Why Keep Writing?

This March marks my 10th year as a contributor to The Richfield Patch…and oh, the territory my op-eds have covered! From What is this thing called QAnon? to the unnecessary Richfield Band Shell to the underappreciated actor Vic Morrow, the list of topics I’ve written about seems as vast and eccentric as my curiosity. Needless to say, my curiosity about nearly everything and everybody has often led me to focus on ideas and information that other writers want to ignore.

That’s what I like to write about: the “unfinished stories.” You know what I mean, dear readers, even if you haven’t quite decided why so much you read or hear feels so unfinished nowadays. I’m talking about stories that everyone has an opinion about without really knowing about. More specifically, I’m talking about news without information that’s vital to your understanding… The stories that delete essential data that you need in order to connect all the dots… The news flashes that feel so flashy because important facts are conspicuously missing here and there — although you can’t always tell how conspicuous these omissions really are.

My job here is to research, think, deliberate, then include these missing dots in my writing so you’ll be better able to connect them for yourselves and arrive at your own conclusions.
Latest example of an “unfinished story?” The brouhaha surrounding Walgreens distribution of abortion pills in their pharmacies.

Some news outlets — especially TV news broadcasts — have condensed this story so that Walgreens is either good pharm or bad pharm, depending on the political opinions of viewers needed for their ratings. Other outlets, however, have chosen to take the high road. Newspapers like The New York Times and Washington Post have done more thorough research and given a more complete narrative with names, dates, timelines, and legal analysis. Now that’s what real journalism entails, and that’s how every news story should be handled.

Unfortunately, that kind of treatment doesn’t happen all the time. It should — especially with this subject. Terminating any pregnancy remains a sensitive issue that keeps getting treated with more than enough blatant insensitivity and political bias to flunk Journalism 101 for the next decade. At the heart of this matter with Walgreens, though, is how obtaining a prescription drug can get politicized into a legal feud between states rights vs. federal government outreach. That’s what this story was really about, and that’s why it needed to be thoughtfully reported with accurate information. It wasn’t.

Ironically, some outlets became so worried that they’d be accused of political bias that they deleted essential info they should have included in their reporting.

Here’s what really happened.

Early in 2023 the FDA okayed drug stores like Walgreens( the “brick and mortar” kind) to carry mifepristone, the first pill in a 2-drug medication abortion. Walgreens decided to carry this abortion pill but made the mistake of making a big announcement about their decision. They didn’t need to do this, and the phrasing they used attracted, then rattled, the ire of Anti-Abortionists.

Walgreens made the mistake of saying it would “distribute only in those jurisdictions where it is legal to do so.” Uh-oh.

Well, the Justice Department had already said it WAS legal for the US Postal Service to deliver abortion pills to any state. Besides, Walgreens wouldn’t have broken any law by simply dispensing this abortion pill in states where abortion was already legal. But Walgreens’ public announcement left the door open for 20 State Attorneys General(who happened to be Republicans) to threaten them with legal action. So Walgreens caved in to their “threat.” Although distributing abortion pills in Montana, Kansas, Alaska, or Iowa would have been perfectly legal, Walgreens decided not to…all because of this Anti-Abortionist backlash.

Now Walgreens is getting smacked with a Pro-Choice backlash…Looks like this political feud will probably end up in court.

What’s especially ironic here is that Walgreens and other pharmacies are ALREADY dispensing misoprostol — yet another medication used as the second med in the abortion regimen. You already can get misoprostol with a prescription since it’s used to medicate different medical conditions and not just abortion.

So the real challenge in reporting an emotionally-charged story like this would be to acknowledge both Pro-Choice and Anti- Abortion factions without either vilifying or celebrating Walgreens’ position.

Unfortunately, other communicators wanted to be the first one to break the story and “get the scoop.” So they reported it in the fastest, briefest way possible. That’s not very helpful in aiding anyone’s understanding of anything. On the upside, that’s why I’ll never run out of material for my opinion-editorials.

If the other guys keep taking away all the dots you need to connect, then I’m going to be putting back more dots so you can connect them —- and better understand.

But a funny thing happened to me in 2022, then continued a little longer in 2023…I got stuck in a repetitious vortex that wouldn’t let go. Suddenly, everything I started to write about felt like I’d written about it before…Maybe it was really a deja vu vortex…The same stuff kept happening, and I kept having the same response to it. B-O-R-I-N-G. It felt like Groundhog Day without the irony and accompanying koan.

Once again, Trump was up to his old tricks and getting away with them, even though they were illegal activities done in plain sight. I’ve been sounding the alarm about his fascism since 2016-2017, and he’s still a bona fide fascist — but a lot of people still want to vote for him. Then there’s President Biden, the old guy who can’t do anything right because he’s such an old guy. But no one’s talking about how old Presidents Trump and Reagan were when they worked in the Oval Office. I brought that up in an earlier op-ed, along with stories about loud and illegal fireworks, wacky local government, incompetent policing, and outspoken women who were losing their freedom of speech in the court of public opinion…Same old stuff, different year.

After a decade of posting 188 op-eds, I didn’t want to start quoting myself or repeating the same things I’d written three years ago…but that actually started to happen. Whoa! You deserve something better, dear readers. You deserve something else, something more. So after my lean year of postings you’ll be getting more writing with less yawns. Here’s to another year that’s going to inform and entertain and bring you other perspectives to reconsider.