about doing it as best he could. “Leave a mark, now a stain,” he would suggest to anyone listening.

He left his mark indeed.

But I’m left wondering why the cosmos, my God, whatever karmic structure is out there decided that someone who helps so many young people and would have been happy to continue to do so for many, many, many years was taken so soon.

How could a spiritual being think we didn’t need these valuable people in the world?

God and I have had lots of words about this over that last year as I’ve come to terms with this absence. He (God) has let me stew a lot and finally, I was led back to someone’s comment on Facebook after this death.

“Who will fill his shoes?” someone posted.

To which I responded, “I hope we will all step up,” knowing that none of us alone were probably able to fill those shoes. After posting, I quickly forgot about it and went back to pondering “why?”

Perspective comes with time because indeed, that’s where at least a part of the answer has come from for me.

As painful as the losses are, perhaps those voids are created to remind us that we should not be so dependent on one person to carry the whole burden of addressing needs and coming to the assistance to those in need. While at the same time, the rest of us laud ourselves for whatever sideline support we offered.

Maybe, just maybe, we lose some of the best of us too soon as a “slap me into next Tuesday” notice that it’s our time and turn to step up and contribute to the needs around us.

Spending too much time pondering the “why” factor stunts us all and doesn’t honor those lost. The better question has to be: “How can I help now?”

Remembering Barb Jahnke, MD, 1959-2015 and Tendaji W. Ganges, 1948-2015

It’s all about the cats interlude*

Well, I can finally say I will drop everything for my cats!

Underwear in hand this morning to get my day going, I got distracted by a cat and went off to tend to my herd’s needs.

And then I couldn’t find my underwear.

I had literally “dropped my drawers” to take care of my cats.

I promise not to drop any grandchildren or a good glass of wine for the cats, but I now believe I can officially say, “I’ve dropped everything for my cats.”

Lest you think I’m some shuttered in cat lady, it isn’t all snuggles and fresh litter among us.

Pi in the Sky - He's not there voluntarily

Just last week I was threatening to put them all out on the curb and get a new batch of cats who would appreciate the mahogany climbing tree I built for them. While Sweet Potato Pi can be found cat napping in the cubby from time to time. None of the three have accepted the challenge of climbing the tree.

Well, so far anyway…until it isn’t my idea…and they can officially call it their idea to climb and perch.

It's all about the cats all the time it seems. I don't know how they got so spoiled???

Just herding cats.

*I titled this entry “interlude” since there will probably be more cat commentaries along the way.

Media Skepticism Part II (local newspapers)

(Author’s Note: Sorry for the interruption between Parts I &II but I thought Flossie had something worth saying for all of us.)

 

I have lived long enough to witness the media I love the most --- newspapers --- teeter harrowingly on the brink of extinction ---- (It could happen in my 26 years but I have an old soul.)

I have also lived long enough to see the career I knew I was destined for --- journalism --- live out periods of high ethnics (post-Watergate) and surrender to sensationalism (pick a medium, pick a story).

I have a lot of bones to pick with this profession, but at 60, the one that bothers me the most is this natural and perhaps necessary evolution away from hard copy news to Internet rivers and streams of electronic news, and the audience that loses out as a result.

When the country switched from analog to digital in 2008, the FCC reported that less than 2.5% of American households were unready and did not make that switch. Interestingly, The Nielsen Company reported that by October of that year all but .05% of households had made the conversion and that those that hadn’t were most likely to be African American, Hispanic, Asian, younger, lower income and those less likely to have Internet access in their homes.

Yet, the same report shows that of that small percentage, one-third was age 55+ (no doubt also low income, without access to the Internet and of all cultures). A group of people who no doubt counted on their TV, along with their newspaper, as company in the household during the day as well as an important information source. Of approximately 116M households in 2008, that would mean somewhere around 5M households (some 5M+ citizens) lost this important companion.

I couldn’t find any estimates on how many households may still be without TV because they didn’t make the switch but I do worry that too many of them are elderly and out there alone.

Closely following the analog/digital switch and the gap in service it may have created, came the loss to too many newspapers.

I cannot help but remember my mother and aunt living alone, without the freedom of a car and only so much yard work to be done. I remember the talk radio station on all day to fill the void in an empty house. I also think about my mother’s dinner schedule around “M*A*S*H” reruns and the news, and her “stories” in the evening to pass the time.

The newspaper industry has struggled for decades to cultivate young readers in hopes of turning them into dedicated adult subscribers but electronic technology and the Internet got in the way.

Newspapers were very late coming to the realization that they had to change to survive. They still struggle to figure out how to remain a relevant and effective source of news with TV and radio long having held that breaking news position and a mindless number of alternative news sites on the Internet for newshounds to track.

Yet, their most loyal readers --- the seniors who grew up knowing that the newspaper was a constant they could count on --- are the least attended to by the industry today and the ones most likely to require this version. While seniors are certainly tech savvy, many are still not likely to spend their days following the electronic river of news, where the most coverage is today.

Granted, they have calculated that we aren’t their long-term audience, yet at the same time, the industry has discounted us completely.

HEY! we're still here. We’re the ones who still want ink on our hands when we finish the newspaper for the day ---- every day. We're the ones who want all of the news "that's fit to stream." We'll trade you the Sudoku, advice columns and other syndicated stuff for pages full of the news of our city!

And we're happy to pay for it...It's not like you have to do it forEVER! (see two grafs above.) I'll even put "She still subscribed" on my tombstone. (Full disclosure: I can't really do that since I'm going to be freeze dried and my dust thrown in the wind --- I've take up too much room on this earth already.) But I would put that on my tombstone if I was getting one.

Flint, Michigan’s Flint Journal is owned by Booth Newspapers and became a part of MLive.com when the parent company decided to form the MLive Media Group in 2012 to handle the advertising and news for all of its newspapers and websites.

From 30+ reporters to cover the MANY stories of this urban community prior to MLive, the Flint Journal is down to eight-ish reporters according to Managing Editor Bryn Mickle. And as Mickle explained to my students last year, those reporters focus on the daily Internet stream of news, not on the content for the newspaper, which publishes four times a week --- Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.

Interestingly enough, since the MLive group is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan --- two hours away from Flint and on the western side of the state, the Flint Journal is edited, designed and printed in Grand Rapids. (Pause to let this sink in.) People in Grand Rapids are making decisions, with a bit of input from the Flint staff, about what the Flint Journal hard copy will contain. Just as they are for the other community newspapers in the system: The Bay City Times,  The Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, The Saginaw News and Advance Newspapers.

If one subscribes to the paper long enough --- one year for me --- the template of daily coverage is obvious and sacrifice of local news just as obvious. MLive tends to drop in the biggest story among their coverage areas whether it has relevance to the other communities or not.

A weekly entertainment column covers the highlights of performers across the state for that weekend, completely ignoring the amazing arts events that happen nonstop in Flint. ---- FLINT IS AN ARTS TOWN! --- But how would a columnist not in Flint know about Flint arts if he’s just surfing the web looking for events calendars to help him fill his column?

Often, from Friday to Sunday or Sunday to Tuesday, the same story is virtually repeated rather than covering ---- “NEWs --- as in breaking news or new news in case you don’t get that “news” means the latest not just the best we’ve got to help us save money in the production process.

Instead of spending money on sufficient reporters to cover the local news, two full pages are given over to comic strips and Sudoku, more pages include three syndicated advice columns in a row (thanks, I needed that) along with horoscopes and other filler that has nothing to do with the community or the state --- just more paid for syndicated feature stuff.

Whew though! Plenty of pages are still dedicated to obituaries because most subscribers are 55+ and our parents (my mother) trained us well to check to see who we know who died. One service they’ve preserved for us ---- or actually the one service that makes them money since those death notices are paid for by the funeral home or family. Cha-ching.

It’s not that I don’t want the latest information on the Flint Water Crisis but that’s not the only story in town. And by the way, I’d much rather read about the other stories in my town than fluff features about Grand Rapids, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Muskegon or even Saginaw (my home town.)

I’m troubled by any justification behind generically filling each community’s paper with copy from other communities to save money. Whatever cash savings they are enjoying, they plan is at the expense of their subscribers who still hope for the the service that once was the community newspaper.

Will I cancel my subscription? Are you kidding! Newspapers are my life. I want my news in hard copy and I will always support my local paper ---- but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy of some constructive criticism from time to time.

Do you think it is still possible for publishers to think more about their audience than their bottom line? I don’t.

Flossie Lewis: At 91, she's only 15

Well, I guess I don't have to do my Standing in the Middle of the Road Blog anymore.

Flossie Lewis sums it all right up in her PBS "Brief But Spectacular Take on Growing Old."

At 91, she's only "15" ;-)...and FAB-U-Lous!

Don't worry, I have plenty more to say. Gotta get all of my character out just as Flossie is doing!

And thanks to cub reporter Sue Breen for finding this one for me.

Media Skepticism Part I

Fox News Reporter Ed Henry

Fox Reporter Ed Henry is finding out that paybacks are hell this week. After months of trying to implicate Hillary Clinton in allegedly scandalous behavior while following her on the campaign trail, Henry’s own skeletal mistress (literally, tee hee) came out of his closet of secrets. Now he’s the bad news.

This reminds us that those with celebrity status (as with presidential candidates we would say “prominence”) should really clean out their own closets before delving into those of others.

This is especially the case if they questionably choose to use their position as a trusted news reporter to preach their opinions, suspicions and accusations instead of reporting the facts. Amazingly forgetting that their audience is tuned in because the American public, regardless of news network, has placed its trust in the news organization to provide them with the truth on which to base their own positions on the issue.

Within this same news period, we’ve learned that the New York Times plans cutbacks that include downsizing their international offices and that the the Gannett company, owner of the Detroit Free Press, seeks to take over Tribune Publishing, publisher of such papers as the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. Coupled with the FCC’s relaxed ownership rules for radio and TV --- the fear here is that we are losing the many and varied voices in the market place that inform us from many perspectives and help us to come to our own conclusions about the issues of our time. How do we protect a lively “market place of ideas” and its many voices if monopolies across media control the messages through too few voices?

For instance, radio stations once were local voices of information for communities. Now, iHeartMedia, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Broadcasting) owns nearly 1,225 stations in 300 cities nationally and is noted for carrying primarily conservative talk shows such as those hosted by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity. You may recall that after Dixie Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines told a London concert audience in 2003 that she was “ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas,” Clear Channel among other radio networks pulled the musical trio from its line-up across the country. The controversy even resulted in Dixie Chick CD burning and destruction parties.

Geez, even Bush 43, defended the Dixie Chicks in his response to the controversy during an interview with Tom Brokaw in 2003:

The Dixie Chicks are free to speak their mind. They can say what they want to say ... they shouldn't have their feelings hurt just because some people don't want to buy their records when they speak out ... Freedom is a two-way street ... I don't really care what the Dixie Chicks said. I want to do what I think is right for the American people, and if some singers or Hollywood stars feel like speaking out, that's fine. That's the great thing about America.

I have lived in a time when metropolitan cities were able to sustain two daily newspapers and most of the rest of the cities and towns --- one. Our villages and burbs can still support at least a weekly.

We once had a wealth of independent news voices available to us. What radio and TV didn’t have time to delve into, we could turn to our daily paper --- waiting on the stoop and delivered by a really real-live paperboy ---- (At $8 a pop for the Sunday NYTimes today, I can’t even get the delivery person to get it into my condo building let alone bring it to my door) ---- for “the rest of the story.”  (Thank you Paul Harvey.)

We had thick lush Sunday papers that weighed as much as 9 pounds, filled with all of the special sections and community advertising for the week. It was a given to me that everyone in town subscribed and everyone watched the news because that’s what we did in my house.

Granted, I had to wait for my dad to read it first and when I discovered I could use my allowance to subscribe to the --- wait for it --- Detroit Free Press --- I was in miracle territory. The FREEP and the Saginaw News everyday on the floor with me. Ink proudly covering my fingers at the end of each session.

(Total Aside: I was so young when I caught the news bug that I had to ask my parents why the police only ever found the “body” of the victim of any crime story. ---- I thought “body” meant “torso.” Where was the head, arms, legs, and feet I wondered aloud? I mean don’t sing “head, nose, fingers, toes” to me if you expect me to believe that they are all just “body.”)

We didn’t realize what we had or its importance and now it’s pretty much gone. While I realize that I’m not alone in realizing what we have lost, I do think that those who don’t realize or are too young to understand this loss are probably in the majority, suggesting that we are quickly losing an informed population and given the year, an informed electorate.

Downsizing and mergers and convergence from print to Internet --- from daily print to a few issues a week is what we have left.

Time Magazine (Newsweek is gone in print) is a mere shadow of itself down from 35 pages to 15.

It always feels like I'm picking up some kind of sample version or toy model of the once substantial publication. Not that the reporting doesn't remain important but weekly print news magazines can't complete for readers or advertisers with instant access to information online regardless of source or quality. Sigh.

TV news has gone from independent entities of their corporate owners to profitable brands and products demonstrated so aptly by the coaching anchors and reporters demonstrate as they punch those adjectives and offer their opinions on the events of our times. All in the hopes that these added effects will offer a sense of entertainment/sensationalism that will boost ratings and ad revenues.

For an industry and profession that I have loved all of my life, I am now worried and skeptical.

Worried that we aren’t getting the news we NEED to know and have a RIGHT to know to protect what we think is a free and open democracy.

Skeptical because I think the media is now too influenced in its news coverage decisions by profitability pressures thus filling programs and pages with the news they think we WANT rather than NEED. And it’s our immediate loss (especially in an election year as some of us try to prepare to make informed decisions at the polls) but what’s the long-term impact going to be for this nation that boasts free press and the importance of providing its citizens with all the news they need to know…you know “transparency” as so many presidents and governors promise but don’t practice already.

President Obama drinks Flint water during this week's visit.

Look no further than the Flint water crisis as a demonstration of this. Especially after President Obama’s visit to the city this week where he told a select crowd that “I have your back.”…just two years after the fact, with no funding from the federal government yet, at least one federal EPA official out of a job, along with state and local EPA and water department employees also out of jobs, some limited local indictments, and two local deaths that are raising questions because of their connection to the water crisis.  Where was the transparency on this issue? And where was the media's coverage of it?

To be continued…