This morning at breakfast i confirmed my newspaper reading habit.

i am a seadog but i also consider myself a journalist. i grew up reading most of The Lebanon Democrat (when it was locally owned), especially Mrs. Thompson’s weekly update on Route 9 and her husband Wilson. i also scanned the front page and other pages for articles i found of interest, but read the entire sports pages and the comics every day in the Nashville Banner. 

After working at the Banner as an office boy, reporter and correspondent for a couple of years, i graduated from MTSU and joined the Navy. Then after three years at sea, for almost two wonderful years, i was the sports reporter and sports editor, and in the discussion to become the national news or state news editor of the Watertown (NY) Daily Times but as documented more times than you are likely to care, departed to rejoin the Navy.

In  the late 1980’s, i was in newspaper heaven in the Southwest corner. I was getting the Los Angeles Times’ San Diego edition in the morning and the San Diego Tribune in the afternoon. i was pretty close to a junkie because i was getting both the conservative and liberal cut on news and in the editorials along with two superb sports sections.

Then, there was one, the Union-Tribune, and it was getting bad like most majors in sloppy and opinionated news stories and cutting back and cutting back. And then its ownership moved to LA, and it got worse and less, less, and less. Now amid the pandemic, it is sad, just sad. But it is still part of our breakfast ritual: Maureen reads the “news” thoroughly, and i…well, see below.

Several years ago, i quit reading the front and local sections because there was very little but bad news, trite features, and both too opinionated for me to discern the facts. i went back to my younger days and read the sports and the comics. With the current curse and restrictions, i bypass the special interest stuff in sports and read the digest, which takes me about two minutes. The comics takes about five or so minutes as i read most of them. i guess i’m afflicted with comicitis.

This morning, i found another reason to read the sports pages. Near the end of the sports “Digest” summaries of the Union-Tribune, i read this:

South Korean soccer club FC Seoul is facing penalties, including expulsion from its own stadium for putting sex dolls in empty seats during a match last weekend.

You don’t read much news like that.