LETTER

Get a handle on Fred Ryan

 

Sure, in the masthead he’s listed as “publisher emeritus” (whatever that means), but his vague, lecturing and all-over-the-map columns are wreaking havoc on an otherwise informative and efficient local paper.

I’ve been formulating a clever Fred Ryan complaint for a while, but his latest effort—a random musing on “absences” that was itself almost entirely absent of value—has sent me over the edge, resulting in this much more direct missive.

Fred Ryan can write well, and occasionally offers a column with substance in an Aylmer context (e.g., one about Quebec school boards). Most of the time, however, I’m interested to examine Ryan's weekly piece merely to discover which abstract topic the dude is going to ruminate on this week.

Some particularly puzzling Fred Ryan efforts in recent memory explored topics such as “the value of hard work,” the real (and confusingly contradictory) meanings of “wealth,” and, believe it or not, the distinguished columnist’s views on the dangers of sending radio broadcast messages to aliens in outer space.

Sometimes it feels like I’m the alien and Fred Ryan is recklessly broadcasting a willy-nilly assortment of unrelated and poorly shaped ideas via his columns as a way of expressing his humanity. Then a question occurs in my brain: What planet is this guy from?

Quickly I recall that I am in fact an Earth-bound reader of the Bulletin who wishes that the valuable Fred Ryan column inches could be taken up with something of narrower focus and greater relevance to me and my fellow Aylmerites.

Tony Martins
Aylmer

(Editor’s note: “Publisher emeritus” is commonly an honourary title given to a former publisher who continues to contribute to the newspaper.)