Maybe it’s because there is a bright golden globe hanging in the night sky as I write this week’s Unorganized Territory. Perhaps the moon is the reason I have encountered an exceptionally high number of bad-tempered people this week.
Yes, I am one of those people who believes that the moon has a mysterious power over man and womankind. I haven’t always thought that, but many years ago when I worked at Potomac Hospital in Woodbridge, Virginia, co-workers told me the moon affected people. They said we’d be busy on the nights leading up to the full moon and busiest on full moon night. I was skeptical, but after I worked there for a while, I came to agree with them.
I spent some time in the radiology department where we received orders for X-rays from the emergency room. When staff tallied the number of orders at the end of a shift on a full moon night, there were always, always, more emergencies on those nights.
Outside of the medical field, I don’t notice the lunar craziness as much, but this week it seems that it is still there. Leading up to the fullness of the moon, the number of cranky calls and irritated emails swelled.
Maybe it isn’t just the full moon. There is a lot going on, a lot of changes in the community and the world. Internationally, the Middle East seems more unstable than it has ever been and Greece’s economic problems threaten global finances. Nationally there was a revolutionary Supreme Court decision that caught the rest of the nation up to Minnesota and a horrific shooting in a place of worship. Locally we’re looking at increased property values; construction in the school parking lot, on the Gunflint Trail, at Cutface Creek; hospital renovation; a school levy referendum; and the normal summer population explosion.
People have reason to be cantankerous with or without the influence of the moon. So I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when I received a particularly angry reader complaint this week. That is nothing new. It is amazing how invested our community is in the local paper. Readers are always sharing suggestions about what should—or should not—be published.
We hear from people who think we should cover more school news and from others who think we publish too much school news. We have readers who thank us for our sports news and others who scold us because we need more arts and entertainment coverage—and vice versa. Far away readers tell us we need more wildlife photos and locals tell us we need more pictures of local people and events. And of course no one likes to read bad news about themselves in the paper.
About the only thing that our reading pubic can agree on is our Down Memory Lane and Historical Reflections features. I have yet to have someone complain about those. Apparently, the old pictures and snippets of news from the News- Herald past are interesting to all.
We do our best to find balance in our coverage and some weeks we do better than others. So I’m used to reader complaints. Often they make us better. Some of our readers have probably heard me say, “Point taken.” I don’t say it lightly. Criticism stings, but it makes us better.
So despite the angry tone of the latest comment, I will consider the content. And I’ll chalk the attitude up to the full moon.
So imagine that the
lovely moon is playing
just for you— everything
makes music if you really
want it to.
Giles Andreae
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