Thanks to my Reader Weekly readers

Every so often I get either a question or an observation:

Are you still writing for the Reader?

I haven’t seen you in the Reader for some time.

To the first I get rather snide: Are you still not reading the Reader?

To the second I thank for noticing I have not written for the Reader for some time.

I wish I could get either of them to regularly visit this blog.  I certainly had more readers in the Reader than I have for this little obscure blog.

As to why I stopped writing for the Reader Weekly, I was bumped one too many times.  Why should I write 800-1200 words each week, submit them before the deadline, and then open the next edition without seeing what I wrote.

I could say more, but I don’t want to mention names.

So, although I get far fewer readers for this blog, I get to write as little as much as I want.  I don’t have to wait until Thursday to see my latest tirade about Donald Trump:)

Thanks, Dave, for asking.  And thanks for your own letter writing to the Duluth News Tribune.  I just read your “Local View” from over a year ago.

Oh, and thanks to those readers of this blog that pass the link on to others.

Paraphrase of the day – error

Chuck Frederick, the opinion page editor of the Duluth News Tribune, and I have been exchanging email with the ever-changing text of a Local View I submitted.  I hope my latest email is the final version.  I finished that message with:

"Who knows what [error] lurks in the [arts] of men.  The Shadow knows."

Tea Party critique published

I submitted a "Local View" on the Tea Party to the Duluth News Tribune.  It was published today with the title "Tea Party positions misses today's complexities".  You can find it for a week or so at http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/tag/group/Opinion/tag/Local%20view/

The opinion page editor, Chuck Frederick, changed almost every line, as his wont.  Fortunately, his sends his revisions of my Local Views to me before publication.  It was a good thing because he added a word that changed the meaning of one point.  I pointed it out and he printed it with my correction.

Thanks to the four people who said they liked it.

Essentially I wrote that the Tea Party Patriots' fiscal responsibility can be irresponsible, their limited constitutional government cannot be determined by the "intent" of the writers, and their free markets haven't existed since the railroads began.

One question readers may have in reading "the last great Republican President, Abraham Lincoln" is who do I consider the last great Democratic President.  I thought about it for five minutes and came up with Thomas Jefferson, who was then called a Democratic-Republican.