Dead in the Pacific Northwest

After suffering for quite some time in a moribund coma state, the Hearst Corporation has decided to pull the plug on the Seattle Post - Intelligencer, with the time of death to be this coming Thursday.

The P-I will continue with a version of its current online newspaper. There are a lot of newspapers in trouble across America. The P-I is likely the first of the majors to go down in this current newspaper crisis.

I've been addicted to reading a morning newspaper for as long as I can remember. When I lived in Washington it was the P-I. When I return for a visit, I read the P-I. Though this past summer that option was not available. I was stuck with the Tacoma Tribune and the Sunday New York Times. It takes about a week to read the Sunday New York Times.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram continues to decline and cut back. How much longer can it last?

I think I've mentioned before that I think newspaper reading should be part of the school curriculum. An hour a day in a class devoted to reading and discussing that day's paper. Kids growing up in a house that does not get a daily newspaper, do not develop the habit of reading one and keeping up on what's going on in their world.

I've met way too many people who are way too ignorant due to the lack of a habit of keeping informed. People like this are then easy prey to very stupid stuff.

Like I know this person who got all upset over the Israelis finally having enough of incoming rockets from Gaza. This person thought this was terrible what Israel was doing to protect itself. I looked at her with wonderment, then mentioned The Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.

Huh? Totally perplexed was she. So, I brought up the Yom Kippur War article in Wikipedia. This person was alive during the time of the Yom Kippur War. But had no memory of it, due to not reading about. And now she gets her news off TV and the Internet. With no background understanding of any of the things she reads about or the history that preceded it.

She glanced at a bit of the article about the Yom Kippur War, then she got mad. She thought I was trying to make her feel stupid. Due to pointing her towards information that might lighten her of some of her ignorance. But, it's been my experience, sadly, that way too many people would rather wallow in their ignorance and get mad, than try and learn something.

And now Seattle and the Pacific Northwest is slightly less blessed, due to the loss of the P-I. I won't be going to the funeral. I'll grieve in private.