I grew up in a newspaper reading household. Pre-internet, I took it a step further and would, when I could, buy 3 or 4 papers off the rack when I lived near Boston. An early adopter of web based news I wasn’t.
My first job was a paper route as a youngster. Lugging around a cloth sack containing Boston’s three major papers was my introduction to employment. I can still recall from over half century ago some of the headlines, such as the day when three Apollo astronauts died in a launch pad fire in January of 1967. I can also recall a cranky customer or two usually having to do with where on the porch the paper landed.
Now, years later, I’ve succumbed but there’s still nothing quite like reading (and smelling) real newsprint with breakfast in the morning so I still buy papers many days.
There have been some articles of late about the decline of local news coverage and attempts to reverse that. Some papers have even experimented with dropping national coverage from their opinion pages and focusing on solely local matters. This is part of an effort to dial down polarization. The results have been some cause for optimism. “All politics is local, “ as the legendary Tip O’Neill would say.
One observation that has puzzled me is that I’ve seen people who resonate to much of what the “former guy” would say about immigration, for instance, and then they would encounter a foreign immigrant in their daily conduct of business and interact in a very appropriate, polite, gracious, kind and helpful way. I’d think, “What gives here?” There is some kind of disconnect between their cheering on a rally and what they do, it seems, one on one.
These days I work at a health clinic that serves an underserved population. We have quite a number of Burmese and Spanish speaking patients. I’d say our clinic works very hard to be welcoming and hospitable. (Also, one of our Burmese translators and her sisters have been bringing in some great ethnic lunches each week. New foods I’ve not had before. All very good!)
Maybe the way to reduce the ugly aspects of polarization is to refocus on what’s in front of us in our local communities. Most people (not all) are decent folks who are inclined to treat our neighbors with respect. Many of us were raised to do that. It seems a reasonable path to an improved tomorrow.
Nice. It's a small world after all....