That’s reality, in three words, all caps in white on a blue background, near the top of page 1 in today’s Springfield Republican.
B1 refers to page B1,* first page of the Republican’s sports section, where sports writer Christopher Smith’s story, HERE, is headlined “Sox stumble: Offense struggles against Tampa Bay rookie.”
For an Associated Press story in a Chicago newspaper, click HERE.
More about Rays tomorrow.
Elsewhere in the news . . .
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Pope Francis Speaks: “Less Hypocrisy, More Transparency,” Pope Francis said in Italian yesterday.
The pope was saluting Angela Merkel during her final visit to Italy as Germany’s chancellor during which the two reportedly spoke about the approaching United Nations climate talks and sexual abuse by clergy of children.
At the Colosseum, where Merkel also spoke, he expressed a wish for a world of “fewer arms and more food, less hypocrisy and more transparency, more vaccines distributed fairly and fewer weapons marketed indiscriminately.” (Click HERE for an Agence France-Presse story in the Straits Times.)
In his address the Pope was not talking about international mainstream media skittishness, or organized religion’s, in dealing with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, designed to terrorize the American people, assisted days later by the Anthrax attacks; he knows full well, like the Most Rev. Michael Curry of the Episcopal Church in the United States — that the official U.S. government Executive Branch story about the September 2001 attacks is hogwash. (Find mentions of Presiding Bishop Curry’s Sept. 12 sermon HERE and HERE.)
In other news . . .
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Journalists Awarded 2021 Nobel Peace Prize: NPR’s “Morning Edition” reported today, HERE, that Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitri Muratov of Russia will share this year’s Nobel Prize for Peace. (An AP account is HERE.)
Freedom of expression is “a prerequisite for democracy and lasting peace,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in a statement.
Ressa is co-founder and CEO of the Philippines-based news website Rappler, which has focused “critical attention on the [Filipino President Rodrigo] Duterte regime’s controversial, murderous anti-drug campaign,” the Nobel committee said.
Muratov is editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s main opposition newspaper. “Novaya gazeta is the most independent newspaper in Russia today, with a fundamentally critical attitude towards power,” the Nobel committee said. “The newspaper’s fact-based journalism and professional integrity have made it an important source of information on censurable aspects of Russian society rarely mentioned by other media.”
The Philippines and Russia rank 138 and 150 in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index. The United States ranks 44th. Overall rankings and details are HERE.
This year’s top ten, in order, are Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Costa Rica, Netherlands, Jamaica, New Zealand, Portugal, and Switzerland.
— Mark Channing Miller
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* Not to be confused with a B-1 bomber, introduced HERE by an Air Force captain in the 37th Bomber Squadron at the Westfield International Air Show in 2001.