What America read last Sunday: things Alpha to Omega!

We were just curious today to see what Americans read this Sunday while enjoying an early cup of hot brewed coffee, or having a late breakfast of what hotels the world over tag as American continental - pancake or bread and butter/jam/jelly, token crispy slices of bacon, egg(s), apple, milk, or munching something at a McDo/KFC/Burger King stand.

Thanks to the Newseum, we get to browse through 351 front pages of American newspapers everyday.  This Sunday, the prominent fare comprised the present preoccupations of the American public: the state elections, budget cuts and new taxes, health care issues, among other political hot items, and of course, the latest football game results.  

There were interesting stories as well--usually boxed with catching illustrations--played up prominently on Page One of newspapers from the west to the east coast, and from these we chose ten (1), which we think are worth a second reading as soon as we've downloaded them all from the papers' websites.

 

The list begins with an Alpha story from the Modesto Bee of California--the hot issue of evolution--and ends with an Omega story from The Record of Stockton, CA--the end of the world, which a religious group believes to have began.  The others have no religious undertone at all; they're more, shall we say, about affections and afflictions of mortals that walk on this earth between the crib and the grave.

For this selection, we excluded one on the silent invasion of American households by bedbug armies. We put in another about the stink bugs that are making citizens of West Chester, Pennsylvania pinch their noses because of their awful smell. They're all crawling on page one of the Daily Local News, which qualifies that these are edible in Laos though.

The Tribune of Greeley, Colorado gave us a visual treat of cats, which immediately reminded us of Cats the musical, but these are incidental to the story.  This is about people who have this certain affliction: hoarding these felines.

The Orange County Register of Santa Ana, California was on its 3rd installment about foreign-born immigrants in the USA, specifically those who have settled in this state.  "Who wins? Who loses?," it asks about the presence of 6 million immigrants  on California soil.

Race in the theater circuit was an issue played up by The Gazette of Colorado Springs.  This "drama of race" does not in anyway recall MLK's "I have a dream".  Our first glance told us it's just that there are not so many minorities available for theatrical work.

It took quite a long time before texting or SMS became addictive to Americans (the Pinoy were way ahead in this communications system, and in fact have developed quite a vocabulary for this medium).  We are not too sure if "sexting" is in the Pinoy lingo, but we are certain this word may eventually be in the Oxford dictionary.

It's the "sexting all the time" among adolescents in Anniston, Alabama that the Anniston Star is worried about.   These kids circulate among their friends pictures of themselves in dishabille, partly or fully.  

Which leads us to the next item featured in The Lewiston Tribune of Idaho:  men past their golden jubilee year building their muscles and showing them off in competition.  We don't think they do 'sexting' to display their bodies.

Men & women soldiers who go to fight a war would come home troubled even if they did not get wounded at all.  The trauma or "hidden wounds" are the subject of a 5-part story in The Fayetteville Observer of North Carolina.  The paper says suffering soldiers are demanding mental health services.

The last item we have is historical from The Las Vegas Review-Journal.  From this we gather that Las Vegas would not have been born and grew to be this glittering city on the desert if it were not for Hoover Dam, which was constructed 75 years ago.