I'm ending the year with more questions

By G. Michael Dobbs, Managing Editor

There are quite a few things that came up in 2009 that I simply didn't understand. They included:

During the presidential election, poll after poll indicated a majority of the American people wanted significant health insurance reform. Quite a number of people actually wanted the option of a government run single payer program.

Months later, everyone seems to be sick of the health insurance debate and some recent polls now show that many folks are willing to keep whatever they have regardless of increasing costs.

Of course, this shift comes after dithering among some gutless members of Congress clearly determined to continue the status quo and endless propaganda from the right wing media machine.

Is our political will that weak or are the insurance companies that strong?
Why am I supposed to be keeping up with the Kardashians? E!, the cable channel that is home for the dysfunctional family, describes the show on its Web site as "A tempest of siblings, business and fame engulf Olympic decathlete Bruce Jenner and paparazzi fave Kim Kardashian as their huge Hollywood families collide" a sentence that makes little sense.

Am I supposed to feel sympathy for them or just laugh at them? I don't know.
Are the major news organizations run by former tabloid reporters? Now I certainly like junk stories and gossip as well as the next person to serve as the comic relief for real news, but after the "balloon boy" incident this year, it's apparent the major news organizations don't know the difference between real news and fluff.

Yet, their news judgment is considered superior to someone like me because I have a regional audience and they have a national one at least that's what one reader anonymously told me when I dared to question the wisdom of the national electronic media gatekeepers. Well, I know a story like "balloon boy" doesn't deserve to be a lead story.
Do people believe all of the silliness they put on Facebook won't come back to bite them on their backside? And are my Facebook friends really my friends? Would they invite me over to dinner?
Just how stupid can one man be? Tiger Woods is perhaps the most financially successful athlete in history and the single person who is keeping the sport of golf relevant for many people. Analysts are now talking seriously about how this could permanently damage the sport.

So why is Woods willing to risk everything because of his ego and libido? The guy must be dumber than a bag of hammers or have the most towering ego known to man to think that one of his many girlfriends wouldn't drop a dime on him.
Why are Australians the preferred pitchmen for infomercials? Seriously, are their accents scientifically designed to make us buy?
Why do futurists keep predicting the death of paper-based media when it's clear people can't afford an electronic reader such as a Kindle?

Let's face it, until you have a device cheap enough that you can forget on a bus or have your kid drop into the toilet, people might continue to see the advantages that old-fashioned books, newspapers and magazines offer.

These are the same folks that like to ignore the fact that, in areas such as ours the high rates of poverty, prevent people from having computers in their homes, blunting the market penetration of Web-based media. And they also conveniently forget there are places in the country that don't have access to high speed Internet connections.
Do men truly believe that if they use any of a legion of spray-on scents, women will climb over each other in order to be with them? Is Axe somehow supposed to overcome a receding hairline, a bulging belly, poor choice in clothing and personality flaws?
Why is sitting in a boat on a lake with my friend Dave fishing and smoking cigars one of the most relaxing things in the world to do?

What I love about being a journalist is that I'm allowed by my trade to be ignorant and ask a bunch of questions. God willing, I'll have another year to ask more.

Happy New Year everyone.

This column represents the opinions of its author. Send your comments online to news@thereminder.com or to 280 N. Main St.,East Longmeadow, Mass. 01028.

Comments From Our Readers:

varit00l 1/6/2010 4:22:14 PM	Why is sitting in a boat on a lake with my friend Dave fishing and smoking cigars one of the most relaxing things in the world to do? BINGO ... I started that great pleasure in life before you were born, but you will I hope still be enjoying after I'm gone. The reason I'm dropping this short line, your fishing remark sent me back to my most happy days in my life, to good old East Longmeadow, living on Blaine St about a mile from your City Line CIRA 1938. Fishing Trout Streams of at least 10 that I'm pretty sure some you have driven over, not being aware they existed.... but to the main reason of this E-Mail..for many years in my short life at that time 12 years, I watched every year what was claimed not to be possible, by Ma Fish&Game.... that was to sit down by a trout stream at the end of Parker St. if the name of the street is correct to my memory, to watch very large Rainbow Trout [a Char not a trout] build their spawning nest and fertilize their eggs, this spot was a stones throw from a very old Church Cemetery on the corner of Parker and ? that was of great interest to me for reflection even at the tender age of 8. As I wander away, back to my story, at that time it was said no Rainbow Trout reproduced in Massachusetts [ must be at least 66 years since spelling out Mass. now MA I miss Mass] So telling my Dad and then showing him about [a great fishing buddy I still miss as a tear starts in thoughts of our fishing trips] anyways him calling the F&G a Game Warden was shown and he was supprised and it was decided mostly by me and Dad to keep it to ourselves, and for his use as an interesting conversation with fishing buddies.Befor I get too boring I'll say Best Regards and leave that record breaker for the next guy. Gus ...Oh Red Stone Quarry Was fished be me almost the only one back in 1938 rode Bike through the woods on days I skipped school to fish it. It looked like a Small Mouth Bass Hatchery, in those days ........ohhhhhhh the Bass I got out of that Quarry ...not the one right off the street that forms the X in town. The Best Days of my life, it was the Depression, for my Dad ......Heaven for me, as I was to kid him later in life, see you good fishing.
varit00l 1/6/2010 4:23:55 PM