Changing my rituals as the world changes around me

Thanks to the Camera for clinging with me as a loyal subscriber to having the printed word delivered on my driveway in a plastic bag.

You honored the idea that us “boomers” still needed our ritual of having coffee while spreading the paper pages across our laps.

Thank you for paying attention to us and publishing two cartoon issues in one edition last week because of the printing error of publishing the opinion page twice the day before.

I get it that you’re out there, imagining journalistic integrity in a way that is seriously being challenged on so many fronts.

We truly need a free press. But as the world changes, we don’t need it to be part of an old ritual … so I am going to have to rise in the morning and confront my computer screen like the rest of the world.

It will be less real to me, I think mostly because of the lack of ritual … but also I liked the idea that I was somehow employing a delivery person … like myself so many years ago.

It’s time to let go of the ritual driveway, so I will cancel that subscription, but I still love the work that you do.

— Michael Dille, Boulder

Where an old professor laments change — sort of

A few days ago, there was a column in the New York Times titled “What does football have to do with college?” by John Branch, a longtime sportswriter. He describes the current situation where college football has become a multi-billion-dollar business that is essentially run as a separate business of the university. A few days later I walked through the bookstore at CU. Almost the entire store is devoted to university fan clothing and paraphernalia. Other than the required textbook section there are no books. Zero, nada, nothing.

The debate over college sports has gone on for almost 100 years. We are the only country that carries it to such an extreme. As chair of the faculty at CU back in the 1990s, I was constantly questioned why football (and by implication basketball, etc.) should be part of the university. For a while, I also served as chair of CU Boulder’s budget committee. The football program was a money maker and supported almost the entire intercollegiate program.

While I had some sympathy for Mr. Branch’s points, I found my bookstore visit to be much more impactful and depressing. It used to be that campus bookstores were wonderful places. They carried books on all topics, and as a scientist, I often found important books I had not seen before (along with the latest mysteries). It is clear where the money is, and it’s not in books. Of course, we are all guilty of causing this decline. How many of you visit Barnes and Noble and then surreptitiously order the book on Kindle? I do. Five years ago, I wrote a textbook on an advanced scientific topic. At the time, I also prepared an online course on the same topic. The income from the online course is twenty or thirty times that of the book.

I seriously doubt that universities will eliminate football programs. The sport is wildly popular, and local communities have large economic benefits. And I doubt paper and ink books will come back. The world has changed.

— John W Daily, Louisville

Boulder will never catch up with its housing shortage

It seems the City Council remains intent upon sheltering most of Boulder, including their own neighborhoods, from the Governor’s enhanced density proposals and, at the same time, hoping more businesses locate here. Judging from the number of workers commuting daily, in and out, on Highway 93, the Diagonal, Foothills, South Boulder Road, or 36, there is no way Boulder will ever catch up with its housing shortage. The neighborhoods targeted seem mostly to accommodate CU’s ever-expanding enrollment, itself a source of enhanced traffic.

— Bob Porath, Boulder