As I write this, it's the Tuesday after Christmas—aka the final Tuesday of the year. Tuesday is a word derived of the Greek god Ares and the Roman god Mars, both ancient gods of war.
But these words were lost in the translation into Old English in order to pay homage to an altogether new god, Tius. Then, it became Tews, leaving us with the same word heritage but a day honoring another, different god of war each Tewsday—or Tuesday.
I suppose that's not all bad, despite my extreme bias favoring all things Mediterranean and Greek. I have a near equal bias for all things New World, but alas, by the time the New World was discovered and then obliterated by the Old World, the days of our modern-day calendar were set. That's a shame because the Mayans knew a few things about calendars, too, but they get no accolades when it comes to calendar-naming credits.
Over the years, the word "Tuesday" has had its moments. Plenty of songs include mention of Tuesday, such as "Ruby Tuesday" by the Rolling Stones. Ruby Marsday just wouldn't cut it. Same as "Aresday Afternoon"—it doesn't have the same cachet as "Tuesday Afternoon," by the Moody Blues.
Not to mention that the worldwide taco industry would crumble if not for Taco Tuesdays. What would we have in Tuesday's stead? Marzipan Marsday? Apple Pie Aresday? The gods knew what they were doing all along.
This Tuesday morning is hellacious in my cut of the Salt Lake Valley—Murray. The wind is howling, and all the items that were in the backyard covered with tarps—albeit haphazardly—are now barely covered. The continuous sounds of those tarps snapping in the wind is unnerving, a reminder that Tuesday still reveres those war gods (primarily, but this is not the time to delve into the nuanced differences between the aforementioned war gods. Let's just say it wasn't all about war as we know it).
I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is that all the bird feed I put out yesterday is also blowing in the wind, leaving just my pilfering backyard squirrels to have at all those seeds, nuts and suet. The few backyard birds I've seen today must be lost.
Many years ago—despite the howling wind of Tuesdays and the cold—I'd go to the porch and pick up my morning paper. In later years, I'd no longer find my paper on the porch but instead, find it lodged somewhere between our street and garage: in the roses, out on the lawn, under the car, anywhere inconvenient. I can't remember the operational directive that allowed for newspaper delivery to become more of a joke than a convenience, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with saving money. I also believe it had to do with priming the pump to get people to adapt to the more convenient online delivery of our daily news.
It may indeed be more convenient to find news online, but it's not necessarily efficient or effective. I don't have to go to any particular newspaper site to find the news. I don't have to search at all, either.
On those cold Tuesday mornings of yore, I found the newspaper in the yard, dried it off, read it front to back before my coffee was cold, and I left home confident that I knew all about all things in the world. And I'd also solved the daily crossword that nearly always had the clue "Roman god of war." On the streets and at work, I met folks whose mornings were ordered like mine, which left us all on the same page when it came to being informed.
Anymore, not so much. The first piece of news that greeted me this morning was a text sent to me linking to a Deadspin countdown that ranked former Utah Jazz point guard John Stockton as the No. 10 Idiot of the Year for 2022. Will our dailies fail to remember that Stockton famously quoted dubious websites and facts while assailing the COVID peril and the efficacy of wearing masks? I'll find out later, I guess. Stockton also wrote a letter in defense of a person who participated in the nefarious Jan. 6, 2021, activities.
That's right. The guy whose statue beckons fans in front of the Vivint Arena is less than a Bacon removed from an insurrection.
Of course, he's welcome to say all of that, as is his constitutional protection. But it underscores what has become of discourse and what is defined as news in this era of online delivery. In the days before our society began the slide of distrusting all things—including the judgment of journalists—Stockton would never have had an outlet to spread his fake news that hundreds of professional athletes were falling over dead "on the pitch, on the field, right on the court" as was his outrageously false position on what happens after a person gets a COVID vaccine.
Without dubious online news sites, manned by even more dubious personalities, Stockton would never have even read the lies he came to believe in the first place. Some people, apparently even rarified folk heroes like John Stockton, revel and find comfort in the chaos. Such folks are easily fooled.
Ironically, Stockton played a game defined by rules, lines and boundaries. Imagine basketball without the rule that the game ended when the clock ran out—like an election.
Imagine every Tuesday like this one, cold and miserable.
It's noon, and I haven't once checked on today's news in our local online newspapers. I'm starting to think more and more they are not only dead in print, but online, too.
Happy New Year.
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