An Old Man’s Winter Night

All out of doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can’t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

Robert Frost 1920 from Mountain Interval

When I was in the Navy stationed at Charleston, SC we would always encounter high school sports on the evening news. Whereas most of the people not from SC were used to pro sports in the news, this high school sports thingie seemed to be all we have to talk about ... and the situation appears to have remained the same all these years.

When high school sports is the predominate feature of the local news it should tell you something. It means that your local media has nothing to say. Oh sure; all the parents of high school students being featured in the news are likely just fine with it all.

As I continue to be immersed in this drivel I am left wanting a real local news source and not this meaningless and slanted crap I'm getting.

As is the mainstream national news the local news has no interest in objectivity or significance ... just special interest fluff pieces and the punctate anal retentive slant of yellow journalism. You'd think they were all subsidiaries of the state newspaper.

I never wanted a single piece of opinion from a news source and that seems to be all we get with our meaningless reporting efforts. The saddest part of all of this is the superficial nature of the consumer to tolerate these efforts at unNews.

Fake news isn't the only thing detrimental to the state of world affairs. An absence of complete objective reporting of significant events is right on up there with it.
 

Well the Syrians are being murdered by their President, the Russians, and the Iranians with wild abandon because like the Nazis no one will tell them NO.

We have a kid who is young, immature, and misguided found guilty and awaiting his life or death sentence for murdering a number of Bible study congregants.

We have a main stream media more concerned with placing a spin and influencing the reader rather than objective reporting. That yellow journalism which was once a sparse node in reality has become an endless loop.

There are a number of phony media outlets manufacturing "fake news" which is receiving inadequate fact checking by those who would publicize it.

We have the democrats and progressives largely financed by a foreign ultra left wing enemy of the state steadily involved in misrepresentation, lies, subterfuge and then subsequent anger at being caught by the mechanisms at our disposal.

We have a generation of text message mentality individuals who can neither spell nor pronounce words correctly — much less comprehend actual word meanings and logical relationships between them ... and an Oxford English Dictionary incorporating faddish overused repetitive fringe cliches into what they view as canonical language arts. OED and it's penchant for derivative pop culture drivel conversion to bad english would be better relegated to the dust bin content into which it's evolving.

That gullibility which is far too many of us who lack both critical thinking and the impetus to go beyond what is presented to what supports that which is presented is sometimes overwhelming.

I'm glad that the generation which follows the millenials appears to be breaking this trend.

I could use a little more informed, a lot more competence, understanding, comprehension, clarity, objectivity, lucidity, and awareness as well as quite a bit less stupidity in my surroundings anymore thank you very much.
 

Living a scant 100 miles from beautiful downtown Charleston, South Carolina I have been immersed in the trial of Dylann Roof perpetrator of what appears as one of the most henious crimes ever committed by a kid in my lifetime ... however accurate that may be at multiple levels.

Appearances are typically never reality.

This kid was found guilty on all counts stemming from the shooting deaths of nine congregants of a church in Charleston during Bible study after they most graciously welcomed him ...

This self avowed white supremacist and poster child for all that's wrong with white America is on the precipice of a verdict after the holidays which will determine if he faces life in prison or lethal injection.

He has caused his parents to suffer as well as those families whose members he took on that awful day as they placed their Christian love and humanity before their very lives and I mourn for those victims of his barbarity who are innocent yet made to suffer the consequences of his actions nonetheless.

So in this end stage of a saga which has been playing itself out in the local news media ad nauseum — as is their wretched custom I can only hope that young Mr Roof is like me and simply wants it all to be over.

My personal opinions regarding the proper punishment are no secret to those who know my position on murder and the death penalty. However, that irony of the perp and the victim, the situational tragedy of the senseless killing, along with the pain which continues for everyone he touched or is close to him remains.

I'll be glad when I can let as much of this go as I may ... never fully, but perhaps it won't be thrust into my existence each and every day in the near future.