The Underappreciated

Basically, all four local papers from here to Ellsworth (about fifty miles up the coast) were bought up in 2008 by a "new media" con man from Chicago who had big visions of turning them into a "New Vision Of Participatory Journalism." What he ended up doing was alienating most of the readers by rearranging the papers to suit his vision, which meant eliminating almost all hard news content in favor of touchy-feely features on "what it means to live in Maine." Those of us who've lived here for generations don't need or want to be fed that kind of crap -- all we want to know is who died, who won, who's been arrested this week, and what halfwits on the city council voted for the pay-per-bag disposal fee at the dump. In other words, just another big-city blowhard coming to town to show the rubes what it's all about -- only nobody was buying it.

I have a lot of friends who worked at the paper -- some for as long as 27 years -- and it's a real blow to them to find out they've lost their jobs by seeing it on the website rather than being told to their faces.

So it's not just us who've been bamboozled by this operator -- three other towns have lost their hundred-plus-year-old papers as well, and for no good reason.

Flicka said:

Skirts. People seem to find it strange when women wear skirts these days, but really, they're extremely comfortable and practical. If I were a man, I'd be jealous (or try to get it accepted for me to wear one).

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Quite often, when I'm sweating in the summer, I look at women and think of how comfortable they must be with ventilation I could only dream of.

Women. So many women like to brag about how they prefer men to women. I like women. I like men too (oh, do I!), but I think women are awesome. I especially like the old brand of women (in the Golden Era) who cared about what they were and what they accomplished rather than their appearance. I wish more young girls would be inspired by them rather than, I dunno, the Kardashians.

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I generally prefer women to men. At parties, I hang around with the women more than I do with the men.

At school, I have a little speech I go through with my classes on occasion when the boys are little more rambunctious than I'd like. I say, 'Ya know, it would be nice if there were just girls in the class.' They all look at me. I ask, 'You know why?' And of course, they all want to know. So I say, 'Well, girls, in any given age group, are smarter (the girls smile, the boys look shocked and unbelieving), more mature (the girls have an 'of course' look on their faces), and better looking than the boys. By this time, the girls are ear to ear smiling, and the boys are in various states of disbelief and protest. So I look at the boys and tell them, 'Prove me wrong!' And everyone snaps to attention, the girls with pride and smiles they can barely contain, and the boys with looks of determination you can feel. Overall, it works well.

Self-depreciating humour. Honestly, can you think of one single dictator or fanatic who laughed at him/herself?

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No. Dictators and fanatics (the obsessive ones - lol) are insecure. Insecure people can't laugh at themselves.

Terriers. I'm not saying they're not appreciated. It's more that they can't be appreciated enough!

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Terriers are cool!

LizzieMaine said:

Basically, all four local papers from here to Ellsworth (about fifty miles up the coast) were bought up in 2008 by a "new media" con man from Chicago who had big visions of turning them into a "New Vision Of Participatory Journalism." What he ended up doing was alienating most of the readers by rearranging the papers to suit his vision, which meant eliminating almost all hard news content in favor of touchy-feely features on "what it means to live in Maine." Those of us who've lived here for generations don't need or want to be fed that kind of crap -- all we want to know is who died, who won, who's been arrested this week, and what halfwits on the city council voted for the pay-per-bag disposal fee at the dump. In other words, just another big-city blowhard coming to town to show the rubes what it's all about -- only nobody was buying it.

I have a lot of friends who worked at the paper -- some for as long as 27 years -- and it's a real blow to them to find out they've lost their jobs by seeing it on the website rather than being told to their faces.

So it's not just us who've been bamboozled by this operator -- three other towns have lost their hundred-plus-year-old papers as well, and for no good reason.

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And of course, there is no good way to return things to the way they were, unless someone with some money, and a love for the community, does it, I suppose. I'm all for free-enterprise, but these types of consequences make me ill.

Sometimes, we need a crystal ball.

It's a pretty sad thing when the only paper in the biggest town between Portland and Bangor is a free shopper. It's too early, really, to know what'll happen in the long run but hopefully someone, somehow will step up. When I was a reporter twenty years ago, five papers and two radio stations covered this area, and we may have been the best-informed small town in the state. I don't see any conceivable way that the situation we have now can be considered progress.

And I hope Mr. New Media gets out of town fast, because there's a pot of tar and a bag of feathers with his name on them.

LoveMyHats2 said:

Can you give up the information to me, and maybe the rest of the Lounge, what do you "really"wear under a kilt?

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Anyone with any sense wears a sensible pair of underpants. The so=called "traditional" option is a macho nonsense best forgotten.

scottyrocks said:

I generally prefer women to men. At parties, I hang around with the women more than I do with the men.

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OK, beer or martini? My treat.

LoveMyHats2 said:

Can you give up the information to me, and maybe the rest of the Lounge, what do you "really"wear under a kilt?

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On a good day? Lipstick (sorry, couldn't help myself; it's one of my father's favourite jokes)

Flicka said:

OK, beer or martini? My treat.

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Either one. Or a glass of merlot.

LizzieMaine said:

The news of our local paper being shut down without notice after nearly 160 years is causing some severe ripples in the community. My mother called me this morning in tears -- "where am I gonna read the obituaries, where am I gonna see the pictures of the high school graduates, how'm I gonna know how the school basketball game came out, where'm I gonna get the coupons? They can't DO this!" A newspaper is as essential to the lifeblood of a community as Main Street itself -- and without one, you don't have a community. You just have a bunch of buildings.

PS -- they're also shutting down their website. We now have no reliable, professional source whatever for local news. So much for "new media."

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We haven't had a local newspaper here since 1966. Then again, the major Swedish newspapers are more or less "Stockholm-papers". I've stopped reading them long ago. Like my mother said, "they're not writing for me." They write for an over-consuming middle class couple with 2.1 children whose sole interest in life is "fredagsmys" (snacking in front of brainless tv-shows on a Friday night with the family) and taking out another mortgage on the house to finance the next sunny holiday in Thailand. *gag*

John in Covina said:

The under appreciated are the people that come and help out. At church when we have an event it is always the same people that come and help set up stuff and help clean up and put away things afterwards. There's always a great turn out for the Easter breakfast, the same people show up and eat, leave their dishes on the table and split before the event is over but never help in any way.

It's the same with friends, let's say you went to the beach with a group of friends and discover your keys are gone as you leave. Chances are there's some that will wish you luck as they head for home and then there's others that will stay and help you look.

Service to others is often overlooked and simply expected by those being served.

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:eusa_clap This was my favourite comment so far. I would like to see that more often. And even without any claim for a return. Selfless help just because you like somebody or because you have some empathy.

Flicka said:

On a good day? Lipstick (sorry, couldn't help myself; it's one of my father's favourite jokes)

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Oh, my God!
I have to agree about skirts.

Lizzie, well that's just awful. Isn't there any third party, interested in beuying/upholding the newspapers? Or is the shut-down final?

It sounded pretty final last nite -- a couple of the people here at the theatre also worked at the paper, and they went over last nite to see if they could collect their last paychecks and the locks had already been changed. Real classy operation. (Did I mention the owner of the paper had just sold the building to the county for $500,000? No doubt he's running to the train station even as we speak with a grip full of fifties and hundreds.)

If I had any money I'd start a paper myself. It's all anyone is talking about on the street today, which says to me that there's still a place for real journalism here.

LizzieMaine said:

It sounded pretty final last nite -- a couple of the people here at the theatre also worked at the paper, and they went over last nite to see if they could collect their last paychecks and the locks had already been changed. Real classy operation. (Did I mention the owner of the paper had just sold the building to the county for $500,000? No doubt he's running to the train station even as we speak with a grip full of fifties and hundreds.)

If I had any money I'd start a paper myself. It's all anyone is talking about on the street today, which says to me that there's still a place for real journalism here.

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What if your community pooled resources for a community owned paper? A little bit of money from a lot of people could go a long way, and you've already got the staff. The community would serve as board of directors instead of a traditional investor-entrepreneur. Keep the news community-local like they want it.

This might sound like a strange reply - but I would say Water.

Old, cheesey horror movies.

Newspapers in general are underappreciated. Right up to the Times-Post-Times class.

I really think we are losing more than we know with the receding of the daily sheet.

Prien said:

This might sound like a strange reply - but I would say Water.

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Not strange at all. We're made of mostly water. Water serves as transportation, food, cleaning. We'd be sunk without an adequate supply of it. In the southwest, and places like sub Saharan Africa, and Australia, the lack of it threatens the very survival of living things.
New York City's future existence is guaranteed by having a very abundant supply of clean frsh water available.
Millions of people guzzle unhealthy sugar and fructise drenched soft drinks, when they could be drinking plain healthy inexpensive tap water.
Here's to water. :cheers1:

under appreciated -- good local police and firefighters -- these people can be real heroes!

Soccer in the USA.

Tradespeople
Craftspeople
Artisans
Farmers
the Working Class
Manufacturing
Tea
Old homes
Snow
Rain
Manners
Friendliness
Taking Care of your Neighbor
Community
Charity
Journalism (the real stuff)
Teachers
Speed limits
Natural Fibers
Alternative Sweeteners
Cooking
Baking
Taking Pride in What you Do
Hard Work
Education
Work
Leisure
Small towns
Family
Friends
Military
Military Families
Science
Math
Gardening
Make it Do
Books
Reading
Librarians


No particular order.

Agree with several I've seen written here already, especially

-Print newspapers (there's just something about sitting down with the morning paper and a cup of coffee on a weekend morning)

-Letters (when my friend goes back to Ireland, we've decided letters will be our main form of communication, and not the internet; hand-written letters feel so personal, and thus special, compared to things like facebook that just seem to deaden separated friends' sensitivities in so many ways)

-Phone conversations (this is really a lost art as well, people text so much that they aren't aware what's going on around them and neither do they focus on who they're texting, despite being attached to their phone at the hip)

-Girls dressing nicely (dresses, skirts, etc; guys sometimes don't consider the fact that girls today aren't any more of lookers than they used to be before all these overly revealing fashions came out, they just show off the right things to get guys to think they're more attractive; they may even get more glances and compliments than those who don't wear those clothes... but not from me)

As for new additions that I haven't seen yet, I want to add baseball to the list. So many complain that it's boring and slow and takes too long. To me the game's length is a virtue (it can get obnoxious [4-hour games] but usually doesn't; in various places in history, the game couldn't be long enough anyway--fans had a depression or a world war to try and forget about for a little while), and the 162 game season an ever-unfolding drama. If you are invested emotionally in the team, it can hardly be boring; knowing the player's names, their tendencies, their stories. Paying attention to the little details of the game (which admittedly is hard to do with the limited view of the field you get when watching on TV) opens up another interesting facet of the sport. Maybe it isn't what it used to be way back when, with local teams comprised of local players who people would run into walking down the street regularly, and who held day jobs to supplement their incomes in the offseason, but baseball is still baseball!