SANTA RITA MURALS.

During my visit to the Archives Wednesday, Deputy Patty Stinson gave several of us a personal "tour" of the murals she painted for the Office of Emergency Services, a public building at Santa Rita. The subject of the murals came from historical pictures and history of the department.

Above is the earliest history and is done in a sepia tone, as old pictures were in those days. Some highlights: Center left, Sheriff Henry Morse road horseback from Sunol to Los Angeles in pursuit of Joaquin Murrieta. Above his head is a little Adobe that is still part of Komandorski Village in Pleasanton. It served as the first courthouse and jail. Under the horses hooves is another building built as a courthouse and beside it a bigger  courthouse with a prisoner hanging in the doorway, the punishment for major crimes of the day.
Behind the steam engine is the first Patrol Car and below right is the first Patty wagon. Follow the road above to officers in brown gear. Complaints that the cops looked too much like telegraph delivery men made them change to navy-blue uniforms.
To the left, a mad Chinaman threw a bomb that killed six officers. Patty put a lot of thought and work into these murals. She segued this one with a slight color change, on the right, to the next mural.


This mural is in black and white. Above left corner depicts the first Prison Farm in the State, nestled in the hillside near what is now Highland Hospital. The woman seated above the Greystone Sign is Firth Band, a cattle rustler. Around the coffee table the story was the detectives interrogating her insisted she couldn't lift a huge steer into a truck, she must have had help. She stood 6 feet, 2" tall. When she had had enough of the badgering, before he could blink and eye, she grabbed hefty Detective Welch, one hand around the shoulder, one under the crotch,  and lifted him into the air with ease. I asked Welch if it was a true story. He told me exactly how she grabbed him.
 Top center, an officer beaming a light down into the compound where inmates lived in barracks. To his right, Ramona Hoffman, a female deputy operating what is now an ancient comptometer. 
The Russell City Country Club? Russell City was actually the county dump where people, mostly African Americans who couldn't get decent housing, built their own. Wooden shacks and even some cardboard shacks, and eventually some little houses, a hall and a market. None built with permits. Famous black musicians would come to the Bay Area and play to sell out crowds and then do free concerts for their brethren at the Russell City Country Club.
Below right is Captain Minna Ralph. She was chosen to be the first female deputy sheriff, though a number of female matrons did police services at the jails before her. When the Civil Service Exam for Sergeant came up, the exam board forgot to post that the exam was open to men only. Minna took the exam and passed. There was an outcry against a female "stealing" a position, but she got the rank. It opened up doors for other female deputies. She later became a Lieutenant and Captain, all "firsts" as well. On the right of the mural is a touch of color as it segues to the next one.
 

 Top left, female deputies new uniforms are designed like stewardesses. One deputy commented can you imagine us trying to run in those skirts? Females were only allowed in the jail then. Captain Ralph fought for positions in transportation and juvenile. Change came slowly but they eventually got into patrol cars with great success and you see them left center firing pistols on the range.
 Top center is Spade Cooley, a man in jail for murdering his wife. He was a famous musician. Twelve deputies were indicted after the street wars in Berkeley depicted to his left. The deputies were raising funds for their own defense and Deputies Baugh, Matzek and Saper asked for permission to get Spade Cooley out of jail for a weekend for two concerts. They housed him, guarded him and bought him a belt buckle and a pair of boots at his request. Cooley's friends came up from as far away as Texas to hear him play. One famous western movie star rolled into Oakland with great big steer horns on his fur-lined Cadillac. Cooley did one concert and in the middle of the second one, died on stage of a heart attack.
Who can forget the case of the 26 school children kidnapped from Chowchilla and buried underground in Livermore?  The Sheriff still has a posse, for parade purposes only, bottom right. And, a dual picture of Martin Luther King and Joan Baez. The Santa Rita jail was the only prison King visited. He came because Joan Baez was imprisoned when she protested in song and in person on the streets of Berkeley.
Alameda County Jail reflects the times as it played its part in the historic changes of society. We can't let history get thrown away. Our archives preserves it for posterity.

ALAMEDA COUNTY SHERIFF'S ARCHIVE ASSOCIATION.

Law enforcement museums and archives are scarce. There have been laws of secrecy surrounding police activities that have changed. Not what you think. Secrecy by law for inmate privacy, for instance. No pictures of inmates could be published, nor any broad information about officers who feared retaliation from former inmates was published. In fact, when Gleason was sheriff, his edict was if an officer (not during a criminal event) made the newspapers, it was a fire-able offense. Near the end of his term, Gleason relaxed that rule.

Rules about records are still in place.  They are saved for about 30 years or so and tossed. That is history tossed. When ACSAA first organized, in 1989, no police museums open to the public existed in the State of California and very few in the United States.  The only histories were in private corners of a department, or in local historical society records, all of which brings me to a major reorganization of the ACSAA. We are a non-profit, volunteer organization, but under Sheriff Greg Ahern, we are being recognized and appreciated like never  before. And, here are the new organizers.


Dale Toussaint, on the left with Pat Adams. Dale was the guy who took over. He joined the National Organization of Archivists and is learning how to handle archival written material, artifacts and how to assession material professionally. On Wednesday, he held the first recruitment/organizational meeting.


Mike Rores and Frank Buschhueter


Tim Ostlund, Frank Silva and Patty Stinson. Patty Stinson is unique because she is the oldest women to pass the Academy as a deputy,  plus she is an artist and produced three giant murals for the Office of Emergency Services at the Santa Rita Base, which I will blog later.


Chris Ostlund and Ralph Striker.

Patty with Dwane Montes.


Bill Gordillo with Mike Rores.


Jesus Ureste.

Bud Harlan with Dwane Montes. Bud is the only volunteer from the old days when I ran the archive.  He has been a great contributor and a steady presence at the archive. For myself, I feel my greatest contribution has been the interviews I've done recording experiences in the department as it changed over the generations. During the seven plus years I've been on the road with Jim, I still managed an interview or two a year. I hope to continue that practice. In fact I was given the names of Jim Wilson, 84 years, and Bud Garrigan as two must interviews. On my own personal list I have Bud Harlan, and one of the original volunteers, Jim Rasche.

As I get to know people, I hope to continue interviews when I can. More on my two-day trek to the Bay Area tomorrow.  (I hope I got everyone's name right. If not, please correct me.)

SLOW STARVATION

My friend, Paul, fell and broke his hip. He is 88 years old and crawled from his garage into his house and called his housekeeper. She asked him if he needed 911 and he said "NO!"  He is a very determined person and didn't want to go to the hospital.

He was trying to eat his first meal after three days in the hospital, when I visited with him yesterday. His coordination was such that he couldn't control the spoon, nor his waxed carton of milk, so I fed him.  A helper came in and took his tray away which still held half of his food. She didn't ask, would you like to keep your applesauce to snack on later? I think to myself, he could slowly starve if left alone and no one would even blink an eye. No candy striper to help him eat. The local hospital uses volunteer help in the gift shop and receiving area, but none on the wards.
 
They will be putting him in a rest home, but my experience with that is, they are understaffed and the same thing happens. They put food in front of a person, but not much gets to where it belongs. My friend Betty, was a case in point. I'd visit her regularly and feed her because she had difficulty chewing and would take a long time to eat. Unless I stopped them, they'd whisk her food away because "lunchtime" was over, or the food was cold.

The answer is, more staff. It is expensive and cuts into profits. Medical care should not be a for profit operation. One reason I bought my property in Oregon when I did was because they had right to die laws. They now have them in California, too. I'm determined to never spend time in a rest home.  And, I'll stay away from hospitals if it is in any way possible. And, I'll support progressive, social reforms.

A BIT OF POLITICAL LEVITY.

I know the state of the union address is tomorrow and as we near caucus time, the frenzy for political positioning is a slug-fest, as all the verbal dirt comes flying out of the bag. Philosopher John Arbuthnot said:  All political parties die from swallowing their own lies.  Hmm!  If only it were true.

A dialog on whiskey in 1952 puts a bit of levity into the political process that tickles the funny bone and is worth repeating.

In 1952, Armon M. Sweat, Jr. a member of the Texas House of Representatives, was asked about his position on whiskey. Here is his answer:
“If you mean whiskey, the devils brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean that evil drink that topples Christian men and women from the pinnacles of righteous and gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, shame, despair, helplessness, and hopelessness, then, my friend I am opposed to it with every fiber of my being.”
“However, if by whiskey you mean the lubricant of conversation, the philosophic juice, the elixir of life, the liquid that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer, the stimulating sip that puts a little spring in the step of an elderly gentleman on a frosty morning; if you mean that drink that enables him to magnify his joy, and to forget life’s great tragedies and heart breaks and sorrow; if you mean that drink the sale of which pours into Texas treasuries untold millions of dollars each year, that provides tender care for our crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitifully aged and infirm, to build the finest highways, hospitals, universities, and community colleges in this nation, then my friend, I am absolutely, unequivocally in favor of it. This is my position and as always, I refuse to compromise on my principles."

I love it.


A good friend stopped in for a visit yesterday with his "new" dog, Daisy. Daisy doesn't like to have her picture taken. I don't see Bob Urban very often, but I always enjoy his company. We talked the afternoon away and caught up on mutual friends. One thing we don't discus is politics and religion. I haven't a clue what Bob's politics are. But, I hope he enjoys Mr. Sweat's dialog entitled Whiskey as much as I did.

Caio

LOTTO FEVER.

My neighbor, Brian, came over on Friday to fix my computer after I'd set a reset point and wiped out my internet connections back to factory settings, meaning zero ability to get on-line or get email. He was able to get me up and running and while we talked, he was jazzed about PowerBall, because the amount for the winning ticket was up to 600 million. He was going in with other neighbors with the idea that pooling increased the odds of winning. If anyone got three numbers a small pay off, but matched with the PowerBall number, could net a cool million or so.  Intrigued, I thought, what the heck. So I handed him $10 and the next thing you know, I'm mentally musing about what I would spend the money on. It was exciting.

Neighbor Jan had recruited 5 more people and asked if I could go buy the tickets on Saturday while on an errand. While buying the tickets, I met another excited neighbor who normally doesn't buy into the lottery.  She chose the MegaBucks lottery then at 170 million. Excitement is contagious, and I got the "fever". The next thing you know, I bought a ticket with my old winning Keeno numbers, I bought a second $10 Powerball ticket, and a MegaBucks ticket, totally unlatched from my former philosophy-its a sucker bet, don't do it.



The plan was, Brian and Attilla were going to watch the football game, and stop at 7:00 for the drawing. The rest of us would report to Brain's, and after the numbers were revealed, we'd repair to my house for a Win Or Lose celebration with wine and cheese and a video. By the time we went to Brian's house, Jan had recruited four more people. None of them wanted to party, they just wanted results. Here, then, Attilla, Brian, Attilla's wife Patty, and Jan, happily holding a possible fortune, in that little glob of yellow paper.  Whoo, whoo.  The football game was forgotten. Brian had wine and hors d'oeuvres for us while we waited for the numbers. The PowerBall Website was so jammed, we didn't get the numbers until almost 9:00 p.m. and, then from a youtube video. Silly me, I thought the numbers would be announced in a game type format on TV where a billion people would watch an official push the button on the official PowerBall machine, the balls would drop one by one, the numbers displayed before a hooting, expectant audience. Nope.


Here,  the winning numbers on Brian's computer. Among our pooled tickets, one ticket earned four dollars for getting the powerball number right. All hopes dashed. Before we left,  Brian was trying to find out if anyone had won, by then, $949 million dollars?
Jim called me this morning and told me nobody won. It goes up over a billion for next Saturday's drawing. An obscene amount of money. Am, I going to buy a ticket?

LUCK OF THE DRAW.

I'm a rug maker and I still have balls of wool that are waiting to be braided into rugs like this one. Not perfect, but usable. They are thick and hearty and colorful.

Yesterday, I received a phone call from a woman who said, "Are you Mary Matzek? You don't know me but I saw your name in Reminisce Magazine about three years ago. You were looking for a set of rug braiders and I have them. I've been holding onto these looking for that magazine I misplaced, and I finally found it. Do you still want them?"  Her name is Marci Van Riper from Pennsylvania. I told her I'd gotten several sets. I have two sizes, 2 inch and 1 inch. Her set was 1 and 1/2 inch. She was keen on me having them after holding them for me for three years, so I agreed I could make a nice thin rug from old curtains for my bathroom.  She is 87 years old and I readily understood the idea of re-using things, fabric scraps for quilts, old sweaters for hot pads and baby soakers, , old wool coats and pants-never tossing anything that is usable, like rug braiders.



This rug is thin and lies very flat, and it is very special to me. My mother made the center and the next two rows as a small bathoom rug from cottons. The light blue came from her first pair of "slacks" for which she got scolded from her father, because girls didn't wear pants in those days. Years later, I  put on the last row with a pair of maroon pants I loved because the material was stretchable and allowed me to reach the pedals of the plane I was flying. I hated to give them away when they no longer fit. At the time I didn't attach any significance to adding a row to a rug my mother made. After all, it's just an old bath mat. Now, I appreciate that connection. Slacks, that represented something to her and flight pants that meant something to me.



This is also a bathroom rug made from t-shirt strips, hooked through a mesh backing. Rug making is hardly done by hand anymore. I enjoyed making it and using it.

I wanted to pay for the cost of mailing the braiders but Marci would have none of that. She was adamant I not pay for the stamps since her brother had bought from their local post office, every Jenny stamp they had, 12 sheets of $2 stamps. The postal person, said, "you might as well have them all, here is a single left." Stamps then came in glassine bags that you couldn't see through. What he was hoping to snag was one that had been printed upside down. His investment paid off and that last single stamp is now worth $50,000.  He keeps it in a bank vault. She is still spending Jenny's that were correct. I found out she collects stamps and we talked for about 30 minutes. What a marvelous woman she is!
My computer was out and my neighbor, Brian came and fixed it this morning. He suggested I put into a pool for the California Lottery. Normally, I would have said no. But, after hearing about the Jenny, I handed him a ten. Fool, my brain said. Ah, what the heck, maybe my luck will hold.

HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE FOOD.

There was a time when no one read labels or worried about what was in their food. Food went directly from the garden, or farm, to our tables-locally.  Ogden Nash wrote the Clean Platter from which I've stolen some entertaining lines:

"Some singers sing of ladies' eyes, and some of ladies ' lips. Refined ones praise the ladylike ways, and coarse ones hymn their hips. The Oxford Book of English Verse, is lush with lyrics tender; A poet, I guess, is more or less, preoccupied with gender.
Yet I, though custom call me crude, prefer to sing in praise of food. Food, yes food. I brood on food."

But a clean platter today is difficult. Big industrial farms provide millions of Americans with affordable food and they still make a profit. Commendable as long as it is healthy food, and for the most part it is. But we too must brood on food.

Loop holes in regulations and competitiveness, the rock of capitalism, has changed the state of our plate.  Eating  healthfully shouldn't be a battle.  Inaccurate labeling; hiding the sugar content by listing it under 16 different names;  labels that don't tell you where your food comes from. Your label may read processed in the United States, but that doesn't mean it was grown or raised here. Monsanto spends billions to make GMO products free from labeling. Genetically modified foods have been with us for a century, but not with pesticides built into the seeds. Round-up laden seeds, have, as a by-product,  produced super weeds, resistant to Round-up and other herbicides.

Cooperation between sustainable, small-scale, community based, organic and humane,  food for all has been quietly taking over, spurred by activists in the Good Food Uprising, the fastest growing segment of our food economy. That's the good news.

But, it depends on what state you live in.  Consider the Thanksgiving turkey and the Christmas ham. Industrial geneticists designed a turkey with such massive breasts, they couldn't stand up on their own feet or even reproduce. Held in a sprawling concrete and steel animal factories. But here, I can drive across the river to Tuolumne County and buy my turkey from a ranch where turkeys run free and gobble at you from behind their fenced enclosure. And, they sell them all plastic wrapped like any other turkey in our local grocery stores. Tough on young families because they cost more.

Hogs are smart and social. They feel stress and pain. But the agri-giants callously raised sows in confined cages where they could not even turn around. Forced to be perpetual birthing machines, immobilized where they forlornly wave their heads back and forth and chew on their cages. Moved to a birthing crate, then stripped of their babies and re-impregnated for another round of enforced gestation.  Investigative reporters, worker whistle blowers, the Humane Society  and outraged consumers of every stripe have turned around many of these atrocities. Millions of hogs have been set free. (Unfortunately, not in the Carolinas.) That's why I want a label that tells me where my meat comes from.

What's nice is that restaurants like Chipolte Grill, Burger King, Whole Foods, Costco, Oscar Mayer and even Wal-Mart has responded by refusing to use or sell factory raised meat.

But, fish is another matter. Wal-Mart clearly labels their shrimp from Vietnam, Indonesia, India, and other Asian countries so you know it comes from polluted waters. It is cheap. If you like shrimp, the U.S. is a huge producer of wild, healthy shrimp. You might rethink cheap because some countries keep peelers in slave-like conditions to peel those shrimp for export. It has become a scandal in Vietnam. And imported shrimp has a higher bacteria rate than home-grown. Some stores repackage their shrimp and label it "Processed in the U.S."  Don't buy into that deception.

Oil interests have found a new use for their witches brew of 750 toxic chemicals in fracking water, selling it to agribusiness to water their crops instead of power blasting it into the ground water. Nice. Let's have a bit of poison on our salad. California Assemblyman, Frank Gato produced legislation requiring warning labels on all state vegetables irrigated with fracking water.  Yay!  The downside is you have to ask your produce person, or store manager because the label is so small you can't read it. (Well, I can't read it.)

I don't want to fight for bees suffering from Colony Collapse from Neurotoxins such as sulfoxaflor, to keep them safe to pollinate food crops we depend on;  or fight for fair labeling. Why must we put up with plastic packaging that can make us sick. (Do not warm foods in the microwave in plastic and steer clear of BPA leaching plastics numbered 3 or 7.)  We can't trust our own FDA because they've sold out to special interests approving untested chemicals that affect our food and water.

And countries are supposed to report their emissions as we begin to broadside climate change. I read constant condemning reports of coal-burning plants in China. But, the U.S., through some marvelous congressional loophole, does not report emissions from the meat industry.  Congress attached a provision to the EPA's budget. It prohibited the agency from spending money to collect emission reports on livestock producers—specifically the greenhouse gases emitted from some of the 335 million tons of manure produced each year.  Livestock producers, which include meat and dairy farming, account for about 15% of greenhouse gas emissions around the world. That's more than all the world's exhaust-belching cars, buses, boats and trains combined.

A team of researchers from Harvard University, Stanford University, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and elsewhere worked together to collect air samples and analyze actual emissions near large livestock operations such as cattle feeding lots in California, Nebraska, and Iowa. They found that greenhouse gas emissions from livestock were twice as bad as what the EPA estimated. The United States is under-reporting its total greenhouse gas emissions to the United Nations by about 4 percent per year as a result of bad livestock data—nearly equivalent to the entire emissions of Spain. Thanks Congress.

During our water crisis, here in the West, the biggest wasters are agri-giants. Scientists at the Pacific Institute and National Geographic calculated how much water is being pumped into today's industrialized food system:
One little almond: 1 gallon; a head of lettuce: 12 gallons; an egg: 53 gallons; a gallon of milk: 880 gallons; a single walnut; 5 gallons; a cluster of grapes: 24 gallons; a pound of chicken; 468 gallons; a pound of beef: 1,800 gallons.

 I don't want to hear nor believe this. I don't want to feel guilty for every handful of almonds I eat every morning. How can this be? It is unsustainable to allow profitable factory-farms to waste a public resource as important as water. I have walnut and almond trees in my orchard and I know it doesn't take that much water to grow them if you aren't wasting it.

For me, I'm giving up most canned foods and cardboard packaged foods. I'm using up what I have and investing in a plastic vacuum sealer that keeps frozen food fresh, fresh, fresh. The plastic is safe and the food doesn't develop a taste from keeping your summer applesauce and plum sauce for as long as it lasts. Some years I have a heavy apple crop and some years I don't.
 I can buy blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, frozen, or fresh in season. Fresh frozen organic vegetables are readily available. I'm working to keep my platter healthy, so I don't have to interpret labels and worry about my food anymore.  I never donate to congress, try these groups, where I got my information,  if you want change:
www.fooddemocracynow.org, www.waterdefense.org, www. youngfarmers.org, www.earthjustice.org, www.humanesociety.org,www.revealnews.org, www.foodandwaterwatch.org

Mother Jones magazine, Jim Hightower's Lowdown Newsletter.

SOUP AND BOOK WEATHER.

Yesterday, I had my pile of wood cut into usable chunks. The last of my wood pile had pieces so big they wouldn't fit into my stove. Dave and Jerrod from Cutting Edge Yard Service do a great job getting me ready for the next siege of cold and rainy weather. I got up on the roof and cleaned the screen on my chimney and settled in for a good read with a pot of soup on the stove.

It was a long quiet weekend and I took both days off. Retired people need days off too, so I indulged. I didn't do much reading this year, but I finished a book I had started and looked at my list:  Books Read 2015. I hate to admit that I have in the past re-read half way through a book before realizing I'd read it before. Thus I keep a list.  I began listing in 2008. I've read some good, bad, great and funky stuff.

Books I’ve read: 2008.
***Devil In The White City, by Erik Larson-Really enjoyed this historical book about the Chicago World's Fair and a serial murder. A kind of wayward read, but a good story, told thoroughly. True story and devilishly intriguing.

***The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wahls-Great book, real life story. Good story, amazing insight.

***Sea Glass by Anita Shreve-Wonderful book. New author for me.

***The First Women’s Detective Agency-My niece loved this book. I found it just OK.

***The Bone People by Kerri Hulme-Good, but disturbing in ways.

****Dirty Blonde And Half Cuban, by Lisa Wixon-Just okay.

****The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins-Lousy read. Couldn't get his point across with any interest

****Diana Gabaldon Books-Loved all 4 and want to reread them.
The Outlander- is the first book. Dragonfly In Amber-is another. Excellent.
I spent a week with my broken leg up in the air and took an amazing trip in these novels.
I think I 'll publish all of my lists,  since things I've read in 2015 are authors I started in previous years.
My cousin Bob and I often trade book suggestions. I'd love to hear your recommendations.
CIAO

THE DAILY NEWS.

Television news has no appeal to me. Even the radio can be aggravating, as in a recent program a new local anchor was going on and on about a bee theft. He was saying things like, "...well how can you steal bees? They must be flying around, how did they get them in the truck? And who would buy bees anyway?" He was serious and his ignorance continued.  I wanted to stop the car and call the station and try to educate him. Nah!


Magazines on-line and in print are a better source in my opinion. Readers catch mistakes, if they are made, and keep editors on their toes. I've subscribed to all the above, but not at the same time. Subscribing for short periods of time, off and on because I don't have time to read a years worth of everything I order is the better way. ODE For Intelligent Optimists I like, but strangely, good news comes with a  high price tag.  Scientific American I subscribe on-line, only. There is one newspaper I respect for its honesty and balanced reporting,  The Christian Science Monitor. 


I watched the telly on New Year's Eve and rung in the year with guests and listened to a lot of news leading up to the big event and it put me in mind of John Bogart's famous statement, "If a man bites a dog, that is news."
I thought it would be fun to sort through the various quotes about News and see how they compare with today.
"Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets":  Napoleon (Rings true.)
"When we hear news we should always wait for the Sacrament of confirmation."  Voltaire
(We now have fact checkers on-line, but nobody listened to Voltaire, and no one uses the fact checkers after they read the paper.)
"Every editor of newspapers pays tribute to the devil."  La Fontaine  (I can agree with that, I've been there.)
"Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress."  Wendell Phillips    ( Sounds a lot like today. Do anything to get your face in the news.  Phillips, an abolitionist, died in the 1800's.)
"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."  Thomas Jefferson.   (Wise tribute to the importance of a free press. There are only two Free Presses that I know of in existent today, unlike days of yore.)
"Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle."  Thomas Jefferson. 1807.   (Looks like Jefferson saw the evil a newspaper can bring and changed his mind. I found three more quotes about the news by Jefferson in which he states "... it is disreputable to state a fact on a Newspaper's authority...I do not read a newspaper and feel the happier for it...I shall never take another newspaper of any sort." )
"Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into four categories, heading the first, Truths, the 2nd Probabilities, the third, Possibilities and the 4th Lies. The first chapter would be very short."   Ibid
Sad to say, there were more negative than positive quotes about newspapers.

Andy Rooney was one journalist who had a lot of good things to say in a few words.

I've learned ....

 That the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.

 I've learned ....

 That just one person saying to me, 'You've made my day!' makes my day.

  I've learned ....

 That being kind is more important than being right.

 I've learned ....

 That sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

  I've learned ....

 That simple walks with my father around the block on summer

 nights when I was a child did wonders for me as an adult.

  I've learned ....

That money doesn't buy class.

  I've learned ....

 That it's those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

 I've learned ...

 That under everyone's hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.

I've learned ....

 That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.

 I've learned ....

 That when you plan to get even with someone,

 you are only letting that person continue to hurt you.

  I've learned .... 

That love, not time, heals all wounds.

 

There were many more where these came from, but anyone can find something in his wisdom to celebrate.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2016

Play a thin tune
on a paper horn
Old is dying
New is born

Scatter confetti
over the floor
Sweep an old year
Out the door

Blow up a wish
in a bright balloon
Whisper dreams
To a midnight moon

Play a loud tune
on a paper horn
Old is dying
New is born

by Myra Cohn Livingson