The Des Moines Register fiasco

Let’s see, subscriptions to The Des Moines Register have risen from $16 to $29 a month during the past year, allegedly to pay for the newest technology that I rather doubt is used by many of its “readers,” the overwhelming majority of whom I suspect are seniors not “hip” to all the modern tech. Throw in the never ending staff layoffs, alarming reductions in the number of subscribers to this Gannett chain paper and, of course, moving to new “quarters” to handle its dwindling operations. Even when service is temporarily cut off due to occasional out-of-state vacations, the subscriber still pays for the cost of services that are not being used. The only apparent “losers” are the contract employees who deliver the paper and not paid for the period when one is not getting the paper. God bless them!

This is a publication that apparently is required by law to provide official public notices of all legal matters, which regularly appear in print in a font size that requires the reader, if interested, to use a magnifying glass to read the “contents.” Have you read the “obit” page as of late and noticed those very large pics of those who have passed away and the lengthy laundry list of their accomplishments/past lives? No doubt a real money-maker, just like the weekly section devoted to those wanting to sell anything including dogs and other “pets.” In case you missed it, you will not have personal contact with one of the paper’s “reps,” as virtually everything you want done is done via automation. Oh, yeah, and you can chat online with one of their “reps,” which I attempted to do recently. That experience, to put it mildly, was a complete fiasco.

Glad to see you are (not surprisingly) on “top” of the situation!

John Hicks’ abortion stance is flawed

In response to “What’s it going to be?” (Guest View, July 25) the fallacies abound in this article. Abortion has been around for a very long time and so has the teaching against abortion. The Didache, a first century document on Christian instructions states, “you shall not procure an abortion, nor practice infanticide.” The suggestion that there has only been opposition to abortion for the last “40 to 50” years is, at best, willful ignorance; at worst, propaganda.

“About eight in 10 Americans believe abortion is taking a life… Then a miscarriage also is taking a life.” On the very face of it, the second part of this invalid argument is a false conclusion. It’s easily refuted in that the first involves the willful taking of a human life and the second is the natural death of a human life. The implication is that the premise and conclusion are somehow morally equivalent. They aren’t.

This article does violence to the truth. It merits a response, not because its author or any abortion supporter will give a fair hearing to the truth, but because there is a moral imperative to uphold the truth always, especially when human life is in the balance.

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