renaissance journalism

What has changed? In the 1600s England had the Moderate Intelligencer. Lancaster has the Intelligencer Journal. News went from personal letters to booklets like this one.

I'm seeing journalism change again. The inauguration came to me more as online data than as print. Television brought the event itself but little else. I wanted to check the Lowery benediction for hymn references. Think I bought the big city newspaper of record? No. Two clicks online and I had it as well as a lot of reactions to it.

Then it was back out on the street to head home and admire the Obama vendors left over from the swearing in day. That's Milton outside the burrito shop where we had lunch.

Folger: what's inside

Inside the Folger Shakespeare (see yesterday's post and link) the guide gave us a sneak peek of the reading room, off-limits to all except post-doctoral scholars with special passes. Elite. A shrine to Elizabethan England. It opens once a year on the Bard's birthday. Below the candelabra is the entrance to the theater. The long hall has the exhibits showing the very first newspapers in England. The first was printed in Holland and shipped to England.

What to learn? Readers back then wanted the same news that sells today: scandal, celebrity goings-on, gossip, etc. Folger, by the way, was not the coffee company but a Standard Oil of New Jersey mogul and his refined wife.

brother-in-law dies

Nearly everyday my newspaper reading includes the obituary page. Here's the sad news of Gary's sudden passing--sudden as in instantaneous. My sister, Evelyn, had dropped him off at the house after a doctor's visit. While she drove on to the pharmacy he walked into the house and died.

He often said at family gatherings, I never saw a U-haul trailer behind a hearse, meaning one can't take anything from this world to the next. After a Thanksgiving feast he would say, I wonder how the rich live, meaning the rich could eat no better than we just did.

I'll miss him. I doubt if he would have voted for Obama, but his obit (first three paragraphs here) was published in the same paper that announced Obama's election.

arm's length from history

At least arm's length from Hillary. That's her in the center, umbrella in her left hand.

Photographer is Joel, who walked by the Lancaster Brewery and grabbed this shot on his cell. She was on her way to Millersville U where she addressed a gym full of 3,000 and maybe half that many more who couldn't get in.

Her stop at the downtown Lancaster eatery was not announced to the public. Joel found out about it through his newspaper contacts. Thirty persons knew about it (not counting the body guards) and greeted her when she left the place.

On her route to Millersville, my brother, Milton, saw the motorcade pass his house on Charlotte street. He did not see her since the vehicle windows were darkly tinted

wikipedia must read

Bedtime reading got me this in New York Review. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21131 .

Kind of goes with my idea of how humans can help each other out.

Did you know that more people check wikipedia than google?

Plus, wiki is easier to spell than encyclopedia. I've still got emotional feelings about a whole set. My brother and I together won a set of encyclopedias from Lancaster Newspapers when I was about in 7th grade.

I'll see if I can find that photo.