It's the first of several consecutive rainy days. I walked to town with Callie and managed to get to the north end before sprinkles turned into a steady rain. We were both soggy by the time we got back home. I tried to shake off the rain like Callie does, but with less success. The house was warm from my early morning wood stove fire, so I settled in for a day of reading.
I have two online newspapers that I read every day: the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the New York Times. I started reading the Milwaukee paper when I was in grade school and had my own paper route in middle school. Delivery of the Milwaukee paper isn't available in my area.
Newspapers are dying, and it makes me sad. Reading a physical newspaper over morning coffee was a great personal pleasure for many years of my life. The only physical paper available for delivery to me is the Wisconsin State Journal. Annual subscriptions are $268/year. Over the years, its owners have shrunk the paper, the staff, and the news content, while growing profits.
After reading the newspapers, I scan my newsfeed via Feedly. I try to stay away from the news for the rest of the day.
Most of the books that I read are fiction. I have about ten authors that I regularly follow. These include C.J. Box, Steve Hamilton, Jonathan Kellerman, and Don Winslow.
I think I found another one to add to the list: Noah Hawley, author of Anthem. I'm only about half-way through his recent book, but it's one of those rare books that has grabbed my attention. He captures the conditions for the messed-up world that we live in perhaps better than anyone that I've previously read. Here's an excerpt:
"...in the Age of Inverted Reality, the-stolen-cookie-that-was-never-stolen is now known as an alternative fact. Proof is irrelevant. Reality has become a personal choice, denial of reality a weapon. If a man gives a speech in the rain and later insists that the sun was shining the whole time, and if he then wages war against those who show him photos of the rain, calling them liars, branding them as evil, he is not lying so much as asserting power over truth itself."
The plot, involving a movement of thousands of teens committing suicide after the pandemic, is way out there. Recommended. There's a simple message on the back book cover: "This isn't a fairy tale."
Comments
I read most my daily news on-line from sources like 1440 and Ground News, but I still subscribe to the twice-a-week print edition of our 80 year old, award-winning , and thankfully still independent and locally owned by journalists not money-grubbers, (the annual subscript is only $120) local paper.