The Fourth Estate

It’s a funny thing about internet news outlets, how easily they can be filtered. It would be much easier to deny access to an internet site than newspaper that goes out to homes on paper.

This is why I lament the trouble that the newspaper industry finds itself in.

The term “fourth estate” was coined by Edmund Burke, who looked up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons and said, ‘Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.'”

The press is critically important to a  free society, and while the internet is currently a gushing tap(at least in this country, it is very much controlled in others), it would be very easy to shut the spigot off.

This is one of the reasons I keep the subscription to my local newspaper. Other reasons include that it’s good for starting fires and it cleans glass without leaving lint.

Roll Call Voting (again?)

I read today in the Post & Courier that our state senate president, Glenn McConnell has said that roll call voting is a waste of time and money.

Perhaps we should say that any bill that does not demand roll call voting is the real waste of time and money.

Let’s just get this done and move on to more pressing matters, shall we?