Thanks to Covid, I Now Own a Newspaper
An ode to the trials and tribulations that urge us toward far greater goals than we might choose under easier circumstances.
Thursday, August 25th, 2022
Dear Freedom Friends,
Every day, when that vague, tickling sensation of guilt washes over me (usually at the same time that I checked my inbox and saw Dr. Malone’s amazingly consistent Substack Articles!), I say to myself: “It’s okay, March. You are writing for your readers - they just don’t know it!” And now you do…
How did this come to pass? Well now, that is a story worth telling! Because, I am you and you are me and we are we, at this wild and crazy time in history, and the story of the “Loop Reboot” is a quintessential example of how challenge can cause us to rise up and achieve far more than we might otherwise think possible.
But first, as an aside, I am writing this while sitting at a small table, beside an open window on the top floor of an old building in Bath, England, just three blocks away from the Jane Austen House and another three blocks distant from the rightfully famous Roman Baths. After twenty years, I’m finally on my way to visit my mother in Scotland!
So, back to the question of where I’ve been for the past month (or longer) and the answer is: “I’ve been fighting the good fight, working toward liberty and the exercise of our hard-won right to Speech that is free from suppression!”
Because, that’s what we’re really looking for, isn’t it? That’s what “Freedom of Speech” is all about, right? The lack of control, punishment or threat, should our thoughts - spoken or written - disagree with those currently possessing (and abusing) power.
Over the past two months, my writing energies have not been absent, but temporarily co-opted by the start-up requirements of a freshly re-booted community paper! This summer, I have gone from being one of our many silenced community members…to a proud (and quite busy) owner of an actual paper that enjoys a multi-decade following, will be printed on newsprint in B&W, and which contains columns and articles, breaking news and opinion pieces, jokes and quotes and poems and even a Horoscope!
Why is this so? One simple reason. I (and my friends) got good and sick and tired of being shut down, silenced and suppressed.
That’s the beautiful hope I offer today, and I love that I’m announcing this to you while I’m sitting, as Jane Austen did for so many years, at a small table, beside a window, listening to the gulls and the foot traffic as I jot down my thoughts about the drama of the day. Do we love Jane’s stories because they extolled the virtues of compliance and adherence to societal norms? Did any of her characters ensure a wonderful future for themselves by shelving their own thoughts and adopting the attitudes and behaviors of the majority?
I think not.
For each of us, there is a straw that will not break the camel’s back so much as it is strengthen it! The proverbial straw that lifts us up out of frustration, outrage, anger and dismay and tosses us firmly onto the boat of conviction and action. As Joan Baez so eloquently reminds us - it is within action, that we will find the antidote to despair!
This isn’t about “getting busy’ so we’re distracted from the BS. It’s about finding the path forward that works for each one of us. The project that lodges itself within our heart, feeling so very right, despite the hard work required to bring it to fruition. What so many of us are seeking is the pathway that leads away from endless complaining and directly into the tiredness that comes of good works.
For some people, their path will land them on the International Stage. Others will step into their place of influence and positive effect at the federal, state or county level, while still others will become suddenly prominent in the world of academia and social media (like Jordan Peterson), at the exact moment when so many need them.
For me (after two years of observing dangerously draconian narratives around the world - but especially throughout the West - and after escaping two winters in a row to the deep desert and the liberated minds of a conservative county), it was not simply the experience of coming home to my midnight blue island where I bore bravely the blatant exclusion, illogical bigotry and egregious behavior of people drunk on power.
For me, it was a letter refused.
When I moved to the island, there were two papers. One was owned locally and ran mostly opinion columns. The other had been created locally, but was eventually sold off to a company that has been collecting local papers like seashells on a beach ever since the 1980’s. And, whether real or merely local legend, I believed that a promise was made to islanders: if we wrote a letter to the editor, and it followed their basic guidelines, they would print it.
Even if it criticized the paper or touched upon a hot issue. We would have a voice in our local paper via the “letters to the editor” section, because it was our island paper.
I’ve tested this promise many, many, many times over the past 20 years, and I’m not the only one. Islanders have touched upon every hot topic imaginable! And never have I heard of or experienced a letter being refused - until this June. For the first time, since the Pandemic began, I and two of my friends decided to send in three letters, addressing different aspects of the previous week’s content that we were severely concerned about. Two of us were refused.
And that was it. The final, wispy thin, golden colored, crackly shaft of straw that landed on our burdened shoulders — and broke our will to continue “putting up with” the BS. We were horrified at the outright silencing of our voices, and from this came the kernel of the greatest of ideas!
For now, let me say, our Editorial Team is fueled by a desire to serve our whole community.
Learn more here: VashonLoop.com
And now, I’ll leave you all with a thought.
When we consider the role of the Roman Empire in the conquest, development and changing beliefs of the British Isles (known by the Romans as Britannia)…is it not reasonable to say that the British are an enduring extension of the Roman Empire? Consider how much was “borrowed” from the Romans, in language, faith, technology and law? If so, then is not the United States of America next on the generational tree? A further derivative of the Mediterranean influences which together, from Ancient Greece to Israel, influenced the formation of the Roman Empire?
And, if so, then what does this mean?
What bustling ease it is to imagine two other Austenites keen to sit writing at that very desk and window.
“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.” —William Shedd