I see the reasons why liberty is so sacred in the relationships of the churches, of newspapers, guarded by constitutions.  The most sacred part of life was the things that brought us together:  Family, church, newspapers.  It was all about the mortar.  The conflict of all the above was now a part of public policy. 

I never realized how sacred the 4^th Estate was until reading the reaction to readers of a column written by a favorite sportwriter yesterday, entitled “Who’ll Gather News When Internet Is All That There Is.”  See http://www.startribune.com/sports/18752054.html.  The vituperations in response to the column are what surprised me, a column about the day that was coming when the local newspaper was gone.  I wonder how often a columnist, a rabbi, a politician, ever wakes up wondering if it all was worth it serving the ignorant masses, people who could not see the big picture.  In this case, it was not about sports. 

The financial dilemma, the red in the quarterly statements of newspapers, was not some sluit.  I read the following AP news item, aware of the history of Lebanon over the past 25 years, and I realized that repercussions in a society when the mortar in church, in newspapers, breaks down forever. 

Lebanon’s long-simmering political crisis lurched deeper into violent civil conflict Thursday as rival bands of Shiite and Sunni gunmen battled in the streets for a second day and politicians took to the airwaves to denounce each other.

We were all too well-educated, and all too ignorant.