Would you teach your children to tell the truth?

Would you teach your children to tell the truth?
Would you take the high road if you could choose?

—John Mellencamp, “Your Life is Now”

From day one back in the Johnny Cougar days, I have had an affinity for John Mellencamp, a heart-of-America songwriter who uses his entertainment reach to leave the world a bit better, even if he is a bit of an asshole sometimes.

His lyrics beckon in the lexicon of the American psyche that something had gone immeasurably wrong, that we have lost our way.

In “Justice and Independence ’85,” he says that when justice walked away, a nation cried. In his album cover for “Scarecrow,” he references Job from the Old Testament, stating there is nothing new under the sun. And I think he is saying that the social injustices he sings about on that album are not new—just the same pig with different lipstick.

As a regular commentator on political matters who necessarily sees his own transgressions and hypocrisies, I realize that if I am not part of the solution, I am part of the problem. I choose the former. I would hope you would too.

With the tacit understanding that advertisement and subsequent profit is the lifeblood of any organization that purports to bring about the “story,” I am fortunate, it seems, to be on board with one that places that second to the more important role we play in maintaining the Fourth Estate.

You see, we have come to a place where some publications publish stories to draw your interest to their advertisers. Kind of like why Hugh Hefner’s rag had naked girls in it. (Yes, you should feel just as dirty.)

Whereas the more virtuous thing is to seek advertising dollars in an effort to bring attention to the stories being published.

Soap box aside, you might be asking what my point here is.

Simple: Think nationally and act locally. It is time for some serious effing house cleaning in this little town, and if those who are in the judicial and executive branches here are too enmeshed with the corrupt local monoculture’s stranglehold on what every damn one of us knows is right and wrong, then perhaps it is time for some reporters to get off their asses and do some journalism.

Rats in dark corners hate light.

But can I ask a question and aim it at those who know they are abusing their positions? What the hell do you tell your children?

Bastards beware.

See you out there.