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Notes from the Boonies

By Paul Wisovaty

I was sitting around the table at the Tuscola Kiwanis Club recently, and someone made mention of that ubiquitous "liberal media." In Tuscola, you have to understand, "liberalmedia" is one word. As Old Blue Eyes used to croon, you can't have one without the other. As luck would have it, I had recently picked up a copy of the Decatur Herald, which I have to say has one of the finer sports sections in east central Illinois. Barry Romo doesn't know what that means, but trust me, it does.

If we may assume that the Iraq war is the most prominent issue on the minds of most Americans (forget health care and poverty, because there isn't enough spare change on hand after Iraq to do anything about them, even if anyone cared), we may expect front-page coverage of it. Unless, of course, nothing much is going on worth reporting. That doesn't appear to be the case. On page nine—of a ten-page news section—there was a short blurb on Iraq. The headline was "Insurgency Heightens," and the article went on to mention that a hundred and fifty Iraqis had been killed in the last seventy-two hours, most of them found bound, tortured, and executed in irrigation ditches around Baghdad. This doesn't appear to come under the heading of "nothing much going on."

Forget "liberal media." Wouldn't one expect that even a moderate media would have put this a little closer to page one? I admit there were some pretty important stories between pages one and nine. A serial killer in Massachusetts (wouldn't you have guessed?) fessed up to some pretty erotic ill-doings, and JonBenet Ramsey still made it onto page five. I was especially interested in the Brad Pitt-Jennifer Somebody story on page three. But "Insurgency Heightens" had to suck it up and settle for the penultimate page. Even relegated to the cheap seats, though, that liberalmedia just keeps stirring up shit.

Here's my second (but not entirely unrelated) soapbox diatribe. I have a sixty-two-year-old neighbor who works at a sweatshop thirty miles from here. The pay is decent, and they offer a great benefits package. He also gets a lot of overtime, which translates into pretty big bucks. Leaving aside the sweatshop part, the downside is that this place "offers" mandatory twelve-hour shifts. None of this "Hey Joe, you wanna work some OT today?" Oh no. Four or five twelve-hour shifts in a row: take it or hit the road. Joe's sixty-two, as I said, so there really ain't no other road to hit. There is no CEO offer waiting in the wings.

While this has nothing to do with his predicament, I would note that Joe was a fighter pilot in Vietnam, with two tours and two Distinguished Flying Crosses. He also has thirteen air medals, although I have no idea what that means. I obviously don't expect his employer to give two shits about the fact that my friend is a legitimate war hero, and I understand that such status doesn't turn out any more of what this factory produces down on the floor. But this is a vets' paper, so it should count for something, at least among our readers.

It need not be said that Joe's factory has not hooked onto the union label. But I do recall that—Bill Davis will confirm this—in 1937, John L. Lewis, head of the CIO, sat down with US Steel and won the right to the eight-hour day. 1937. Sixty-nine years ago. That's really sad.

Come to think of it, it can't be that sad after all. I haven't read one word about it in the liberalmedia.