That's Max reclining and Jenny stretching in my photo. That's the favorite cat window. I need to tree the tree. It's a volunteer box elder and I love the way it makes the air green coming through the window. It also tends to block my satellite dishes, so it gets trimmed in a rather inartistic and haphazard way.
That tree makes my living room seem peaceful. Trees do that.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
EIther/Or on the Mosque
Anent, and yes it's archaic but a good word -- about the Mosque two blocks from Ground Zero... The US of A either supports, encourages and practices freedom of religion or it doesn't. There's no in-between.
It's disheartening to see the ooze that's going on. Such things just make it easier for Big Government to lap away at our basic freedoms. It has already become dicey to stage non-violent protests, even silent ones.
We must have the freedom to protest. So let the anti-mosquers protest all they want. They are just showing the world what bigots they are and how cowardly they are.
The extreme right wins when they scare people into such actions. Glennie Beckster and Rusho Limbo laugh all the way to the bank.
Disgusting.
It's disheartening to see the ooze that's going on. Such things just make it easier for Big Government to lap away at our basic freedoms. It has already become dicey to stage non-violent protests, even silent ones.
We must have the freedom to protest. So let the anti-mosquers protest all they want. They are just showing the world what bigots they are and how cowardly they are.
The extreme right wins when they scare people into such actions. Glennie Beckster and Rusho Limbo laugh all the way to the bank.
Disgusting.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The non-newshour
An Hour’s Worth of Non-News
This is unscientific, of course, but eye-opening. Just what is the local news telling us? Not much, if you break it down.I kept a tally on Monday night’s 5:00-6:00 local news on WCVB, the ABC affiliate in Boston.
During that hour, they covered 35 news and general interest stories. Wow, you say? But wait, they also aired 10 “teasers” (the topic of news they are going to cover in a minute or so), 24 commercials, and 25 promo ads for local and network programs to be aired later.
The local weather was covered in four different slots, sports in two. Stories about celebrities got two stories. There were four crime stories, two involving Hispanic men, and two implicating teenagers. Nine stories required talking head “experts.” Six of those were white men, three were women. The women experts appeared on national news stories, and were government spokes.
There were no stories about the environment, unless you count three “general interest” ones: great white sharks off Cape Cod beaches, felling of the tree Anne Frank wrote about, and a follow-up on the Sea World killer whale that drowned its trainer earlier this year.
Five other reports were about fires, car accidents, a sleep study (not local), and salmonella in eggs.WCVB has a lot of reporters, and they are racially and ethnically diverse, but except for a couple of them, it’s difficult to know just what their “beat” is, in journalist terms.
Do you wonder why we’re so dumbed-down? None of the stories had a context, or background information.
This is unscientific, of course, but eye-opening. Just what is the local news telling us? Not much, if you break it down.I kept a tally on Monday night’s 5:00-6:00 local news on WCVB, the ABC affiliate in Boston.
During that hour, they covered 35 news and general interest stories. Wow, you say? But wait, they also aired 10 “teasers” (the topic of news they are going to cover in a minute or so), 24 commercials, and 25 promo ads for local and network programs to be aired later.
The local weather was covered in four different slots, sports in two. Stories about celebrities got two stories. There were four crime stories, two involving Hispanic men, and two implicating teenagers. Nine stories required talking head “experts.” Six of those were white men, three were women. The women experts appeared on national news stories, and were government spokes.
There were no stories about the environment, unless you count three “general interest” ones: great white sharks off Cape Cod beaches, felling of the tree Anne Frank wrote about, and a follow-up on the Sea World killer whale that drowned its trainer earlier this year.
Five other reports were about fires, car accidents, a sleep study (not local), and salmonella in eggs.WCVB has a lot of reporters, and they are racially and ethnically diverse, but except for a couple of them, it’s difficult to know just what their “beat” is, in journalist terms.
Do you wonder why we’re so dumbed-down? None of the stories had a context, or background information.
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