And so another day starts! and as the days before them went, and probably the days to come will go, I woke up, showered, got dressed and grabbed a bite on my way out to work; and on my way to my car, I passed "Koshk Garayed" for the millionth time, passing the same "3rbeyt foul" and stood to ponder for a few secs if I should grab a sandwich or not, as I usually do almost every day, but today I stopped by the Koshk to buy some gum.

"Sba7 el Khier ya 7ag" I said to the man behind the stand, told him what I needed and gave him the money and waited for the change, while doing so I started to look at the newspapers and magazine laying there; and like many times before I was about on my way, when a title on one of the papers caught my interest; I bought the paper, folded it and tucked in my laptop case, and was on my way.

Soon enough I was at work (ya like that could happen!), signed in and got to doing my thing and completely forgot about the paper in my bag; midway through the day, as I was having my break, I remembered the paper and so got it out, flapped it open and started reading.

"Eeh ya man, bet3ml eeh, eeh dah? GORNAL! howa 7ad lesa bey2rahom", with a snaring smile a colleague said to me. I looked at him, looked at the paper, looked at the people passing my cubicle and their amused stares and then toke another look at the paper. A flashback came to me, of my father sitting in his chair, reading his paper on a Friday morning.
"La mafesh haga, kan fee mawdou3 3agbni mesh aktr", I replied! Then I started thinking, was it really that weird, I understand that in this digital time, everyone is just a click away from seeing the news or reading it online, so it really doesn’t make sense to go back to the old ways of our ancestors, which got me thinking, what happened to old good times when getting your info on a specific topic had to wait till the print was out!. Now you have 24/7 sec by sec coverage update of any major or minute detail. <o:p></o:p>

After all the looks, I came to a logical deduction; reading the newspaper is conceived to be something not kool; better yet, what happened to knowing the news at all, as things become more repetitive, the human race is losing interest quickly in the news the world has to offer; on the intentional scale, hearing about another raid by the Israelis on unarmed Palestinian civilians, or a new McCain lie has surfaced during his presidential campaign, or that Lebanon has no government yet (they have one now!); all these news have people feeling indifferent now, even on the local state of matters, water is contaminated, bread is not edible, milk is non consumable, or the meat anonymous cases (where you don’t know what type of animal your are eating!)

People started to turn away from news and started following reality shows (the worst type of TV), where Dr. Phil is a big hit (a dude from Texas), shows like the super nanny and American idol garner worldwide audiences, shows that feed on human misery and weakness, for the amusement of the viewers, are making outstanding viewer ratings. Seem all that interest people now are either sports, or tabloids.

For me, I start out by reading all headlines on the front page, and I mean all, then from there I drill down to those that interest me, then I hit the sports pages and that's it! Maybe read a comic strip in another news site or an article in another, it's always bits and pieces from many sources!

Yet when I had the paper in my hands, I went thoroughly through the first page, glanced at the next 5 or 6 pages, read the sports section, checked the commercials, knew what film plays at what theater, read some of the misc. news, marked a couple of cars for sale and read "7azk el youm" just for fun! All in a 30+ paper that cost me 1.25 LE, yet were tons of fun.

This I think is generic to reading at large, as you now get to have audio books, visual books, and online books, and while I am totally up for it, because it's convenient in saving time, space and is theoretically cheaper, I feel it is necessary every now and then, to pick up the occasional material paper, magazine or book, sit comfortably in a chair and start reading.

So let me ask this, have you read a newspaper lately?