I am not a news junkie. I do not spend my time flipping through cable channels to relive again and again the endless litany of bad and worse. Yet, I start every morning with my local newspaper, The Centre Daily Times. It’s getting harder to do.
I do not recall ever being without a morning paper. I grew up in New York City, where you could start the morning with The Daily News, take The Times with you on the subway, and return home with a copy of The New York Post. One or the other was sure to get your blood pressure up, give you something to ponder, or perhaps something to laugh at. To this day, I remember the lesson we had in our English class in 7th grade at Meyer Levin Junior High on how to fold the New York Times so that you could read it while standing and swaying in a subway car. Yes, it was that important. And we even had our own newspaper song, curtesy of Tom Paxton:
DAILY NEWS
(Tom Paxton)
Civil rights leaders are a pain in the neck
Can’t hold a candle to Chang Kai Shek
How do I know? I read it in the Daily News
Ban the bombers are afraid of a fight
Peace hurts business and that ain’t right
How do I know? I read it in the Daily News
chorus: Daily News, daily blues
Pick up a copy any time you choose
Seven little pennies in the newsboy’s hand
And you ride right along to never, never land

We got to bomb Castro, got to bomb him flat
He’s too damn successful and we can’t risk that
How do I know? I read it in the Daily News
There’s millions of commies in the freedom fight
Yelling for Lenin and civil rights
How do I know? I read it in the Daily News

Seems like the whole damn world’s gone wrong
Saint Joe McCarthy is dead and gone
How do I know? I read it in the Daily News
Don’t try to make me change my mind with facts
To hell with the graduated income tax
How do I know? I read it in the Daily News

John Paul Getty is just plain folks
The UN charter is a cruel hoax
How do I know? I read it in the Daily News
J. Edgar Hoover is the man of the hour
All he needs is just a little more power
How do I know? I read it in the Daily News
Wow, I didn’t realize how current much of that rant still is.
The CDT has long been a news- free newspaper. We are treated to an ever decreasing sampling of world and national news or a single page. The topics chosen seem arbitrary. Most of the rest of the news section is devoted to Penn State Football and various versions of the story of a two-headed cow. Dear Abby, the horoscope and the bridge column routinely take an entire page in the News section.
It is the editorial page that has me most depressed. The CDT picks up editorials from around the state and nation. It is usually right wing drivel. We get Cal Thomas every couple of weeks—you know, that old, male, angry Christian guy whose claim to fame is that he thinks he resembles god. You would think the right wing editorials would at least make me angry, but they rarely do. Today’s by Jay Ambrose of the Times News service was typical. It’s just a bunch of assertions, without argument, that might have been written by the Republican National Committee—Obama is an autocrat, Clinton is a liar, Trump won’t be the Republican choice, and protests against police brutality have made us unsafe. It’s Fox News lite.
So, what to do? Can I learn how not to shuffle up to the front door each morning at seven—hugely uncaffeinated, to search for my copy of the CDT among the bushes of our neighbors house? Can I learn to eat breakfast Sudoku free? I don’t know. But I am thrilled that my local newspaper has finally given me something to think about.