During the most recent presidential election cycle I found myself growing increasingly bothered by the way “news” was being packaged. Instead of giving pertinent facts in their context we were given a carefully procured set of facts packaged within ideological analysis. I was expecting the blatant slanting of stories to end with the election cycle but have been patently disappointed.

This disappointment set me on a search to find a news outlet that reports relevant facts without telling me how I’m supposed to interpret those facts. My search ended with The Wall Street Journal.

Disclosure: I now subscribe to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). I do not know anyone personally at the WSJ and have not been asked by or influenced by anyone associated with the WSJ to share my viewpoint. My viewpoint does not represent the WSJ or any other entity. It represents only my current opinion (which is apt to change).

Three Views–One Story

Consider this news story as told by three different news sources. I think you’ll get the gist of what I’m trying to say.

Disclosure: The “news story” below is not real … I made it up … all of it.

The Wall Street Journal Version

Small Colorado Town Concerned Over Break-ins

Today’s Date, Noname, CO

The small Colorado town of Noname is conveniently located near the trail heads of three popular hiking trails. Over the weekend five cars parked at one of the trail entrances had their windows smashed and valuables removed. The town’s mayor, Alice Doe, weighed in on the break-ins by saying “These are the first incidents of this kind in several years. Our city benefits from the tourists brought in by these trails so we will certainly be taking a closer look at the situation.”

The Version Given by Many Major Media Outlets

Anchor: Our lead story this morning is about break-ins that occurred in Noname, CO. Here is our field correspondent …

Field Correspondent: Yes. Five cars were broken into at the trail entrance of a popular trail near Noname, CO. I spoke with a hiker who said he didn’t hear any windows being smashed while out on the trail. I also spoke to a representative of LiberalOrganization who indicated that these sort of break-ins are typically done by poor people who are looking for food for their children … [cut to said representative]

Rep of LiberalOrganization: The “American People” are tired of being poor while the rich get richer. These kinds of break-ins show what a terrible state this country is in. And things are only getting worse with Trump in office. [cut back to anchor]

Anchor: We brought in our analyst to help us understand what is happening here. So, analyst, is what we just heard true … that the rich are getting richer?

Analyst: We just compiled numbers and yes it true as you can see from this graph. [Cut to display of unitless graph]

Anchor: You know, Rep of LiberalOrganization didn’t say anything about the environmental impact of camping.

Analyst: Yes, a lot of people probably view camping as being an environmentally friendly form of recreation. What people need to realize is that most, if not all, of these campers also have houses they live in when not camping and they drive SUVs long distances to transport their camping gear. The greenhouse emissions required to manufacture all of their redundant equipment is undoubtedly contributing to global warming. Scientists tell us that if sea levels rise just 1 foot, the damage will be measured in trillions of dollars. That may be the real story here.

Anchor: In other news, several actors have expressed their opinions on …

The Version Given by the Only Major Right-Leaning Media Outlet

Anchor: Our lead story this morning is about break-ins that occurred in Noname, CO. Here is our field correspondent …

Field Correspondent: Yes. Five cars were broken into at the trail entrance of a popular trail near Noname, CO. I asked several hikers how they felt knowing that criminals were lurking in the parking lots. Here are some of their responses …

Hiker #1: I’ve always felt safe when hiking before.

Hiker #2: It’s scary to think there might be criminals lurking in parking lots.

Anchor: Scary indeed. We’ve brought in our analyst to talk about the increase in crime during the Obama administration. Analyst, is the fear echoed by these hikers justified?

Analyst: Well, as you can see from this graph [cut to display of unitless graph] some types of crime have indeed increased during the time Obama was in office. This gives credence to the claims of Donald Trump that Obama was soft on crime.

Anchor: Thankfully Trump is making “the rule of law” a priority.

Analyst: Yes, but the real story here is the importance of our second amendment rights. Many would argue that you can’t trust the federal government to protect your property so arming yourself may be only way to curb these kinds of crimes moving forward.

Anchor: In other news, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up …

The post Why I Read the Wall Street Journal appeared first on Slap the Scissors.

Rex Fleming’s funeral is today. His life and death have touched many. For me it has brought back fond memories of the time I was able to spend with Tom Kim before his death. What follows is a personal remembrance I wrote about Tom. Prior to this posting I had only shared this with a handful of people.  I hope that this posting will serve to prolong Tom’s legacy and to remind us all that we are only passing through.

Tom Kim

Tom Kim

Tom Kim had lived a lot of life by the time we became acquainted. Since his arrival in the U.S. as a young man, he had earned various degrees culminating with a Ph.D. in Economics. This was followed by a full-blown academic career ranging from achieving a rank of full professor at Texas Tech University before moving on to serve as president of McMurry University for over 20 years. He couldn’t bear an idle retirement and so continued in academia as a faculty member, first for Abilene Christian University and then for Hardin-Simmons University.

Meeting Tom Kim

I first met Tom at a “new faculty party” for the college of business at Hardin-Simmons. Tom loved to recount the circumstances of our meeting. As a new faculty member, I was meeting many of my colleagues for the first time. Tom introduced himself to me and upon hearing that my discipline was computer science, announced that I should plan to handle any regular computer problems myself, but that he would be happy to take care of the especially difficult problems for me! The part of the story that Tom never repeated, though, is that Charles Walts overheard our exchange and vociferously assured me that Tom would be no help at all with my computer problems!

We had a good laugh, but the true humor of that exchange was revealed when Tom repeatedly called me into his office when he needed help on his computer! As our friendship grew I began to announce, prior to providing “computer help”, that I charged $150 per hour for my services. Over the years Tom developed a number of comebacks for my announcements. His most successful was that he was charging me an equivalent amount for tidbits of Abilene news that he provided on occasion.

The “Book Club”

Other than occasional visits to Tom’s office to answer computer questions I had little interaction with Tom during my first year at Hardin-Simmons. It was at about that time I made a decision that turned out to be life-changing. I had begun reading a book and decided that I would benefit from hearing a wise economist’s viewpoint on the material. In a precocious move, I visited Tom’s office and asked if he would be willing to read a book and meet with me once a week to discuss it. I will forever remember Tom’s response because he did not give me an immediate answer. Instead he asked about the book and then told me he needed time to think about his answer.

The next day, to my relief, Tom agreed and we began meeting. It was no surprise that our discussions encompassed far more than our reading material and a friendship ensued. Before we had finished our book Tom suggested that we choose another book to start as soon as we had finished the first one. After completing several books, Tom began to dub our meetings the “Book Club.”

The Book Club meetings continued weekly up until shortly before his death and evolved over time. One of the more dramatic changes was the admittance of Mike Monhollon into the Book Club. The extension of membership to Mike was preceded by much deliberation on the part of Tom. He was hopeful that Mike would be a dedicated and worthy member, but didn’t want to ruin a good thing! Part of the cost of membership to Mike was that he had to agree to eat Thai food each week. Of this agreement, Mike was reminded often!

Another tangential development of the Book Club was that when Mike was unable to attend (often as a result of his deanly duties), Tom and I would still meet–but not discuss the book. Over time, we began to share many meals that were not related to the Club, but were just two friends enjoying Thai food together.

Personal Lessons

I learned many things about Tom during our lunches. One fact that became quickly evident was Tom’s devotion to his family. Whether speaking of his faithful wife, his over-achieving siblings, his highly successful children, or his beloved grandchildren, Tom was eager to discuss his family. His grandchildren, in particular, were a favorite conversation piece.

Tom also, on occasion, gave insights into the profession of collegiate academia and helped me understand some of its mysterious workings … though, much remains a mystery to me. During our lunches I learned small parts of his upbringing. Of particular interest was that Tom grew up in China as a result of the Japanese occupation of Korea. His father was a Korean patriot who help maintain a provisional Korean government in revolution against the Japanese occupiers. From that background grew a collection of siblings who seized life by the horns and used education to provide security for themselves and their families.

Lessons from Cleaning an Office

Another opportunity to learn more about this great man came with an assignment he gave me shortly before his death. Due to ill health, Tom had decided to forgo teaching and asked me to clean out his office. One of the first insights I gained from this experience was that Tom didn’t throw anything away! In a similar vein, he preferred to use graph paper for note-taking and had squirreled away a stack of graph paper tablets well over 2 feet tall. For each tablet there must have been 3 or 4 binder clips that were recovered as well. There was no shortage of red pens, either! I’m no psychologist, but I suspect the tendency to keep so many supplies on hand was a natural reaction to the stress his family must have endured living as refugees in Shanghai, China.

On a less trivial note I learned that Tom was a giver and receiver of thank you notes. I had on one or two occasions been the recipient of one of his very gracious, hand-written thank you notes. I found that he kept copies of many notes he had written over the years. I also learned that he had been, at least once, the recipient of the “Outstanding Citizen of Abilene Award”. It was interesting that one of his hand-written notes was to congratulate an individual for receiving the same award.

As I sorted through papers and books, there was evidence of an economist who had been highly active in his profession. There were a number of published articles, his own text book on the mathematics of economics, and notes from aspiring academics who he mentored.

More prominent than his professional record was an obvious devotion to teaching. As I sorted through folder after folder of class notes, it became clear that Tom had re-written notes from one semester to the next. Each notebook was filled with hand-written notes, graphs, and copies of current articles printed from the Internet. Many of his hand-drawn graphs were copied onto transparencies for viewing on an overhead projector. I assume that his preference for transparencies over presentation software was related to the fact that my hourly consulting rate was so high.

Although I tried to be careful not to read any confidential material I would sometimes catch glimpses of various items in my attempt to decide whether they should be kept, shredded, or recycled. The only comment from student evaluations that I read said this:

That’s an assessment to which I aspire, though I suspect it will take more than 60 years of teaching for me to arrive!

Questions to Ask

After I finished the project of sorting through Tom’s office, I took a couple of boxes of “high priority” items to his house along with lunch that my wife brought in from Szechuan Chinese Restaurant. I didn’t realize that would be the last time I would see him in person. The process of sorting Tom’s papers caused me to do a lot of thinking about what a person might find if they cleaned out my own office. I suppose the complementary question is

I’m still working on answers to those questions. In the mean time I’m left with a hole where Tom used to be and am getting a glimpse of of how one can drift over time from hanging dearly on to life to a place where the draw of those who have passed before makes moving on a natural next step. One thing I admire about Tom is that he was learning, growing, and making friends up until his death. He was in his mid- to late- seventies when we first met. He had no shortage of friends when I came into his life and yet he gave me access to his rich history and wisdom.

Although I miss Tom I’m thankful for his investment in me. I hope I will be able to emulate much of his life and that when mine is done we’ll together enjoy some delicious Thai cuisine and recount the story of how we met.

Terry Sergeant
(orginally penned on 26 Mar 2012)

—Colton Burpo to Harold on his death bed in Heaven is For Real

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