The Popcorn Stand: Time to celebrate the smart

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to be tolerant of a society who has sympathy only for the misfits, only for the maladjusted, only for the criminal, only for the loser. Have sympathy for them, help them, but I think it’s also a time for all of us to stand up for and to cheer for the doer, the achiever, one who recognizes a problem and does something about it one who looks at something extra to do for his country, the winner, the leader!”

This sounds like a recent statement describing today’s society, right? Actually this was a statement made by Vince Lombardi in the late 1960s expressing his concern on the direction society was heading. To be clear, Lombardi was against helping those who he believed to be immoral. He just didn’t wan’t to CELEBRATE them. He wanted to celebrate the winner. And Lombardi wasn’t just talking about the scoreboard. In Lombardi’s book if you made the effort to do the right thing, you were a winner.

I believe if Lombardi was around today he would likely make a similar statement that it’s time to celebrate the smart. To crave knowledge. I realize as the Executive Assistant Editor of the Sierra Nevada Media Group, Nevada Appeal Division, Newsroom Branch, my position isn’t nearly as prestigious as when I first started in this profession 28 years ago.

But when my president, yes I refer to him as my president because he won the election fair and square, says the media are the enemy of America, it bothers me.

He says my profession is the enemy of America. The profession I take pride in. I’m not supposed to take that personally? As the Executive Assistant Editor of the Sierra Nevada Media Group, Nevada Appeal Division, Newsroom Branch, of course I take it personally.

Call me biased, fine. Criticize my grammar. OK. Say I’m politically correct for being so easily offended. Fine. But I’m not the enemy. I’m someone who does the best he can to provide information — to provide knowledge — and I take pride in that.

We may slip up from time to time, but I’ve seen what passes as information – as knowledge – on all these so-called news websites on Facebook, social media, the interwebs or whatever and the vast majority of it is just hearsay. If I abided by the lack of standards these sites have, I would no longer have a job at the Nevada Appeal. And I’m proud of that.

Yes, it’s time to celebrate the smart.

— Charles Whisnand