Editorial: Can't we all win sometimes?

The Roscoe News is only a couple of weeks old, and we can't change the world, at least not yet. But that doesn't mean we can't try to make things better. Or at least, not worse.

In recent decades, it feels like we have less in common than we used to. I'm not sure that's completely true. We still share the same hopes and desires for happiness, for successful relationships, and certainly for food and shelter, right? If there's a political party lobbying for unhappiness and against successful relationships, it must not win many elections. We might not feel like being a cooperative driver during rush hour, but the more cars on the road, the more we need to cooperate.

What has changed is that more of us assume that life is a "zero-sum game," where if one person wins, someone else has to lose. I'm not sure that's usually true either. Please don't try it at home. Your spouse will thank you.

Journalism - what I do - deals with facts, information, and opinions. And it's not a zero-sum game. If one person is right, it doesn't mean another person is wrong. In fact, if you set up barricades, always claiming your side is right and always claiming the "other side" is wrong, anybody who knows better might stop believing you. Nobody is always right, and people don't divide into neat "sides." In Roscoe, there is no anti-snowplow faction and no pro-pothole faction. We all agree on some things.

As a journalist, I want to push past the barricades, get to the truth of what people in the Roscoe area really want, and find out how we can get there. Sometimes it may require compromise, but if we see people as neighbors and not as competitors, it will be worth it.