The Paper

I like to read the newspaper. I always felt bad for myself living in the Bay Area that there was no good paper. Especially given the relative literacy of San Francisco and Berkeley, the SF Chronicle is atrocious, and the Oakland Tribune and Contra Costa Times don't even qualify. I never liked reading on a computer screen, so my only saving grace was the fact that one can get the New York Times delivered anywhere in the country.

I have come to know a new level of unreadable while traveling in East Africa. There have been English language newspapers readily available in every country I have traveled in, and uniformly, they have been terrible. Not only are they full of grammar mistakes and misspellings (I realize the writers may not be native speakers, but they could still use a spellchecker), the content is unconscionable.

They are mostly full of opinion pieces, that either have nothing to say, are idiotic or offensive. I read an article that implied a women was raped because of what she was wearing. I read another op-ed saying the problem with Tanzanian schools is that the teachers are lazy, and they should be punished like their students. There was a regular section in one paper giving love advice, and the premise of the response to one lovelorn reader was that you can't be mad at your boyfriend for cheating, because men can't possibly only be with one woman (I only assume it was regular based on it's format, I would not waste the energy it takes to turn its pages again).

Despite the general dearth of reading material, I have given up on newspapers completely. Even when they are sitting on a table in a cafe I resist the urge to pick them up because I know I will be disappointed. I think they literally makes you stupider. Thank God for the internet, yes I do now read nytimes.com. I have even resorted to dated issues of The Economist, and the business section used to be my least favorite section, there isn't even sports in the back..