READING IS FUN

INFORMS, ESCAPES, TRANSCENDS, CONTROLS

We read novels and manuals and newspapers and the funnies. We can't read everything that is serious and informative, so we escape.

Every day since 1969 I read the comics in The Houston Post until it folded up. Since then the funnies went over to the Houston Chronicle, and there were lots of 'em until they got pared back as the contracts dropped.

The funnies are the best part of a newspaper because they make sense and you laugh.

The news thinks of itself as serious.

People reading it actually get the idea that it is the only reality, like they believe that its all there is. Well, there are natural occurrences, but the reporters even skew the reportage. They can't help it: human political reporting is selective and off-center.

You would think, to listen to most folks, that all news-bringers are liberal. The only liberal things about our news is that messengers are somewhat literate, and that freedom of information is anathema to authority. In that sense it is not conservative, but in the sense of controlled content it is a powerful conservative tool. Follow the money and follow the slant: the reports favor the established order on the take.

Professional and non-offensive, the reports treat the public like Kinder-Readers, simple peasantry. Mush, ignoring causal and resultant facts, and Pablum, pureeing and purifying the facts is the result of skillful reporting in the royal prop-scape.

Corporate ownership of everything makes PR the truth in everyday life. Truth is a story based on actual fact.

Like punch made with real fruit nearby.

-30-bobby