When I was a kid growing up, there were two general interest periodicals in my house: U.S. News & World Report every week and Reader’s Digest every month.**
As an 8 year old U.S. News held little interest for me, but I read Reader’s Digest cover to cover. For a while, until I began to read books independently, we also had a number of Reader’s Digest Condensed Books (4-5 books in abridged format published quarterly in a single hardbound volume) around the house, provided by my favorite Aunt.***
Reader’s Digest First Issue (February 1922)
I was in good American company. Reader’s Digest was the best selling American Magazine for many years (started in 1922). The original format was simple and elegant: 31 short articles in each issue, one for each day, plus some extras. Even the size was iconic, a pocket sized magazine that mostly fit in your hand.
Lila & DeWitt Wallace Founders of Reader’s Digest Empire (c. 1950)
A bit about the century long phenomena of Reader’s Digest:
Begun by the husband and wife team of DeWitt and Lila Wallace in the 1920s, The Reader’s Digest has been nothing short of a publishing phenomenon.
DeWitt had enlisted in the U.S. Army during World War I. Wounded in France, he spent four months in a hospital reading American magazines to pass the time. On his return to the States, he was seized with the idea that most Americans were suffering from an early form of information overload: too many magazines were publishing too many articles, and the good articles–the ones with enduring value–were getting lost in the chaff.
Soon, DeWitt and his fiancée had a plan: Sell a monthly magazine by subscription that would provide one good, short article a day–31 articles in total–with no advertising to get between the reader and the content. The couple got the project in motion at the same time as their wedding. When they returned from a honeymoon in the Poconos, they were shocked to learn that 1,500 people had subscribed to the new magazine without even seeing a first copy.
The Wallaces ordered a first print run of 5,000 copies and there was no turning back. They soon found they had struck a vein of gold and their magazine would come to dominate the American magazine industry for the rest of the 20th century.
Many of the magazine’s regular features were staples of American life growing up. A joke found in one of the humor columns, be it “Life in These United States,” “Laughter Is the Best Medicine,” or “Humor in Uniform,” could help put a smile on your face after a difficult day. And it’s hard to calculate how many Americans improved their vocabularies with the regular multiple-choice exercise, “It Pays to Improve Your Word Power.” If it was a bit of excitement you were looking for, on the other hand, there was always something good that was subtitled, “Drama In Real Life.”
In 1981, DeWitt Wallace passed on to that big leather reading chair in the sky and was followed by Lila Wallace in 1984. Reader’s Digest, however, is still going strong, with millions of readers all over the globe. Ten-issue yearly subscriptions, in both print and digital formats, are available at a very reasonable price, if you’re interested.
Reader’s Digest Cover After 15 Years (1936)
Looking back, it would be fair to say that Reader’s Digest was the USA Today of print media****, 50 years before anyone thought of USA Today. To place its role in digital terms it was an early print version of a Yahoo! news and story information style aggregator 70 years before the times.*****
But that is neither here nor there. One of the recurrent ‘extra’ features of many Reader’s Digest issues was a quirky collection of cartoons, quips, and miscellany titled “Laughter, the Best Medicine”. They were often funny or thought provoking, even to a young boy just getting his reading chops. I remember the feeling of anticipation 60 plus years later.
Reader’s Digest Issues from My Era (1965 & 1975) Note Laughter Items Towards Bottom
The entries were short and to the point. Only later did the life lesson sink in that sometimes your only choice when faced with absurdity, rank ignorance, or tragic conditions is to laugh or cry.
Professionals in law enforcement, medicine, nursing, EMS, teachers, soldiers, etc. share a form of this feeling in the inside sharing of gallows humor. Often the anecdotes are not very funny (or even seemly) to outsiders, but they are often wickedly pertinent to those who must endure the situations.
Sadly, in 2018 political America, masses of us are routinely treated to recurrent examples of Trumpian Snorts, which are funny, but not so funny.
Your other choice is to cry out in despair or beat your hands in frustration.
Herewith, an occasional series to let off some psychic steam for many of the rest of us, so readers are not tempted to cover their vehicles with pictures of enemies centered in cross hairs, and other such Nationalist mental release mechanisms.
A grain of truth, a little chuckle, and then back to everyday life responsibilities, with good feelings towards our fellow men and women largely intact.
Trump Snort Number One
Almost a year ago (January 17) we were treated to Trump’s White House doctor touting his great genes and excellent health.
A picture is worth….
Trump with White House Physician, Admiral Ronny Jackson, January 2018
To claim, as the formerly esteemed Dr. Jackson (removed from his job a few months later for cause after Trump.45 tried to promote him to Veterans Affairs Secretary) did that Trump.45 weighed 239 pounds defies belief. Maybe if the President had an invisible overhead Peter Pan steel line lifting his presidential pudginess skyward while he stood on the scale. I’m not making fun of corpulence; I am a charter male member of the club, believe me. But I don’t call a Press Conference and lie about it in public either.
To reinforce the point, here is a confirming second shot of Trump.45 deplaning from Air Force One in May 2017. More than ample frontal padding on display here.
President Trump Carefully Deplaning From Air Force One May 2017
If lies were fat free and low calorie, Donald Trump would be so thin you’d miss him standing sideways. They’re not, and you’ll never avoid his excessive bulk.
Lest you think this was a photoshopped trick, here are some golf playing shots of Trump.45 playing golf in casual clothes, revealing the as close to the naked truth as is safe for general consumption.
Trump Playing Golf in Casual Dress; Back & Side Views
And this Tripartite Gem, with Annotated Trump branded Golf Merchandise, de rigger of course.
Trump Playing Golf in Branded Merchandise: Triple View (Front, Back, and Sideways)
This is not earth shattering news really. Everyone already knows Trump.45 is fat. We could just as well have chosen another small truth from today, for example that the White House has banned a CNN network reporter on a completely phony made-up charge of assaulting (laying hands on) a young female White House aide during tody’s Press Conference, because he gave Trump.45 a tough time asking a question. More Trumpian staff total BS to cover a cowardly boss who seethes with rage when people don’t genuflect deeply enough, especially if they work for CNN.
We chose the Trump is our very own “President Tubby” meme because it is less heartbreaking and demeaning to the ideals of American democracy. But either story would do.
Thank goodness bariatric generosity is not another one of Trump.45’s List of First Place Accomplishments. For general adiposity, that title belongs to William Howard Taft nearly a century ago. Taft weighed in at 300 pounds plus, and outshines Trump.45, though not by all that much, it seems.
William Howard Taft, U.S. President & Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
However, Taft was also better educated than Trump.45, being a Yale graduate and a lawyer, legal scholar, and Professor. He also is the only person in U.S. history to be elected President, and to also serve as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. So Taft was an actual One-Man Legal Band, instead of a Wannabe like Trump.45. And unlike our present predicament, when Taft spoke about legal matters, while he may have been physically corpulent, he was most certainly not like the mental Fat Head whose legal musings we suffer now.
We are less than 24 hours past the 2018 Midterm Elections, and votes are still being counted. Trump.45 promptly claimed a great victory as the entire U.S. House was ripped from his grip (suffering a drubbing loss of 30+ seats), and laughed at the Republicans who lost (many by name).
Then two hours later he fired Jeff Sessions and replaced him with a conflicted staff Toady, never confirmed by the Senate for a Justice Department senior management position. Oh Joy, Oh Happiness!! This is the courtier who will take over supervisory control of Mueller’s investigation, not suffering from any Recusal inhibitions as a 100% loyal TV Trumpet and Trump.45 devotee.
Professor Snort Logo (Adapted from Internet- with Apologies)
What a SNORT!!!
*A commonly used meaning for the English word ‘snort’ is a startle reaction so sudden the affected person involuntarily and forcefully expels air and oral contents explosively from the mouth and nose. Most of us have experienced this often not so pleasant reaction when drinking a soda or other beverage, and we end up spraying liquid all over our shirt fronts and any unfortunate people within arms race. You know what I mean. A Trumpian Snort is meant to follow this definition.
For the technically inclined, SNORT is also an open source computer security software suite called a NIDS Network Intrusion Detection System. A slight pun, this is also something in short supply in Trump.45’s Homeland Security approach to, oh say, Voting Software Election Security Systems in America’s 50 states (particularly Kemp’s Georgia SOS) in response to continued foreign hacks (by our good Military Foreign Intelligence buddies in Russia and China). Anyway, SNORT has a logo, which is adopted here for a small chuckle for those in the know.
** From the Wikipedia entry for the U.S. News & World Report:
U.S. News & World Report is an American media company that publishes news, opinion, consumer advice, rankings, and analysis. Founded as a newsweekly magazine in 1933, U.S. News transitioned to primarily web-based publishing in 2010. U.S. News is best known today for its influential Best Colleges and Best Hospitals rankings, but it has expanded its content and product offerings in education, health, money, careers, travel, and cars. The rankings are popular in North America but have drawn widespread criticism from colleges, administrations, and students for their dubious, disparate, and arbitrary nature. The ranking system by U.S. News is usually contrasted with the Washington Monthly and Forbes rankings.
United States News was founded in 1933 by David Lawrence (1888–1973), who also started World Report in 1946. The two magazines covered national and international news separately, but Lawrence merged them into U.S. News & World Report in 1948. He subsequently sold the magazine to his employees. Historically, the magazine tended to be slightly more conservative than its two primary competitors, Time and Newsweek, and focused more on economic, health, and education stories. It also eschewed sports, entertainment, and celebrity news. Important milestones in the early history of the magazine include the introduction of the “Washington Whispers” column in 1934 and the “News You Can Use” column in 1952. In 1958, the weekly magazine’s circulation passed one million and reached two million by 1973.
From the Wikipedia Entry for Reader’s Digest:
Reader’s Digest is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in Midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace. For many years, Reader’s Digest was the best-selling consumer magazine in the United States; it lost the distinction in 2009 to Better Homes and Gardens. According to Mediamark Research (2006), Reader’s Digest reaches more readers with household incomes of $100,000+ than Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Inc. combined.
Global editions of Reader’s Digest reach an additional 40 million people in more than 70 countries, via 49 editions in 21 languages. The periodical has a global circulation of 10.5 million, making it the largest paid circulation magazine in the world.
It is also published in Braille, digital, audio, and in a large type called Reader’s Digest Large Print. The magazine is compact, with its pages roughly half the size of most American magazines. Hence, in the summer of 2005, the U.S. edition adopted the slogan: “America in your pocket.” In January 2008, it was changed to: “Life well shared.”
In 1922 (96 years ago), DeWitt Wallace started the magazine while he was recovering from shrapnel wounds received in World War I. Wallace had the idea to gather a sampling of favorite articles on many subjects from various monthly magazines, sometimes condensing and rewriting them, and to combine them into one magazine.
Since its inception, Reader’s Digest has maintained a conservative and anti-Communist perspective on political and social issues. The Wallaces initially hoped the journal could provide $5,000 of net income. Mr. Wallace’s assessment of what the potential mass-market audience wanted to read led to rapid growth. By 1929, the magazine had 290,000 subscribers and had a gross income of $900,000 a year. The first international edition was published in the United Kingdom in 1938. By the 40th anniversary of Reader’s Digest, there were 40 international editions, in 13 languages and Braille, and it was the largest-circulating journal in Canada, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, Peru and other countries, with a total international circulation of 23 million.
The magazine’s format for several decades consisted of 30 articles per issue (one per day), along with a vocabulary page, a page of “Amusing Anecdotes” and “Personal Glimpses”, two features of funny stories entitled “Humor in Uniform” and “Life in these United States”, and a lengthier article at the end, usually condensed from a published book. These were all listed in the Table of Contents on the front cover. Each article was prefaced by a small, simple line drawing. In recent years, however, the format has greatly evolved into flashy, colorful eye-catching graphics throughout, and many short bits of data interspersed with full articles. The Table of Contents is now contained inside. From 2003 to 2007, the back cover featured “Our America”, paintings of Rockwell-style whimsical situations by artist C. F. Payne.
The first “Word Power” column of the magazine was published in the January 1945 edition, written by Wilfred J. Funk. In December 1952 the magazine published “Cancer by the Carton”, a series of articles that linked smoking with lung cancer. This first brought the dangers of smoking to the attention of a public which, up to then, had ignored the health threats.
From 2002 through 2006, Reader’s Digest conducted a vocabulary competition in schools throughout the United States called Reader’s Digest National Word Power Challenge (NWPC). In 2007, the magazine said it had decided not to have the competition for the 2007–08 school year: “…but rather to use the time to evaluate the program in every respect, including scope, mission, and model for implementation.”
In 2006, the magazine published three more local-language editions in Slovenia, Croatia, and Romania. In October 2007, the Digest expanded into Serbia. The magazine’s licensee in Italy stopped publishing in December 2007. The magazine launched in The People’s Republic of China in 2008.
For 2010, the U.S. edition of the magazine planned to decrease its circulation to 5.5 million, from 8 million, to publish 10 times a year rather than 12, and to increase digital offerings. It also cut its circulation guarantee for advertisers to 5.5 million copies from 8 million. In announcing that decision, in June 2009, the company said that it planned to reduce its number of celebrity profiles and how-to features, and increase the number of inspiring spiritual stories and stories about the military.
Beginning in January 2013, the US edition was increased back to 12 times a year.
In 1990, the magazine’s parent company, The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc. (RDA), became a publicly traded corporation. From 2005 through 2010, RDA reported a net loss each year.
In March 2007, Ripplewood Holdings LLC led a consortium of private equity investors who bought the company through a leveraged buy-out for US$2.8 billion, financed primarily by the issuance of US$2.2 billion of debt. Ripplewood invested $275 million of its own money, and had partners including Rothschild Bank of Zürich and GoldenTree Asset Management of New York. The private equity deal tripled the association’s interest payments, to $148 million a year.
On August 24, 2009, RDA announced it had filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy court a pre-arranged Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in order to continue operations, and to restructure the US$2.2 billion debt undertaken by the leveraged buy-out transaction. The company emerged from bankruptcy with the lenders exchanging debt for equity, and Ripplewood’s entire equity investment was extinguished.
In April 2010, the UK arm was sold to its management. It has a licensing deal with the U.S. company to continue publishing the UK edition.
On February 17, 2013, RDA Holding filed for bankruptcy a second time. The company was then purchased for £1 by Mike Luckwell, a venture capitalist and once the biggest shareholder in WPP plc.
How are the mighty fallen. Total circulation in 2016 is 2.66 million copies.The once reigning American magazine behemoth has been ravaged by technology and social media competition, and suffered two business bankruptcies (though that is a better record than Trump.45 has). The real indignity is that the last time the company’s assets were purchased in 2013 for roughly $2 American. Not $2 million; less than a cup of coffee.
Reader’s Digest Corporate Headquarters (1939-2004) Pleasantville, NY
In the Small World department, the original reader’s Digest corporate headquarters was located in the hamlet of Pleasantville NY, just outside New York City from 1939-2004. As it happens, the Clinton’s permanent home (yes, those Clintons- Hillary and Bill) is located in the hamlet of Chappaqua, NY also a hamlet just outside of New York City. They are so close in fact they share a common Zip Code and parts are in the same school district.
Hillary Clinton’s Home Chappaqua, NY
***From the Wikipedia entry for Reader’s Digest Condensed Books:
The Reader’s Digest Condensed Books were a series of hardcover anthology collections, published by the American general interest monthly family magazine Reader’s Digest and distributed by direct mail. Most volumes contained five (although a considerable minority consisted of three, four, or six) current best-selling novels and nonfiction books which were abridged (or “condensed”) specifically for Reader’s Digest.
The series was popular; a 1987 New York Times article estimated annual sales of 10 million copies. Despite this popularity, old copies are notoriously difficult to sell.
For most of their publication schedule, the volumes were issued four times each year, with the rate gradually increasing to a bi-monthly schedule by the early-1990s. The series was produced for 47 years (1950–1997), until being renamed Reader’s Digest Select Editions. (Note: UK editions seem to have been somewhat different from USA editions. Pre-1992 Canadian editions also contain different titles).
Occasional titles such as The Leopard (Summer 1960), The Days Were Too Short (Autumn 1960), and Papillon (Autumn 1970) were not written in English but published as abridgments of the translated versions. In a few cases, new editions of older works (Up from Slavery, originally published in 1901 (Autumn 1960), A Roving Commission: My Early Life, originally published in 1930 (Autumn 1951) or Goodbye Mr. Chips, originally published in 1934 (Summer 1961)) were also among the condensed selections.
****From the Wikipedia entry for USA Today:
USA Today is an internationally distributed American daily, middle-market newspaper that serves as the flagship publication of its owner, the Gannett Company. The newspaper has a generally centrist audience. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, it operates from Gannett’s corporate headquarters on Jones Branch Drive, in McLean, Virginia. It is printed at 37 sites across the United States and at five additional sites internationally. Its dynamic design influenced the style of local, regional, and national newspapers worldwide, through its use of concise reports, colorized images, informational graphics, and inclusion of popular culture stories, among other distinct features.
With a weekly circulation of 1,021,638 and an approximate daily reach of seven million readers as of 2016, USA Today shares the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States with The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. USA Today is distributed in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, and an international edition is distributed in Asia, Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Islands.
*****From the Wikipedia entry for Yahoo!:
Yahoo! is a web services provider headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and owned by Verizon Communications through Oath Inc.. The original Yahoo! company was founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in January 1994 and was incorporated on March 2, 1995. Yahoo was one of the pioneers of the early Internet era in the 1990s.
It was globally known for its Web portal, search engine Yahoo! Search, and related services, including Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping, video sharing, fantasy sports, and its social media website. At its height it was one of the most popular sites in the United States. According to third-party web analytics providers Alexa and SimilarWeb, Yahoo! was the most widely read news and media website – with over 7 billion views per month – ranking as the sixth-most-visited website globally in 2016.
Once the most popular website in the U.S., Yahoo slowly declined, starting in the late 2000s, and in 2017 Verizon Communications acquired most of Yahoo’s Internet business for $4.48 billion, excluding its stakes in Alibaba Group and Yahoo! Japan, which were transferred to Yahoo’s successor company Altaba.