The Time of Meaning

"Yesterday everything was going too fast
Today, it's moving too slow..."




You know it's a weird week when one of the highlights was being served a subpoena in your second divorce. It's the start of the holiday season here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, which means no one is hiring anybody.



But I did have a nice meeting with my buddy, Richard, one of the most brilliant people in Silicon Valley (hands down), and he encouraged me to continue developing my ideas about how to save the traditional journalistic values that I have always held dear.



This is a rough patch for journalists, as you may have gathered. You could say we are in a Bear market, not a Bull. Around here, hundreds of journalists have lost their jobs this year, courtesy of downsizing at the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News.




Newspaper people can be forgiven if they feel the rest of us, in this society, have not only taken them for granted, but abandoned them in their hour of greatest need.




The tragedy of it all is that we are the ones who need them. Without reporters, locally, regionally, and nationally, and globally, we are doomed. We cannot have "democracy" without the checks and balances of an aggressive press.

Investigative reporters are the truest of heroes in a democratic society.

But this one is not heaaded toward greater democratization. Since 9/11, we are headed in the opposite direction.

Enough. Why did I "enjoy" getting served? Because my buddy Carol handled the dirty deed. It's always nice to see a friend, even under the grimmest of circumstances...


"...It always means so much
Even the softest touch."

--Standing in the Doorway
Bob Dylan, 1997