I took the trailer over to the RV storage yard this morning. How sad.
We need to find a way to coordinate our very different schedules so we can get away for a couple of days once or twice between now and next year's trip. That was too fun.
My younger brother sent me this link. OK, now I'm ready to tackle it myself.
Engine rebuild
My younger son sent me info about an app for the iPad called Stumbleupon. You enter categories that interest you and then they send you links to interesting web pages on that subject(s). It's FREE and I think it works on a laptop, too. So far it is, as Josh suggested, near perfect for the ADD brain. I'm lovin' it.
I need a new pair of dress shoes. I've had this pair for so long I can't remember when I bought them. It was in Michigan, which makes it at least six years ago, and it certainly wasn't right before we left. They've been resoled at least once, but now the insides are wearing out.
I maintain a very limited selection of footwear. I have five pairs of shoes - one dress, one sandals, one pair running shoes, one pair worn out running shoes now used for working in the garage, and one pair of running-like shoes that don't have a mesh top that I use for winter when temps here drop down as low as the 50's. (I just realized I only have one more pair of shoes than I have cars.) So you see, getting a new pair of dress shoes means replacing 20% of my collection. How do I decide?
Should they be lace-ups or loafers? Black seems like the only way to go, eh? As plain as possible or with some style? Keeping in mind it will probably be another half-decade or longer before my next purchase I should probably go with a more timeless look, but I don't know what that is.
I can't take the pressure. Maybe I'll just get out the duct tape and put it off a little longer.
When they put a body in a casket are they wearing shoes?
I am NOT one of those who demonizes the press as bastions of extreme liberalism. I expect them to have tendencies that direction in part because they're located on the two coasts. There's a reason the middle states are red and the coasts blue, so the national press, centered in LA and NY, are going to reflect their geography. Sometimes I think conservatives come across as paranoid conspiracy theorists when the reality is probably a lot simpler. The major media outlets are, first and foremost, businesses. Their largest markets are metropolitan areas which are typically more liberal than the farm counties of Kansas and Iowa. They're also staffed by journalism majors, not exactly a group known for being staunch constructionists.
That said, I'm beginning to sense a disturbing trend. Yeah, I can hear some people saying, "You're just now noticing it?!" but it seems to me to be different this time around. I visit MSNBC.com (which just this week became NBCNews.com), CNN.com, USAToday.com, and The Cheat Sheet (a service of The Daily Beast) to get my fix of national and international news. The former category is pretty much dominated by presidential political news. Unless you're a Fox News devote' (I am a refusnik on that one) and, like me, read the mainstream news outlets, try this test:
Name the negative stories you've heard about in the last 60 days about regarding Mitt Romney.
Now do the same for President Obama.
Tax returns, Bain Capital, flip-flopping, duplicitousness re. health care legislation, expensive vacations...
vs.
???
Maybe that's the way it works when one is an incumbent and the other an aspirant. But aside from some fairly dismal economic numbers, which I'm not seeing attributed in the press to the President's policies, I can't think of a negative story line re. Pres. Obama. I do see pictures of him kissing his wife at a basketball game and giving a speech in a downpour.
I suppose a Democratic operative would way, "That's because one candidate is a good guy and the other is suspect in all manner of areas." Uhm...I don't think so. They're both politicians.
It's also possible that once I think I see a trend it colors my perception from that point forward.
But I'm not convinced there isn't, if not some intentional bias, at least a careless lack of objectivity and diligence to portray each man with a semblance of balance.
Look! No vacation pictures!
4 comments:
...you do understand that the objective of the three-to-five letter acronym agencies is not news, per se? that they exist to generate advertising revenue for the corporations that own them? that the content is design to generate as large an audience as possible for the advertising? that the content is shaped to make the advertising more appealing than the content? ...thought so.
The point that many conservatives and libertarians have been making since I can remember (I started reading National Review in 1988 - yes I'm a nerd) is this: The national media news outlets have a tendency to marginalize outside or opposing perspectives, especially within the editorial and decision-making staff. This is also true at most large Universities. The thing that infuriates those who take a differing viewpoint or opinion is that these organizations and institutions will not admit their bias.
The bias runs in the following ways:
1. Choosing which stories to publish
2. Headlines (distorted or misleading)
3. Omitting mitigating facts from negative articles, or just as common, putting those facts at the very end of a long article, crammed into a couple sentences. (Often those mitigating facts completely counter any arguments made in the article)
4. Refusing advertising space to candidates they oppose.
I have no problem with bias. Media types who are liberal seem to have a problem admitting theirs.
Mike H.
No shoes on casketed corpse unless instructed so by family.
Really?! (No shoes on a corpse) Any reason, or just the way it's done? And does that mean no sox, either? I was almost kidding when I wrote that.
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