What's wrong with the country, if not the world, these days? Maybe it's me. I can't recall when so many relatively minor things started getting to me. Take the writer extraordinare who complained over and over about his difficulty in transitioning from my splash (home) page to the Major Contents Page. I explained, over and over, that it was his computer, or his server, or possibly a conflict with some software on his computer. The delay had nothing to do with my website, www.sidcato.com. Yet, he persisted. Then there was the spate of anonymous email messages—all, I'm convinced, from the college professor (or so he claimed) asking an inane question he should have known to direct to his stockbroker. He then began sending anonymous messages (using handles such as "Anonymous in Michigan") complaining about "your arrogance, especially toward students." Ah, "students," and I quote the word, indicating I apologize for its use. All of a sudden they emerged, swarmed like mosquitoes at a family picnic. Nary a correctly spelled word in a carload. Nor a coherent thought, let alone proper punctuation. Students who I surmised were on deadline for class assignments and flailed out at any port in their latest higher education storm. Students who shouldn't have been graduated from high school, let alone accepted into colleges and/or universities. With nary a clue as to how to spell; forget creating a coherent sentence. Our senior vice president claims they're victims of the Internet generation, where manual dexterity with video games is too often how they're judged in their society. Young folks who can't be bored with checking spelling ("What's a dictionary, dude?"), are unfamiliar with a computer's spell-check programs. No matter what political party one belongs to, you have to be horrified by the prejudice most reporters exemplified on air, or in print. The exception, a pair of The Wall Street Journal reporters during Thanksgiving week, warranted a congratulatory message, so unusual was their fair, honest, balanced reporting. From our vantagepoint, one of the candidates was criticized, made fun of, at every utterance; his opponent could do no wrong. Then there was the national magazine, which in print referred to a member of one company's board as "a celebrity director," which resulted in said celebrity director's sponsorship of a high-prestige dinner being withdrawn. That, on top of editorial criticism of a major advertiser. Guess who won? (Journalists, as some of us in this profession prefer to be viewed, don't—can't—permit such things to influence our editorial coverage.) The good news in an otherwise-drab, depressing period is that Sid Cato has renewed, until mid-2003, his claim to his various website addresses: www.sidcato.com, sidcato.org and sidcato.net, as well as the Mr. Annual Report transitory site: www.mrar.com, mrar.org and mrar.net. Plus, our newsletter, as the December issue is readied for printing, enters its 19th year come January. And, with luck, outcome of the Presidential election one day will have been decided to reflect the voters' will. And the stock market will have digested all the bad news, all the dot.coms will have regrouped, and a new year will bring a glimmer of hope. Maybe, upon reflection, we'll be able to say: It was a good year, after all. I certainly hope so.

<< Back to the Soapbox Main Page

Copyright © 1996-2008 Cato Communications, Inc.