I have a routine every day that I seldom change. I wake up in the dark, perhaps an hour before the sun rises, and lay there thinking about what I need to accomplish; making priority lists in my mind. The items on the top of my list are what I call "money makers". Tasks that affect our farm bottom line. Getting my self exhausted thinking about all that needs to be done, I get out of bed, change and head to the kitchen. I have one of those wonderful coffee pots that brews at a set time so my coffee is ready a bit before 6:00 AM. I ground the beans every night so it's really good coffee. As I walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, I carry my laptop which is downloading a set of news and financial feeds plus some daily newspapers. By the time I get my coffee, I have lots top read. I also do not have to listen to the senseless "talking heads" on the 24 hour news channels. I do turn the television for a moment to the BBC just to see if the world might have ended while I was sleeping and being where we are have no knowledge of the event. In warmer weather, I sit on the porch listening to NPR, having coffee and reading on my laptop.

Beside all the "free" news you can get off the internet and those bothersome newspaper links that make you register, I subscribe to the New York Times and get the complete newspaper every day. It even looks like a newspaper page without ads. Even if you do not agree with the Times editorial content politically, you have to admit it does have a lot of well written articles covering lots of different subjects and broad international news. You can not get that anyplace else in one paper. Its articles are also not written in 7th grade English. Having access to a dictionary while you read the Times is helpful.

I also read the online version of USA Today. It is what I call a shotgun paper. You do not get much depth as it covers lots of subjects "skin deep". That is about all a lot of its readers need or want I guess.

For more than 30 years I have read the Wall Street Journal print edition every day, but that is going to change. Normally I read it in the evening when I have more time and sometime read several days at a sitting. The WSJ is radically right wing politically on its editorial pages and now that the owner of Fox news has taken over it's even more extreme. the WSJ gives me a good dose of that perspective just to get my blood boiling, but it also the best financial news and some international news you can get in an American newspaper. The Financial Times (London) is really the best newspaper for global financial perspective. Now that they have new ownership, the WSJ has gotten greedy. The have more than doubled the price of a subscription, to more than $340 a year. They try to make you feel good telling you that is half of the news stand price. So what! You can get their online edition by subscription for $80 a year, so I will be making that change in November.

I do not read it often, but one of the nation's most respected newspapers in this country, and one often quoted, is The Christian Science Monitor. It has a reputation of solid reporting and is in actually "fair and balanced" which FOX news will never be close to. Very soon this newspaper will no longer be available in a print edition. The times are indeed changing and rapidly for newspapers that are seeing their advertisement and circulation numbers drop monthly. Being online, they can have reduced staff, less cost and still attract readership and advertisers. I would bet that in time more people will read some or all of the Monitor because of this change. I like very much the statement by their editor when making the announcement.

This new, multiplatform strategy for the Monitor will "secure and enlarge the Monitor's role in its second century," said Mary Trammell, editor in chief of The Christian Science Publishing Society and a member of the Christian Science Board of Directors. Mrs. Trammell said that "journalism that seeks to bless humanity, not injure, and that shines light on the world's challenges in an effort to seek solutions, is at the center of Mary Baker Eddy's vision for the Monitor. The method of delivery and format are secondary" and need to be adjusted, given Mrs. Eddy's call to keep the Monitor "abreast of the times."

Americans as a whole are not too aware of the world around them and most do not even know what is going on in their on city. The 24 hour news channels have only worked to diminish our awareness of "real" news. Many Americans think that the right wing radio talk shows are actually factual news.

My case-in-point here is a piece by Sean Hannity. When the price of gasoline was at or above $4 a gallon for days on-air he hit hard on those that opposed offshore drilling in sensitive areas (California) and wonderful beaches (Florida), and Alaskan wilderness areas. He repeated over and over that if we drilled in these areas the price of oil for Americans would drop to $15 a barrel. Hog wash! All of the assumed oil in these areas would amount to less than a few percent of a global supply at peak production. That is the best case.

The price of oil is set on the world market by supply and demand plus a degree of speculation on the future's markets. America has little to no role in impacting this on the supply side. Hannity's followers I am sure believed every word he spoke and thought that even if the world price of oil was $140 a barrel, we could artificially be insulated and our price would be only a fraction of this. Radio talk shows are not news folks, they are entertainment.

Local and national newspapers have been our window to world and one by one they are shrinking, closing and changing format. With all the changes surging around us, I hope that we still have talented journalist that continue to have a venue that "shines light on the world's challenges in an effort to seek solutions".