Dear Naja:

Yes, I’ve been reading The Blue Paper for the past few weeks, but have not been moved to write you due to excesses of the frantic holidays. However, the recent developments of 2015 have shocked my senses of human dignity and civil rights as well as international warfare.

Specifically, I’m talking about today’s horrendous happening in Paris around noon – their time. As I write this at 7:30 – our time – I believe they have rounded up the three young terrorists who murdered the 12-journalists at Charlie Hebdo magazine there. And, so I must say as Parisians now say: “Je suis Charlie.”

However, we as Americans must not conflate the freedom of speech rights of these French satirists with that American community which boldly classifies itself as journalists – members of the Fourth Estate.

More pointedly, America’s national and local print media – as well as those personalities known as news broadcasters – are merely pawns hired to shovel out the corporate spin du jour. Only a few have some literary merit and even less advance challenging insights.

Indeed, our Constitution’s First Amendment is on shaky grounds as the corporations-are-people-too oligarchy fixes its hold on all ideals that used to be called American.

These pseudo-professionals on TV are already jockeying to glorify their jobs as honorable or even heroic. So, beware: such media whores are not journalists. Always challenge them.

In closing, I hope 2015 will be a new year of great clarity, insight and personal joy for you, Arnaud and all your writers and readers.

I had hoped this might be a year in which we would drop the baggage of 2014 and proceed with a laser like vision of a proper life on this planet.

I had hoped we would begin to understand the great harmonies that we could make as a people. But such thoughts now seem to be a personal vanity.

Sincerely,

John N. Gish Jr.

Key West