Monday, May 2, 2011

Savor the date: Today's a 'keeper'

I posted on Facebook Sunday night that I missed having a newspaper in times like this. In the old days, the staff would have been notified and called in, the old front page scrapped, and the production and delivery people notified -- we're going to be a little late.

A handful of former colleagues, now scattered from coast to coast, added on FB that they, too, would have been ready and willing. And an old friend, Rosie Kovacs, who retired as a managing editor for The Plain Dealer, replied that she missed having the newspaper connection, too.

I can't say for sure what our headline would have said. Probably something simple such as "Dead" or "Killed" but there would have been a consensus on it and, of course, it would have to fit.

I thought The Plain Dealer's front page was terrific and Rosie reports that the paper made it this morning to her new hometown of Vermilion, about 40 miles west of Cleveland.

I don't know how long newspapers will continue to be printed on paper but this is one of those "keeper" days. Somewhere in this house, in a box deep in a corner of the storage room, is the Times-Reporter's Sept. 12, 2001, edition. I suddenly have the urge to revisit it.

Times being what they are, The T-R will have to wait until tomorrow to acknowledge bin Laden's death.

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You can check front pages from around the world by visiting newseum.org. But as of Monday morning, the site appeared to be having connection problems. So, here's an alternative location where you can examine newspapers' front pages, including The Plain Dealer's, reporting the death of Osama bin Laden.

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Within a few minutes of President Barrack Obama's address to the country, some folks on Facebook were putting their political spin on things, arguing that he was taking too much credit, that he didn't do anything and blah, blah, blah.

I'd like to think all of us could savor the moment and leave the spin out of it. I don't want to hear it right now. We got the bastard. Justice was served to him by a crack team of Navy Seals, who then buried him at sea -- no shrine for the crackpots to visit.

I am extremely happy for the families and friends of all of those people whose lives were taken on Sept. 11 and during the military endeavors that followed.

Feels good to be an American today, doesn't it?

2 comments:

kyle said...

It doesn't feel good to me. Assassinating one person doesn't change the ideology that killed thousands of Americans on 9/11.
10 years, 2 wars, 919,967 deaths, and $1,188,263,000,000 later the US has accomplished very little. The US continues to bomb the world to pieces but there is no peace.

Anonymous said...

Much agreed, Dick. Life is too short to not put it all aside and savor the moment. Good things do come in time.