'A Chap Who Doesn't Care Much About Anything'

Below the masthead of the August 19, 2024 issue of The Daily Chronicle is a brief, boxed announcement: 

“Today is National Orangutan Day. The apes are the largest tree-dwelling animals on Earth. They spend 90 percent of their time in trees, even sleeping in leafy nests. No wonder their names means ‘man of the trees.’”

 

From one brief item I learned two interesting things – the orangutan’s rank among tree-dwellers and the etymology of his name (OED: from the Malay for “person of the forest”). Plenty would deny such tidbits were newsworthy but I would argue that knowledge of the natural world and language are infinitely more interesting and important than our embarrassing presidential race. We too are primates.

 

You can’t subscribe to The Daily Chronicle but you can get it for free and delivered to your room if you happen to be a patient in the hospice where my brother is staying in Cleveland. First thing in the morning, along with breakfast on a tray, a nursing assistant delivers it to your bed. Three pages printed on both sides and stapled together contain such features as an exploration of the “little ice age” of 1680-1730 that coincided with the Salem witch trials, and an “On This Date” rollcall that includes the birth in 1839 of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, the great French pioneer of photography.

 

The “Quote of the Day” comes from the late Johnny Nash (1940-2020), who had a hit in 1972 that I remember well -- “I Can See Clearly Now.” Nash says, “Reggae represented to me a layer of rhythm that was really infectious. I could lay on top of the rhythms and do my ballads.” People who know they are soon to die could do a lot worse for a soundtrack. The “Joke of the Day” is admittedly feeble: “How much does it cost to swim with sharks?” “An arm and a leg.”

 

How devoted is the readership? I can’t say. My brother gave it a perfunctory look. I saw a man, legs missing above the knees, seated in a wheelchair in the lobby, looking at The Daily Chronicle. Again, no comment.   

 

The First Amendment guarantees us freedom of speech. It also guarantees freedom from speech. We can ignore pretty much anything we please and read The Daily Chronicle. A senior reporter in Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop (1938) tells the permanently baffled William Boot: “News is what a chap who doesn't care much about anything wants to read.”