Folding Newspapers

The last time I was at my mother's, I opened a closet door, and an avalanche of old newspapers almost came down on my head. When I asked my mother how long it had been since she had done the recycling, she said "last month". If you were the average person, it would probably take you a year or two to accumulate that many old newspapers.

My mother has read two to three newspapers a day ever since I can remember. It's actually kind of ironic, because my mother is not necessarily a fan of reality. While she may have been oblivious to the importance of paying the bills, she always knew what was going on in Washington.

As far as media goes, the newspaper is going obsolete. Everyday, you can read about another newspaper going out of business or down-sizing. Most major cities in America have always had two newspapers, kind of a point-counter point approach to news. Today, the major cities only have one local paper, and the death watch has begun to see which will be the first to have none at all.

Actually, I've never liked reading the newspaper. The ink rubs off on your hands, and if you are holding the center page open, the only way to refold it is with a head butt to the middle because your hands are full. My biggest use for it has always been the dog's cage, and I've always been thankful for it's absorbency.

Having said that, I find the folding of newspapers both sad and alarming. Sad, because it will be the end of a great American era. Some of these newspapers have been published twice a day for 140 years. One of the backbones of democracy is having the freedom and ability to spread news, and newspapers have always been the way we did it.

Everything is going digital, causing the demise of paper media and that includes photographs. Sure, the spontaneous joy of seeing my pictures as soon as I take them is great, but it doesn't exactly motivate me to get them printed.

At work, we no longer give out paper documentation, everything is online, including my pay check. We don't write checks, we use debit cards. The art of writing love letters is almost dead. If there's no more paper media, what the hell am I supposed to read in the bathroom while I'm taking a poop? Not reading while I poop can cause a disturbance in what is the delicate balance of my inner eco-system. What's next, digital toilet paper? Would digital toilet paper be the same thing as a bidet? Just asking.

When Alice went through the looking glass, everything was out of balance and surreal. Could viewing the world through the looking glass of a computer monitor do the same thing to our sense of balance and reality? If it does, will it have the same affect on us that the drink me bottle had on Alice? Actually, I would probably enjoy that, but that's not the point.

Just when we finally got good at recycling paper we don't need it anymore. Figures. Does that mean that we no longer need to "save a tree"? Well, good for us, now we can move on to saving ourselves. So there you have it.