Dear Editor,
I’d like to commend Barbara Roden for the good read she is giving subscribers to The Journal.
People do like to read, believe it or not. I’ve heard a few say they think reading is, well, kind of archaic. With email and texting, why read a newspaper, a book? You can go online and read. But technology will never replace the sheer sensual pleasure of opening a good book or a newspaper.
When I receive The Journal on Thursday morning, I read it over a mug of hot coffee. How satisfying that is! It’s what they call a “cosset”; one of those small but satisfying pleasures that makes life so wonderful.
The editorial page is my favourite. I get a chuckle over the cartoon by Greg Perry, and I enjoy the editorial, the opinion, the letters to the editor. Barbara writes editorials about things that matter.
You might not agree with her opinions, or anyone else’s for that matter. But I think a world without opinions, whether on panels on television talking about the news of the day (Rosemary Barton’s Power and Politics, for example), our world would be a very dull and boring place.
Writing is a skill, like any other; like driving a Kenworth down that mountain with a full load in the middle of winter, for example. Now, that is a skill. Teaching a class of kids with variable learning abilities is another. Debate, negotiating, labour agreements, and political issues are civilized exercises. The old adage “I do not agree with your opinion, but I respect your right to express it” is the mark of a civilized society.
Newspapers, good newspapers, have something to say. Something to read. Just as good books, great literature, can be an emotional, as well as an intellectual, experience.
I want to thank Barbara for doing what I think is a first rate job as editor of The Journal.
Esther Darlington
Former editor, publisher, writer, reviewer
Ashcroft