Friday, August 12, 2011

Does no one have any sense of shame anymore?

Well, I'm pissed off again. Doesn't seem to take much these days. This morning's online edition of the Brattleboro Reformer noted that as of Monday, its' online edition will only be available by subscription. Well, sorta. They will let you read 5 free articles a month. At #6, you get blocked and get the subscription form. $5.99 a month, or $59.95 per year. It's not that the Reformer isn't worth it, and it isn't, what is pissing me off is charging  monies to access everyday information. Public information is becoming a sellable commodity. The NY Times recently deiced to go down that route. And that's the high price spread. I'm sure the local library will continue to purchase the papers and make them available.  If you can get to the library when it's open.  But after the next round of local budget cuts, I won't be surprised to note that funding for the library has been curtailed so they will start charging a fee to read the paper there. And then just to get in the door. This will take us back to the days when libraries were only available by private subscription. It was the free library system, and free equal access schooling, that helped make this country great. That access is what got us out of being an agrarian country dotted with mind numbing mills of the industrial age.  Of course, the thing is that the greedy bastards out there aren't all trying to meld us into worker slaves, which I'm sure they wouldn't mind, it's mostly that they just want to make still more money off of us. And by doing that, what if people aren't so well educated anymore? Let them go and increase and multiply.  Just don't make me pay for it. And when it gets to too many people draining the public coffers well....Coming soon: Life in the resettlement camps. Don't 'cha just love the sound of marching feet?  And the smell of jack boots in the morning....


3 comments:

Austan said...

Amen and well said. I still remember seeing the retaining camp in Indiana- and they're ready and waiting for the likes of us. We'll be Mind Criminals. I wonder what symbol we'll have to wear?

sdt (a.k.a. stevil) said...

>I wonder what symbol we'll have to wear?

a book.

Austan said...

Well as long as it isn't a romance or a western I'll live with it.