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Digesting the News
North Miami Beach, Florida 3-2-2000 Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
DIGESTING THE NEWS
I like to take both newspapers with me to the living room couch after
breakfast. It is usually unsatisfactory to try to read the New York Times
front section while making and consuming breakfast. There is just not
enough room on the kitchen table for the spread out newsprint and my bowl of
cereal and a cup of hot chocolate.
So, I scrunch up on the couch and look through the headlines for something
to attract my attention. This is not an easy task. The headlines are
teasers and do not often reflect the content, which are both meat and drink
to me following a skimpy breakfast meal. In fact there are simply too many
headlines because the news from the Four Corners of the world is
overwhelming.
A lot of items in the news this morning concerned the victories of Bush and
Gore. I noticed that the Times listed Gore first while the Miami Herald
gave first position to Bush. In both papers the wisdom that Gore was ahead
without being diminished by Bradley while Bush lost ground because of McCain
was repeated. Unexpectedly, the market dropped not because of feisty McCain
being booted out of the contest but because soap (P & G) predicted smaller
earnings than expected. Proctor and Gamble did not lose money, it was the
expectation that earnings would not be what they were wanted to be.
Internationally armed conflict seemed to be down while human misery was up
due to the flooding in Mozambique. China is still being analyzed for
rattling arms at Taiwan. (We don't think this means too much while the
Chinese and Taiwanese are shaky thinking of the consequences.) Israel has a
Clinton type of scandal while the Palestinians have more help than they need
in pressing to become an independent nation. What this has to do with the
price of gasoline reaching $1.80 a gallon is confusing to me but the oil
producing nations, including our Mexican neighbor, could increase daily
production and help us out.
Here in Florida it seems that the Bush family's younger son Jeb is toughing
out his decision to unify his state by doing away with racial preferences.
It seems the race benefiting by affirmative action is affirming its
opposition to his "One Florida" scheme by massing in the streets of the
Capitol City, Tallahassee.
Actually, the news is quite indigestible today. Perhaps I should try a
meal of eggs and toast. Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.
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