Newspapers

Today I was killing time in a school in Pacifica and picked up a newspaper. I don't often read a newspaper these days, I usually read the news from the internet. I haven't subscribed to a newspaper since I lived in Alabama 25 years ago. I was really happy to skim through the paper. I forgot how nice it was to read the ads and just read the headlines and see what is interesting. I read parts of the paper today I haven't read for a long time. I read the comics, I read the sports section (even the local sports part), I saw the local stores that are having sales. I have heard people make comments about liking to read newspapers because they like the feeling. Some people say they like to support local businesses. I miss the ads, and just the fact of seeing parts of the newspaper I am not looking for specifically. Today reading the newspaper I was thinking of the time I was in the Army in Germany, 1979 - 1982. At that time they had television shows that had been recorded in the USA then shipped over to Germany to show on Army television. The only thing live was the Superbowl, Monday mornings at 6am.

The only commercials were public service announcements. I found out that much of American culture comes from television commercials. People were coming from the States with phrases they got from commercials. I realized that I missed commercials, when I came back to the States I was so happy to see commercials! I think we all miss a lot by not reading newspapers any more. We miss the things we don't look for, then see and read about it. How many other things do we start to loose because of advancing technology?