Questions Journalists Ask Me

Session Two
Do you believe in God? I believe in God but He doesn't believe in me! Do you think that an all-powerful supreme being, who is perfect and indeed uncommonly good, could have created two imbeciles like you and me? I'm an atheist. Were you brought up in a religious environment? I will never be able to know how many times the word Catholic formed on my lips, and I will never be able to count how many Roman Catholic people crossed the path of my life that I was following when I was a boy. I had been born in a Catholic hospital...I delivered to Catholic homes the Catholic newspaper, The Tablet...I sold a Catholic monthly magazine, The Catholic Digest, outside St Nicholas Churchright next to my homeon Sunday mornings...I went to summer camps managed by Catholic members of the Catholic Youth Organization...my doctor was Catholic...my dentist was Catholic...John, the butcher, was Catholic and his sons went to Catholic schools...when I came home from a trip to my uncle's home in the suburbs (Clarendon Hills) of Chicago, my mother asked me right off if the friends I had met there were Catholics...I initialed JMJ (Jesus, Mary, Joseph) at the top of every page I wrote on in every Catholic school I attended...I watched Bishop Fulton J Sheen's Catholic television program every Tuesday night not understanding ever what he was pontificating but always wishing to grow up to be like him...my mother and father's friends were Catholics and they talked about their Catholic friends...the sex manual in my parents' bedroom, where I sneaked to read it, was written by a Catholic psychiatrist who advocated a birth control method dependent on continence during the period of

female ovulation...I ate fish on Fridays because I was a Catholic...I said a prayer for the dead and blessed myself when I passed a Catholic cemetery...I bought Catholic raffle tickets...all the books I read were Catholic and imprimatur and nihil obstat were stamped on their title pages...many of the Catholic authors' names were tagged with SJ or OFM or OP...Catholic priests and nuns dined at my home...my mother chauffeured Catholic nuns to their Catholic doctors and Catholic dentists...my scoutmaster was Catholic...drunken Catholic World War II veterans drank green beer in our kitchen in the early morning hours...my barber was Catholic...I would never have been given permission to work for Irish Catholic William F Buckley, Jr's National Review had he been a Jew...my tonsils were extracted in a Catholic hospital and Catholic nuns nursed me...our 1953 green Chevrolet was blessed and sprinkled, with Catholic holy water, by a priest...the calender in our kitchen was decked with saints and their feast days...we had a poor box in our house to collect money for foreign missionaries...under the rear-view mirror of our Chevy a plastic Jesus, with a magnet under Him, stood firm and fast and His right hand was upped with His blessing...a St Christopher's medal was attached to the sun's visor...my father's boss was Catholic...when I left the seminary I was told I would attend a Catholic universityor else...I went to parties with Catholic boys and Catholic girls...my favorite baseball player was the Brooklyn Dodgers' first baseman, Gil Hodges, a Catholic...my parents dreamed of a trip to Europe to see the Pope and his cardinals...I went to Irish-Catholic wakes where everyone was drinking Irish whisky...we stopped at Catholic churches along the highway...when away in a hotel or motel, the first question my mother would ask the receptionist after registration was: Where can we hear Mass on Sunday?...no room in my three-story house did not possess a Catholic statue or Catholic crucifix or Catholic holy picture...my grandmother from the Soviet Union gave us sips of vodka from bottles blessed by her Orthodox Catholic parish priest...I carried wooden rosary beads, blessed by the Pope, wherever I went...I stopped what I was doing at high noon to say three Hail Mary's at the Angelus...when I served Mass in real churches, I wished someday I would be able to say my own Masses, and I studied carefully the routines of all the priests...I confessed my sins at least once a week...I got my Catholic throat blessed every year on St Blaise's Day...each Ash Wednesday, I went to school with a grey-black spot on my Catholic forehead...I worked cleaning altar rails and altar steps and bronze flower pots and other Catholic accruements in the sacristy and one day, when a nun dropped a 24-hour glass vigil candle on the floor and screamed

SHIT!!!, I ran home, in a state of shock, anxious to tell my mother what the Dominican nun had blurted out in church...I filched unconsecrated hosts, ate them by the handfuls, and washed them down with what was left at the bottoms of discarded vin santo bottles...I said the Catholic grace before meals to thank God for what had been put on the plate before me...our insurance agent was Catholic...the man who mended my shoes was Catholic...I went on summer vacation to my relatives' homes scattered about the United States and went to their Catholic churches on Sundays...I went to see films only after checking out, in The Tablet, whether or not they were fitting for me to view...I took home Catholicly-blessed palms on Palm Sunday...I had sports shirts with the names of Catholic universities printed on them...when I served Catholic funeral Masses, I listened to the Dies Irae sung so sadly in the choir loft...I put extra charcoals in the thurible so that the church would fill up with billows of smoke from Catholicly-blessed incense...I knew well the smells of nuns and their freshly-starched Catholic habits and their soapy skins...I knew the sound of their huge black Catholic rosary beads rattling as they walked...I knew, too, the blackness of Catholic prieststheir black cars, their black bags, their black socks and shoes, their black suits, their black pens, their black hats, their black pipes, their black luggage...I smiled when I saw black priests turned into green priests in the Army...I made three-day Catholic retreats far from my home...I bought Catholic birthday gifts for my friends...I collected holy pictures and could not wait to go to another wake and add to my collectionjust as other kids collected baseball cards...when I watched basketball games on TV, I looked for those players who had attended Catholic universities...my mother always pointed out to me who the Catholic actors and actresses were on TV...books with Catholic themes were on our bookshelves at home...I wore something green on St. Patrick's Day every year...we had plastic holy water fonts posted near the entrances to our bedrooms...Catholic music, Catholic games, Catholic clubs, Catholic liquors, Catholic boxes for the poor, Catholic jokes, Catholic prayer books, Catholic bibles, Catholic policemen, Catholic firemen, Catholic mailmen and mailwomen, Catholic funeral parlors, Catholic plays, Catholic films...CATHOLIC! CATHOLIC!! CATHOLIC!!!...As far as I'm concerned, you can put all Roman Catholics in a looney bin! And the sooner the better! It has been said that the Vietnam War was contrived to deport Afro-Americans out of the States in the 1960s because they were rebelling quite regularly and forcefully.

Do you agree? I cannot confirm this. However, I can attest to the fact that in many infantry companies in Vietnam the population of them was at times from 30%-50% Black soldiers. The Black population in the United States at the time was about 12%if I am not mistaken. Some Black soldiers told me they had been given a choice by some judge: Where do you want to go? Jail or Vietnam? One time, a supply sergeant told me that the reason for being in Vietnam was eventually to exploit the petroleum fields in the South China Sea which were said to be enormous. Also, I don't know if this is true or false. But there is another phenomena that should be presented to the American public concerning what they do not know about Vietnam: the influence of soldiers from the south of the DisUnited States: During the Vietnam War, I served (August 1967-August 1968) as a first lieutenant (1193) in the United States Artillery in both the Fourth Division and Americal Division. I filled a number of slots including the following: Battery Executive Officer, Battery Commander, Forward Observer, Battalion Liaison Officer, Brigade Liaison Officer, Property Book Officer and others which now do not come to mind. Some of my duty assignments were posts reserved for senior captains on the major's promotion list. At that time there was a shortage of artillery officers in the U S Army, and when my efficiency report was being calculated, the then battalion executive officer performing the review offered me this deal which I politely refused: If I re-upped in the Army for two additional years, I would be promoted immediately to captain. That same major, some months before, had admonished me with these portentous words: If you wish to make the Army your career, lieutenant, you better not talk anymore to those niggers. Pretty much near the end of my Vietnam tour, I was called upon to replace a forward observer assigned to an APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) unit in the Americal Division. When I arrived by chopper to the unit already dug in, I was stunned to see, on the high radio antennas of three of the APCs, the famous Stars & Bars of the Confederacy! Wherever I went in that unit, I could hear Southern accents filling the air, and with tongue in cheek, I was referred to as a Yankee by many of the unit's members. Some of them had necklaces beaded with the ears of their enemy and their enemy's children. After a couple of days, I sat down and wrote a letterexplaining this Stars & Bars outlandishnessto the governor of New York

State, Nelson A Rockefeller. I addressed the envelope so: Honorable Nelson Rockefeller, Governor of the State of New York, Albany, New York. I did not have in mind any street address or city code. I wrote FREE in the top right-hand corner of the envelopeletters to the continental United States from those serving in Vietnam were gratuitousthen I drop the missive into the company's mail bag for pickup later. Some two weeks subsequently, I received a package and in it was a letter from the commanding general of the New York State National Guardand a New York State flag! The letter explained that Governor Rockefeller had ordered the general to send me a flag ASAP. I hoisted the flag on the APC that I had been assigned to, and two or three days later an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) from division was distributed forbidding anything to be attached to radio antennas. When I returned to New York after my Vietnam service had been completed, I fulfilled a dream I had while I humped with the grunts in the Fourth Division on the borders of Laos and Cambodia: I checked into an elegant hotel (The Essex House) off Central Park and enjoyed smoking a cigar in hot bath waters. In fact, the only American who ever thanked me for serving in Vietnam was The Essex House's doorman who asked me if I was the lieutenant returning from Vietnam, and then told me the number of my room in which I found a bottle of champagne and a huge bowl of fruiton The Essex House! I spent three or four days strolling around Manhattan before I met my family. I wanted to let the kinks out of my nervous system crimps which had taken hold of me after a year stepping about with eyes glued for some attack and my body tensed to react suddenly to whatever provocation. The right side of my right thumb was still calloused from flicking on and off the safety of my piece of junk M16. One day, while I was jaunting, I came upon a throng of people waiting in front of a hotel. There were journalists and cameramen about. I walked up to one and asked about what was going on. The reporter told me Governor Rockefeller was due to come out at any minute. I looked for a member of Rocky's staff, and when I found one, I told him of my experience with the New York State flag in Vietnam. He told me to stay close to him. When Rocky exited the hotel, the aid caught his attention, and quickly whispered in Rocky's ear my flag story. Rocky came to me and, sticking out his

right arm, said: You did a great job in Vietnam, fella', and quickly bent his head to enter his waiting limousine. Were there atom bombs in Vietnam? Before going to Vietnam, as I stated before in Session One, I served in a rocket and missile training battalion at Fort Sill. In Vietnam, I was assigned immediately to the battlefield. (15% of the US military in Vietnam served on the battlefield, while 85% were in backup positions: doctors, nurses, cooks, mechanics, clerks, engineers, etc. Most of them didn't even carry arms. Once, in the Fourth Division base camp, Major General Peers ordered all weapons locked up because so many drunk soldiers were shooting themselves and their comrades! Boys will be boys!) I have the impression that there were not atom bombs in Vietnam, just as I feel that hundreds of thousands of atom/hydrogen never existed or were held by the Soviets and the Americans. While we trained troops to launch rockets and missiles, we never taught recruits how to load an atom bombeven a fake one! No one could tell me where these atom bombs were in storage. (Paper Tigers?) As far as I could see, fifty percent of the soldiers, including officers, I came in contact with at Fort Sill and Vietnam were drunk or drugged, and I fail to see how the US Army could have trusted these troops with atom bombs. But never underestimate the stupidity of the US Army... What about the field artillery? When I served as a redleg, artilleryman, missiles and rockets and the field artillery were under the same protective covering. So, we 1193 officers had to have some knowledge of how both of them functioned. Today, it is different in that the two divisions are separate. That's better for sure. I must say something about the field artillery in Vietnam. About 70% of the US casualties in Vietnam (wounded and dead) were induced by mines. 90% of these ordnances were captured US Army projectiles that had not exploded once they were fired from our canons or mortars. When I arrived in an artillery unit, I would immediately ask: What's the dud rate here? 30%. 40%. Even 50%! There are a number of reasons for this: The escalating war called for more artillery projectiles, and the US companies that manufactured them were

happy to have the orders and quickly went to workhaste makes waste; the trip from the DisUnited States to Vietnam was long and rockyartillery projectiles are sensitive ordnances and sea transport is not the smoothest way to ship them; and, the violent climate changes in Vietnam made Fire Direction Center computing a really difficult enterprise. So, many shells landed, did not explode, and were snatched up by the enemy who transformed them into booby traps. When I was the Battalion Liaison Officer with the 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade, Americal Division, I traveled with the CO of that unit, Lieutenant Colonel Albert L Russell, Jr, around one of the most notorious mined areas (area of operation: AO) in Vietnam: the My Lai area. In his C&C (command & control) chopper, we frequently made emergency landings to take wounded GIsblackened and bleeding from explosions that had frequently ripped off their arms and/or legsto the nearest MED station. Colonel Russell was criticized for using his C&C ship as a MEDIVAC chopper, but he just told his critics to go f**k yourselves! Later, I served as the Brigade Liaison Officer of the 11th Infantry Brigade, commanded by the often drunk Colonel Oran K Henderson, who was later put on trial for the My Lai massacre. After, exonerated. Every time we went up in his C&C ship, he ordered the pilot to go as high as possible out of small arms range, and never once did we land to give aid to a grunt who had been wounded by a US Army artillery projectile turned into a lethal concealed explosive device imbedded by our shrewd enemy. FTA! Were you decorated by the US Army for your services in Vietnam? Yes, I was. But here, too, some explanation must be offered. Medal awarding in Vietnam turned into a sort of gift giving party, and the idea was to give the boys something to go home with. My own medals were given to me under false premises, and even today, I think that the US Army would still be interested in making a hero of me, when I am dead, although I do not consider myself a hero of the Vietnam War. Therefore, quod erat demonstrandum, my body has been bequeathed to the Universit degli Studi di Firenze (The University of Florence) in Italy. My reason for doing this is twofold: I want to express my appreciation to Science for all it has done both for my fellows and for me; and, I do not want to give adolescent-minded Pentagon pranksters the opportunity to pull a dirty trick on me.

Few have ridiculed and discredited the world's most potent military force more than I haveso I am told. I revel in this distinction, and I am proud as punch that I could have seen through the camouflage of the United States Army, arrive at its essence, and thus reveal its perfidiousness to all. I want to relate two incidents that will explicate my thinking for you, my dear reader... In the autumn of 1967, I was assigned by the Fourth Division Headquarters in Pleiku, Vietnam, to assist the assistant Adjutant General of the infamous Snowflake Division in the writing up of awards and decorations for soldiers who had served in the Central Highlands. If an individual had been cited for performing in some exceptional, exemplary fashion, and it had been determined that recognition was forthcoming, I had to evaluate eyewitness accounts to ascertain what reward might be warrantable for a soldier's particular performance. My recommendations would have to be approved by higher-ups. Strict guidelines and SOPs were referred to and then applied accordingly so that a semblance of rationality and righteousness might be meted out. It was not long before I realized that many of my written good wordscarefully studied and in accordance with regulations as best I could judicatewere being rejected by senior officers. I actually had been requested to rewrite most of them. I was awkwardly disappointed because I concluded that I was doing something wrong. When I questioned my superiors I was informed that I was being too strict in my interpretations and that I should be more liberal in grading what medal was deserved by whatever soldier. I asked why. The response: Lieutenant, we have to give the boys something to go home with. Two or three months before my DEROS (date of separation from the Army) euphoria, I was summoned to the 11th Infantry Brigade's HQ (Americal Division) by Lieutenant Hoover assigned to the Adjutant General's section. I was informed I had been chosen to receive the Bronze Starthe Army's fifth highest medal awarded for bravery. I was shocked. I immediately told Hoover that there was no logical reason for me to be decorated because I had never performed an act of derring-do in Vietnamexcept for one: I had put up with the United States Army for two years! He explained that no officer in our unit had left Vietnam without some medal or decoration or other. I was ordered to accept the medal! Hoover, an (OCS) Officer Candidate School product (90-day Wonder) and more dullwitted than a West Pointer, if you could imagine that, then asked me if I would be so kind as to help him scribe the narrative for my

medal because he was not good at writing the English language, and besides, I had had experience composing awards and decorations! I was dumbfounded and went along with the ruse. I corrected his grammatical errors, and then he submitted the paperwork to Division HQ. It was disapproved. Reason? There was not enough blood and guts in it! On his own, Lieutenant Hoover falsified further my merits on the battlefield, and later told me that because of his knaveries, the kudo was authenticated. My fellow Americans, now you know why thousands of Vietnam veterans, who had massed for protests 21 October 1967 against the Vietnam War at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, threw their awards and decorations onto a garbage heap! There exists no brake to slow the Pentagon's megalomania. Might is right for them. Once they've got you by your balls, they expect your heart and mind to follow them on their military jaunt across the world bent on conquering it. Nothing would please these overzealous ones, these swivel-chair warriors more than anything than to prevaricate that I had made a deathbed conversion to their madness thus guaranteeing for me a burial place in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors! Grave robbing is right up their alley. Requiescat in pace for me on a marble slab in the University of Florence! If I pass from this world in your presence here in Italy, please call the Anatomy Department at 055-410084 and tell them to sharpen their scalpels! Have you written anything about your experiences in Venezuela? Yes, I have. So many experiences, good and bad, befell me when I was there. In the beginning of 1983, the year I left Venezuela for good to transfer to Italy, I was terribly concerned about the violently deteriorating political and economic condition that then existed. My friend and English student, Roberto, from Montecatini Terme, Italy, suggested that one such as you should go to Italy or France. He told me a great deal about Firenze (Florence), and because his parents owned a hotel in Montecatini, I thought that would make my jump somewhat a soft landing. (I think today that I should have gone to France instead of Italy.) When I arrived in Montecatini, I almost immediately began to write the first part of a trilogy about Venezuela, Men Without Honor, Women Without Love,

that I had planned to construct. (I only finished the first book of the three.) I wrote a draft of the book on an OLIVETTI Elektron typewriter, and the first draft came to 483 pages. Then I rewrote it with the corrections and amendments I had cited and edited on the first copy. (Every day these days I thank my stars for the invention of the computer!) I had no luck trying to get it published, and then put it in my desk drawer where it remains today. In that book I predicted the coming revolution in Venezuela, and the reasons why a ferocious turning on the political and economic scene was on the horizon. I tried my best to inform people about that coming tragedy. I even had luck enough to have one of Europe's most famous literary agents, Paul Fritz in Zrich, Switzerland, offer help to me in trying to find a publisher in Germany. Again, no good fortune. Many years later when my niece Bernadette, a Naval officer then stationed at the Sigonella naval base in Sicily and the base's protocol officer, came to visit with me in Florence, I gave her a copy of Men Without Honor, Women Without Love and asked her to hand deliver it to the Central Stupidity Agency in Langley, Virginia! Bernadette was one of the first women to attend the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and when I asked how she could have done something so stupid, she responded so: It was the biggest mistake I've ever made! The DisUnited States government still doesn't get it about Venezuelaand never will. Were you honorably discharged from the US Army? Yes, I was. I'm such a nice person! So much so, I've never even thought of killing any of the imbeciles who were responsible for sending us to Vietnam! You have written a book of poetry about the Vietnam War? What is your favorite poem? I've Got Sunshine on a Cloudy Day... Medivac with blood-blotched pack, From the sky in frenzied dive. Heads upped high with thoughts aside, Tried green stretcher for last ride.

Rock of Ages lades the air, Greeny soldiers stooped in prayer. Surgeons in tent stern and fast, Joust with Death to let life last. Burnt green pants ripped off then thrown, Steel pail brimmed with red-stained gown. Spurts of blood dart at bright light, Blood-soaked gauzes once quite white. Pale face now fixed without life, Dog tag snatched and sent to wife. Plastic gray bag zipped and weighed, Homeward jet: soon...slow...parade. Doctors, nurses light up butts, There's some rest in Quonset huts. Red guck hosed off chopper's floor, Snapping blades twirl round for more. To my hootch the shout to march: Up and at it! F-O-R-W-A-R-D, 'ARCH! Resigned to live, not to die, I'm shrewd and spry through each eye. In my head the dead man's face, Exhorts me not to act in haste. Not with friends, I look about, Noting some on Nature's Lot. In the dim of Mors and storms, There's a store of Earthly forms. Wet tree leaves tint morning mist, Verdant grass fonds in my fist. Nature lures me 'long its way, My sunshine on a cloudy day. Authored by Anthony St. John 1 October 1995 I'm really proud of this poem! Do you work for the Central Intelligence Agency? Have you ever worked for the Central Intelligence Agency?

Of course I work for the Central Stupidity Agency! I'm always telling them how stupid they are! They want to know why! Hope springs eternal! There are supposed to be seventeen intelligence agencies in the US government, and these Haunts of Paranoia have made Americans feel scared of their own shadows. We must ask ourselves: Why is the Central Stupidity Agency a secret organization? Because in that way we cannot know how stupid they are! If Americans knew how dumb the Central Stupidity Agency was, millions of Americans would start s****ing in their pants and that would cause an incredibly difficult sanitary problem. I am not a salaried employee. The DisUnited States' government is so strapped for cash, I just could not accept money or benefits from them. They have enough problems with budget requirements, I would not wish to add to their difficulties. All the directors of the Central Stupidity Agency that I have worked under read my writings, and they regularly visit my www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior to know what I am thinking. I'm an out-of-the-box thinker, so Langley is very interested in knowing what my thoughts are and how they function. Remember, I lived in Venezuela for a good stretch, and I have been a resident of Italy since 1983 trying to understand Italy. I consider myself an Italianist. I would be the first to say I don't know everything I would want to know about Italy, yet I am genuinely enthusiastic about learning what makes Italy tick. The directors of the Central Stupidity Agency are also furious with me for having changed the name of the agency! Wherever I go, I tell people I have modified the name of the Central Intelligence Agency to read the Central Stupidity Agency, and I get a plethora of laughs. I am serious about what I think about the Central Stupidity Agency because their history has not been brilliant. Why? Let me tell you...Upon the termination of the Second World War, when Western Europe, on its knees, was set back perhaps irreparably and the ludicrous Cold War was about to take the initiative, the DisUnited States' secret services were disorganized and in disarray. For more than a decade they had concentrated unrelentingly on winning the until then most tragic of wars. Most intelligence agents were paunchy university grads draped in military uniforms which did not become themthey, most of whom, did not know how to load a weapon. A panic of sorts ensued. With the territorial acquisitions strong handedly accrued through treaties and political and economic transactions with defeated World War II belligerents, the DUS suddenly realized that the role of leader of the world had been uncannily foisted upon it. It had title to more vacant worldwide lots than God's favorite real estate agents slaving away for Vatican, Inc.

Everyone in Washington was perplexed. A jurisdictional inventory, with a planetary view, had to be effectuated post haste. Just what the DUS had inherited had to be accounted for and documented. Data had to be accumulated. Agents had to be dispersed overseas. A viable intelligence agency had to be constituted. The image of the Don Giovanni spy with superhuman characteristics was mythicized to cover up the ineptitude of the fledgling organization. History did very well in those days not because the Central Intelligence Agency was so intelligent, but more because the CIA did not know what was really going on, and so, it was more prone to see events progress naturally without its butting in in order to distort certain realities. In effect, the CIA was gathering particulars to eventually reason out into a generalized mindset. The fact-gathering was performed diligently but not yet electronically. For decades dossiers documenting the DUS's topographic possessions were piled high, and when data-collecting became more sophisticated at the dawn of the electronic age, information was obtained still more assiduously and catalogized more perspicaciously for easier access. To cope with this everexpanding quantity of material, not only was CIA personnel augmented, other governmental agencies also began to establish their own secret service entities within themselves. Unfortunately, in doing so, intelligence agencies became competitors among themselves, and this led to a rush to be the one who could influence more in government the outcome of decisions made at higher levels, and after reap the rewards of the sure as shooting benefits that were bestowed upon those coming out smelling like a rose. Whereas before there had been a paucity of intel information available to government leaders, now there was a glut of facts and figures that was so tremendous, it proved to be difficult to handle, interpret and manage. Regardless, the intelligence revolution had been initiated. From a state of not knowing, the intelligence community had been switched to one of knowingknowing even too much. It had lost its open-mindedness, its objectivity. During this process, most miserably, a feeling of superiority manifested itself in an overbearing manner, and presumptuous claims were wont to be held by the often sullied 000s. The Central Intelligence Agency is now a bureaucracy of only being in the know at the right time and place. It is imbued with a religious-like fervor to be in the right. Much of this passion derives from its silly mythical, Hollywoodish legend. The Central Intelligence Agency has become the Central Stupidity Agency!

What are your thoughts on journalism? I was a journalist for four print newspapers: The Hollywood Herald (Hollywood, Florida) where I conducted interviews of South Florida personages for a local weekly; The Miami Herald (Miami, Florida) where I was an intern while attending the University of Miami; The Gainesville Sun (Gainesville, Florida) where I performed part time reporting while attending the University of Florida; and, The Daily Journal (Caracas, Venezuela) where I was a copy editor. I never lasted very long at these publications, and I am happy I didn't. I tell people that the reason for this is that at each one of the publishing companies, I concluded that if I had to tell lies, I would prefer to make up my own and write novels! All of these newspaper experiences were frustrating because at each and every one of them, I felt as if I was obligated to follow some line of thought that was not my own, not original. All newspapers must conform to some sort of philosophy because the bottom line is always to increase their readership. Some editors are more tolerant of off-the-wall reporting, but in the final analysis no one working for an established news agency can stray very far from the line that must be towed. There are some interesting publications which attempt to challenge the thinking of their readers, but they do not garner a wide readershipin generaland suffer the lack of an abundant advertising support. In a recent edition, August 2013, of the Editor & Publisher magazine, the statistics show that for the well-established print news publications, the drop in print versus online advertising revenue has been staggering. From 2003 to 2012, print outlets have lost about 50% of their ad income. I know why. People are not stupid! They are sick and tired of the old conservative style of journalism for the simple reason they afford readers only all the news that is fit to print! What have they left out? That is, newspaper owners and staff have been for decades feeding us a line that we wish today did not exist. Their line. Online reporters are being more honest with us, and they are challenging the Old Guard about that which they frequently fudged on in their strong-arm tactics to augment cash flow: The Truth. I have no sympathy for the print mediain general. Newspapers leave dirty black smudges on your fingers. And most importantly, newspapers come from trees, and I very much like trees! Don't you?

Authored by Anthony St. John 22 August MMXIII Calenzano, Italy www.scribd.com/thewordwarrior