News

Not watching television is going well. The reward has been that I am unaware of many of the tragedies and omens of doom that are celebrated by the national and local news. Life seems a little lighter. I have had more time to read. I have been reading the work of someone whose work I was supposed to read in high school and never did. He was a poet and fits nicely into my pattern of reading history and poetry. History, poetry, and cookbooks, not a very well rounded mind but it suits me. The poet is Wordsworth. What a cool, cleansing breeze has begun to blow through the dark and dusty channels of my mind. I have spent too much time wallowing in the poetry of Cassandra wannabees. I wandered lost through Coleridge and even dipped my soul into the cesspit of Ginsburg. Wordsworth, the words of cleansing and hope and joy and looking and actually seeing the glory around me.
There is still one dismal finger of news that I still allow to intrude. Each time I sign on to the Internet, there it is. Today's finger was that a British and a French nuclear submarine collided. Tendrils of doubt and doom soon wafted through the channels. The people in charge of these submarines are responsible for the care and maintenance and AIMING of nuclear missles. Each of them was unable to avoid a metal object the size of a football field in the middle of the ocean. Then the question came. Why do the British and the French even still have nuclear submarines?
The British I can somewhat understand. After breakfast they don't have much to look forward to and they might as well put to sea and sail around. Drake knew it, Cook knew it, and Nelson had a hand in it. The French having nuclear weapons doesn't make any sense at all unless there is a danger that space aliens could come after the asparagas crop. The French have two traditional foes, the English and the Germans. They don't need missles. They could Fedex their warheads to their enemies much quicker and cheaper.
There has been a bright spot. I recently read of a woman that nursed a baby that was not her own. She is a big time movie star and didn't have to schedule an international news conference to announce her largesse. She simply picked up a hungry baby and fed it. If there is ever an election for President of the world, she has my vote.
Worldwide nuclear destruction or feeding a hungry baby, which would Wordsworth have taken the time to describe? Both Coleridge and Wordsworth are easy to predict. It is hard to understand that they were friends and neighbors. Pooh and the donkey were also.