Listen to General Washington, Stirring His Troops to Fight One More Month.What Happened Next?

Changing Dates

I always ask for the Geezer discount. Young clerks burst out laughing.

Fortunately, I bought a few ahead. The news wires warned about the looming shortage in sweats, since so many work at home and plan to continue. But that could also be a PR pitch to get people to hoard sweats. 

When I talk or write about the news, many people respond as if I am getting coded messages from a planet circling Sirius. 

1. "I'm glad you are optimistic."
2. "Why are you saying that when the news says the opposite?"
3. "I would like to agree."

The next three weeks will be dramatic. I am sure of that. I sample news from all over, and it is just as available to everyone else as it is to me. I have the advantage of having been in journalism courses with much younger students, who were working their way into the national media. They were the start of what we see and hear on TV now - everyone swimming like fish in the same direction, offended by independent thinking, ready to pounce and discipline the dissenter. They were spoiled, not very bright, and anxious to fit in with the crowd. I was not allowed to brand the Marist featured writer of the week as a Left-wing idiot, because she was "required reading."

That is why I view mainstream news, including Fox, as managed propaganda. I pay attention for laughs, not for facts. Denominations play the same game. They either ignore an important disaster of their own making or concoct a cover story that supplants the facts. If necessary, they simply forget and say, "I don't know about that." 

The first step is to face reality and say, "Mainstream news is worthless but addicting." 

The second is to seek independent sources and give them most of the time and attention. The gap between the mass consumption news and the independent sources is vast.

I did not write this book, but a friend thought it was a funny coincidence.