Rex Smith
Rex Smith, the co-host of The Media Project on WAMC, is the former editor of the Times Union of Albany and The Record in Troy. His weekly digital report, The Upstate American, is published by Substack."
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I have a theory about Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense – or secretary of war, as Donald Trump wants us to call him. I’ve become convinced that he’s simply a fraidy-cat. He’s scared. And I don’t say that lightly. -
To start with a bit of personal history: I was the drum major of my high school marching band. To prepare to wear the big hat and carry the baton, I went to a summer drum major camp at a big university in the west; I was told that I had to “learn some struts.”
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This ought to be a golden age for people who care about the news – that is, anybody who doesn’t choose to be helplessly hobbled by ignorance – because there’s a lot of news and a lot of ways to keep up with it.
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In journalism, my line of work for about a half-century, you learn pretty quickly that while words matter, you have to watch what people do, not just what they say.
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Who’re you gonna trust? That’s a tough question these days. For a lot of Americans, the answer seems to be, “nobody.” And that’s pretty sad. It’s something we need to think about.
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What you buy these days seems increasingly to be a reflection of your politics. At least, that’s what we learn in a report from Columbia University Business School research, which cites the polarization that has followed Donald Trump’s first election.
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We are living in a worldwide crisis of gloom. That, anyway, is what I took from a new international poll of 20,000 people across western democracies and Japan.
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What would you say is the biggest problem facing our country? Now, if you said, “Donald Trump,” I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but that’s not the kind of answer we’re looking for here. Hold that thought, though: you may be onto something.
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There was a remarkable line in one of the holiday greetings I got last week – so thoughtful, in fact, that I’m thinking of getting it needlepointed onto a seat cushion, so that I’ll have it around all year.
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I am a secret fan of aphorisms – those pithy observations that contain a general truth, like, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” and, “Actions speak louder than words.”
