Please be informed

Getting informed.

I've come to the conclusion that if you don't read 'The Globe and Mail', you're not informed.  Simple as that.  Social media tells you nothing -- and neither does the government-sponsored, Liberal-biased CBC.  CTV is a little better, but I rely on 'The Globe' for serious information.

Columnists such as Bob Fife, Konrad Yakubuski, Campbell Clark and others are worth reading because they are not shills for private interests.  Cathal Kelly I read assiduously because, although he is a sports columnist and I'm not particularly interested in sports, he is a brilliant writer and I steal many tricks and turns of phrase from him.

A Globe letter-writer agrees with me.

I once asked my father, "Daddy, how do you learn to write?"  "Read", was all he replied.  I also rely on John Ibbitson and John Ivison in 'The National Post', but I have to exclude Tanya Talaga and Andrew Coyne in the list of columnists I trust and from whom I learn.

Talaga hasn't an honest or objective thought in her head on the native file and Coyne is so turgid and verbose he is unreadable.  With him, I just scoot to the last paragraph to get his point -- if he actually gets around to making one.

"The idea, therefore, is to....." would be typical of how he writes.  You don't need the "therefore".  He's also prone to expressions such as, "More often than not...." or, "All things considered...."  His problem is that he went to The London School of Economics (LSE), but as an undergraduate, which impels him to try and answer every potential question before he actually gets to a point.

B went to the LSE, but as a graduate student on a scholarship.  Do you have any idea how difficult that is?  You can't buy your way into that institution; you have to earn entry and pay big money if you are accepted.  To get in on a scholarship is a rare achievement.  Nevertheless, I still had to heavily edit him when we first met.  Thanks to the ruthless red pen of the late Mrs. Jean Portugal at Maclean Hunter, I learned how to cut superfluous words.  (See, "how" is superfluous and I should have cut it, but I'm leaving it in because it's a perfect example.)

Back then, we used hot type and wrote to fit the space because lead type was expensive.  Also, articles and columns were cut from the bottom, so you made your points up front.  Not today.  As I say, you have to read the last paragraph to get the point.

This was how the plant floor looked when I worked with hot type and typesetters.  

The other conclusion I have come to is that without even a useless university degree, such as the English one I obtained, it can be difficult to have a discerning conversation with some people.  I have to add that although my degree did not help me get a job, the hundreds of books I had to read over three years helped me see the world through many different eyes.  Authors I studied wrote about a variety of subjects -- like sociology, history, psychology, religion, philosophy -- over hundreds of years through many eras, so I began to see what the wider world was about, outside of Lindenlea and Lisgar Collegiate.

I welcome and enjoy debating, but not with people who are ill-informed, cannot think critically and have neither facts nor numbers to back up their opinions.  That's not to clap myself on the back, just to say that whatever your degree, you do tend to emerge a better critical thinker.  It's a frustrating experience when someone who doesn't know what he/she is talking about starts hectoring me without facts, telling me how they "feel" about something.

The Thinker

So, that's my rant today.  I love writing my blog because I can say what I want.  As long as I don't slander anyone and back up my opinions with hard facts and numbers I am in the clear.  Once was at a cocktail party and a woman came up to me and, looking down her nose, said, "You know, I don't agree with everything you write."  Really!!  All I could do was burst out laughing.  I asked her if she had a blog or wrote letters to the editor?  "Well, when you start your blog, I'll have a look.  

"And I look forward to reading your letters in 'The Herald' and 'The Globe and Mail'!"