Beyond Anger

Okay, really.

I've always been against progress. You should've seen the fit I threw in highschool when my parents replaced the carpet at our river cottage. I just don't handle change well, and I'm not ashamed of it either. Why can't things stay the same? Why does all this damn PROGRESS have to screw up my perfectly merry little life?!

Earlier this week I noticed that NPR has begun to refer to themselves as "public media." They're really stressing the "American Public Media" part of their organizations. They chummily say "Brought to you by APM... American Public Media." BARF. Because their news isn't confined to their radio broadcasts. It's all online as well. LiveStream Audio! You can find every program in full in our Archives section! Want to contact us? Find our email address on our Website! Do you know that they don't read the local snow closures on the radio anymore? They give you the newest closures, then tell you you can find the full list on their website. Martin is told by text message that he doesn't have to go in to the office during a blizzard. Everything is so amazingly technological these days, it seriously disgusts me. If you want to be tech savvy, go right ahead. But I don't see why everyone on the earth has to follow suit just because it's convenient. Convenient for whom, anyway?

Mothering Magazine has now become a "web only" publication. This infuriates me. I am absolutely crazed by this. Mothering Magazine has been my drop of love in the mailbox for the past three years. Before I was a subscriber I would go to Barnes & Noble and flip through the pages while enjoying a mocha. (I didn't buy it, I admit this. I wasn't even pregnant when I started read Mothering, and I thought it would look really weird to be buying a magazine on natural parenting when it wasn't even a guarantee that I'd ever have children.) Since those days I have looked forward to every issue, checking the mailbox repeatedly until the mail arrived, day after day, until finally the blessed new issue would be there! And Martin would happily send me out for my bit of time alone to have a cup of coffee and enjoy every page of every article, every pretty advertisement, every letter from their readers. I enjoyed every PAGE of Mothering Magazine and I never threw away an issue. I have them all still... I've even ordered a few issues from the days before I had kids. You might say I'm a little bit obsessed. I don't care.

And let me tell you something else: I've been to the Mothering.com website. I've been there maybe two or three times because I find it to be SO overwhelming and SO confusing that I just can't stand it. And now I'm being FORCED to keep up my subscription to this fine magazine ONLINE?!?!? IT'S A NATURAL FAMILY MAGAZINE. I cannot BELIEVE that they've moved to be "web only." Ugh. The very term makes my skin crawl.

I am fuming. Really fuming. I might add that Martin saw the email in his inbox saying that the online issue was now available.... he didn't READ the email though, so I just did, and so just found out about their new..... sculduggery.

And you know what else? I don't WANT another computer. We've been talking that maybe we need to break down and get one. I've been missing the blogs more lately, and paying more attention to emails and stuff.... or at least thinking about them more. But I'm done. I'm moving to the Ozarks. Or the Amazon. Yeah, I bet that got you! Remember when the Amazon was a river? Does the word "rainforest" ring a bell? Type it into Google and see what comes up. Those times were long ago.

It's a sad, sad, sad, sad world, that's for sure.