Practical Papers

Look Hon! We took our Eagle on vacation!

I look forward to every Thursday, not only because I have mass communications (isn't that cute), but because this is the day the Dundalk Eagle arrives. You may be asking yourself, why do you get excited over a newspaper? Well, I find the criminal activities detailed in the police beat section are usually quite amusing, local sports are reported on by Bill Gates (I doubt he's a billionaire), and you can see your goofy relatives on vacation with their Eagle. With the internet making news available as soon as it happens and 24 hour news networks, newspaper sales have been decreasing steadily. Many major newspapers are in financial trouble, but we must consider the scope of large national newspapers. National newspapers report news that is nationally or globally important, opening your web browser usually results in you seeing those news stories days before you get your paper. If the internet isn't your thing, watching several minutes of a news network broadcast will yield the same result. Local news, however, is usually harder to find, so papers like the Eagle deliver. The Dundalk Eagle reports on the many pertinent community issues, such as, the sale of the steel mill, revitalization of the local economy, and education issues in community schools. These issues are reported on mostly by residents of the Dundalk area so there is a good understanding of the issues faced in Dundalk and they are well articulated and practical news articles. In order to survive these days newspapers have to fill a niche, such as the City Paper, that provides insights into the artistic community. Local news can be considered a niche within the news industry because the stories are personalized, you might see your neighbor on page 8, or find some promotion for a local store. Another thing keeping not just the Eagle but most newspapers alive is the utilitarian nature of a newspaper. Think about it, fifty cents can provide you with enough packing material to protect your commemorative plates, you can use a rolled up newspaper to discipline you dog, a discarded paper will provide a homeless person with a blanket, and the list goes on. All in all newspapers may someday only exist as online entities, but I feel as though that future is still a-ways away. 

Delusions in the check-out line

A babe, a bad-ass, and two nerds, all immaculately brushed up.

The worst part of an excruciatingly long line at Wally-World (Wal-Mart) is being trapped between an old lady contesting her coupons and a hulking lummox that refuses to let you out of the line. While in this predicament, one's eye may wander from candy and batteries to the conveniently placed flasks and beef jerky, finally coming to rest on a magazine cover with some immaculately tanned blond prancing around in a scant bikini. You may have two thoughts here, wow she's perfect! or, photo shop can do some pretty amazing things these days. I find myself thinking the latter, air brushing and photo touch up on magazines covers is on the rise. It makes sense from a marketing stand point, everyone wants to keep up with the Jones' and people are intensely concerned with looking good. Diet and weight are fast becoming major concerns for many Americans and seeing magazines that have sexy "real" people promising cover like results with just ten minutes of exercise just seem to fuel people's delusions and make them eager to part with their money. Not everyone falls for this but for some this can result in extremely unhealthy choices, such as, excessive plastic surgeries, and even binge eating or purging to look "good". Airbrushing is not limited to just people and sex appeal, cooking magazines utilize wax food stand ins for their cover shots, luring us in with our stomachs. Call me a hippie (no really, I don't mind), but I find differences and flaws are what make us human. I'm rather glad I don't look like every tool-bag I see on the cover of some fitness or style magazine, I'd much rather stay humble and not have to worry so much about my image being up to par with what editors and photographers think is good.  I find it hard to believe that everyone appearing on a magazine cover has the exact same intensity of tan or some immaculate god or goddess like body, it just insults intelligence to suggest this, but it still continues to occur. This is not to say that I find all photographic manipulation to be a bad thing, could you imagine having an embarrassing cold sore on the day of your cover shoot? Next thing you know that picture is plastered all over the internet causing some to speculate you may have herpes. I find wide scale airbrushing and photo-shopping is just to unimaginative and cheap, who hasn't used sex appeal to play with our emotions and get us to buy things? I can only hope that society gets wise to the delusions created by airbrushing, people may actually find they like being themselves better than chasing a photo-shop  pipe dream.

Kieth Richards still looks like a skeleton despite airbrushing, he's chased one to many pipe dreams.