{"id":832,"date":"2012-11-02T19:40:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-02T19:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2012\/11\/02\/keep-minds-open-please"},"modified":"2012-11-02T19:40:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-02T19:40:00","slug":"keep-minds-open-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=832","title":{"rendered":"Keep minds open, please"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/amarillo.com\/opinion\/letters-editor\/2012-11-01\/letter-its-time-columist-gene-lyons-be-caged\" href=\"http:\/\/amarillo.com\/opinion\/letters-editor\/2012-11-01\/letter-its-time-columist-gene-lyons-be-caged\">http:\/\/amarillo.com\/opinion\/letters-editor\/2012-11-01\/letter-its-time-columist-gene-lyons-be-caged<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The letter to the editor contained in this link reminds me of the battles I fought for years with newspaper readers who imply they don\u2019t want to read opinions that disagree with their own.<\/p>\n<p> I remember getting a letter from a gentleman in Perryton. He just couldn\u2019t stomach reading \u201cliberal\u201d commentary on the page I edited. He only wanted to read conservative views, espousing \u2013 much as the gentleman in the link attached to this blog post has done \u2013 the view that this is a conservative region and thus, the newspaper should cater to the region\u2019s prevailing political viewpoint.<\/p>\n<p>What the Perryton resident didn\u2019t quite get is that the world contains a wide-range of opinions, bias, philosophy and perspectives. The intent of a newspaper opinion page should be to present as wide a range of views as possible. Why not expose conservatives to liberal points of view or liberals to conservative points of view?<\/p>\n<p>No one\u2019s mind is going to change. Offering a varied smorgasbord of ideas, though, does provide validation \u2013 if nothing else \u2013 to whatever view the reader already holds. <\/p>\n<p>I have lost count of the times I\u2019ve heard from individuals complaining about having to read viewpoints that run counter to their own view. <\/p>\n<p>The best news of all to those folks, though, is that no one forces them to read anything. <\/p>\n<p>I rather prefer to read differing ideas. Doing so can cause me to hyperventilate and that\u2019s good for the heart. It might be good for the soul, too.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/amarillo.com\/opinion\/letters-editor\/2012-11-01\/letter-its-time-columist-gene-lyons-be-caged The letter to the editor contained in this link reminds me of the battles I fought for years with newspaper readers who imply they don\u2019t want to read opinions that disagree with their own. I remember getting a letter from a gentleman in Perryton. He just couldn\u2019t stomach reading \u201cliberal\u201d commentary on the page &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=832\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Keep minds open, please<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}