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On The Demise of Volunteer Voters

I continue to be amazed by big media’s short sighted decisions.

This week, Nashville’s WKRN pulled the plug on one of the blogosphere’s dishes I devour daily–Volunteer Voters. This decision was apparently part of budget cuts, which I assume means that the dollars spent on VV were greater than the dollars it generated.

What does it say about the state of news when a regional media outlet can’t afford to be among the leaders for regional political discussion? Does WKRN think this void won’t be filled by someone else? Is that something they can afford?

Here’s a sound business strategy:

  1. Eliminate the things that set you apart.
  2. Make sure you do exactly what your competition is doing–nothing more, nothing less.
  3. No matter what it costs long term, strive every day to be…ordinary.

ACK, hope you’ll continue to be active elsewhere in the future.

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A Little Editing Wouldn’t Hurt

Note to Commissioner Paul Pinkston, who released a taped conversation with Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale to the New Sentinel:

Audacity is free and easy to use.

Although I’d rather not hear the toilet flush, I’m at least thankful that you waited until you were “done” to start the tape.

One may wonder why the KNS didn’t edit that out themselves. I’m sure journalistic integrity had a little something to do with it–leaving the recording in tact as they received it. But the toilet flush is probably what will make this thing go viral…it’s just good marketing. Somebody over there knows what they’re doing!

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A Great Story Opportunity

A while back, I wrote a post about a few advantages newspapers have in the market and how they could use them to remain relevant. Using these assets–excellent writing, investigative journalism, and local marketplace branding–newspapers can give us something no one else can.

Today in the KNS, at least on their web site, there is a relatively short piece from the AP about a man who escaped prison 46 years ago and has been apprehended. This is the exact type of story I’d love to see local newspapers tackle. It’s the perfect opportunity for them to give me something no one else can give me.

Leroy Albert Morgan’s crimes occurred in Hamilton County, he escaped from a Nashville prison, and he was caught in East Tennessee, so it is of local interest. Using great writing and investigative journalism, why not tell us this story? Take us beyond, “he escaped in 1961, he’s been using an alias, and he was arrested this week.”

Tell us the story.

How did he escape prison, and how was he able to avoid authorities for so long? Has he been in Tennessee the entire time? Was he assisted by friends and family–how many people were in on it? What has he done in the time since the escape? What did the State do immediately following the escape to try to catch him, and why did these efforts fail? What (exactly) have they done since? How did they eventually track him down, how long did it take to find him, and how long have they known his whereabouts?

Seriously…this is the stuff movies (or at least made for TV movies) are made of. A good great writer can do some investigative journalism and tell us a great story from so many angles–the escapee, his friends and family, the penal system. And again, most bloggers don’t have the time and resources available to cover something like this.

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White-ity White

HT to Coma for introducing me to Stuff White People Like.

After spending a little time here, I’ve discovered I’m a lot whiter than I thought I was, especially with this timely post on The Wire.

Check it out…lots of funny stuff.  It’s definitely one that will stay in the feed reader.

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LOSTer’n’a Easter Egg

Last week’s episode of LOST (“The Constant”) answered a lot of questions for me–I thought.  My idea was that the island is the nexus for all possible universes.  This would explain why Jack’s father is alive in the future and Kate is so protective of Aaron.  I think that in the universe they return to Jack’s dad never went to Australia, so Claire was never born, therefore Aaron couldn’t exist.  But Claire came to the island from a universe where she does exist, and Aaron was born there.  Via the island he was able to move from a universe where he does exist to one where he doesn’t, or at least isn’t supposed to.

I was really looking forward to getting more answers this week.

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Spoilers coming Continue reading “LOSTer’n’a Easter Egg”

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Homeschooling Ruled Illegal in California–Seriously

Last month I posted about a proposal in Nebraska that would mandate testing to homeschooling families.  Today, thanks to Reason, I read an article in the LA Times stating that homeschooling has been ruled illegal by a California appellate court.

“Parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children,” wrote Justice H. Walter Croskey in a Feb. 28 opinion signed by the two other members of the district court.

Hold on.  WHAT?!  Excuse me?  Did I read that correctly?  They don’t have the constitutional right?  Pause for a second to digest that.

You know who loves this ruling, right?

Teachers union officials will also be closely monitoring the appeal. A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said he agrees with the ruling.

“What’s best for a child is to be taught by a credentialed teacher,” he said.

Credentialed by the State, right?  No conflict of interest there.  Relax Teachers Union people.  Good teachers have been in demand since ancient times, way before unions.  They’ll always be in demand and are in no danger of ever being out of work.

Notice something I’m not discussing here is religion, which the Times article mentions frequently.  It’s almost as if they’re trying to make this a religious issue, which it obviously isn’t.  It just so happens that many people homeschool their children for religious reasons, but that’s not the only reason.

This will surely be overturned, but is it something the State would be willing to take to the limit.  Are they willing to line up tanks outside of someone’s home and threaten them with bullets for refusing to send their kids to gov’ment indoctrination camps schools?

California, if you’re still wondering why the rest of the country unfairly labels you a bunch of crazies…

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Racist Graffiti And A Paper Noose

This not only appears on the KNS, it’s on the AP Wire.

The Sumner County Sheriff’s Department is investigating a possible hate crime after racist graffiti defaming a black school administrator were found with a paper-towel noose.

Graffiti in a restroom?  *gasp*

A noose made out of paper towells? *oh no!*

Congratulations news outlets.  The juvenile morons who did this just got way more attention than they could’ve ever hoped.  This is nothing more than some immature, ignorant kids expressing their ignorance and stupidity while they take a dump.

We may not like the fact that they are immature and ignorant, but a hate crime?  Let’s hope these dangerous criminals are apprehended before Halloween.  If not they may graduate to stealing pumpkins or maybe even TPing a yard or two.

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Wine At The Grocery Store?

HT to Michael Silence for this.

Sen. Bill Ketron and Rep. Randy Rinks introduced a bill (SB3139/HB3451) at the beginning of the legislative session. The proposed legislation would allow wine sales only in municipalities that currently allow package sales.

Just another one of the many things I don’t understand:  we need legislation to allow wine sales in grocery stores?  I understand the concept of legislation that disallows something, but I don’t get the need for laws that allow things.  Why not just repeal the law that keeps grocery stores from selling wine in the first place?

And what was the original purpose of keeping wine out of groceries?  The only benefit I can see is for the liquor stores have the market cornered currently.

Yeah, I know we live in the Bible Belt and that’s just the way things are, but was there a problem with people showing up to church wine-drunk on Sundays because they stopped to get bread and eggs on their way and were seduced into buying a bottle of cabernet?

Apparently there’s a mini-movement going on to expand wine sales to food retailers.  I’m not much of a wino–the headache just isn’t worth the great taste, but I wouldn’t mind being able to buy some high gravity beers now and then without having to make an extra stop.  Either way, what do I care if someone else buys wine?  How does that affect me?

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Me! My Favorite Meme Ever!

Taylor tagged me with a meme.  In her post she mentioned that she was celebrating her 6 month anniversary blogging, and I realized that I let my one year anniversary slip.  Oh well, I don’t put much stock in that kind of stuff anyway.  Here are the rules to the meme…

** Post about the meme and link back to the person that tagged you.

** Go back to your archives and link to your five favorite posts.

Link One: must be about family
Link Two: must be about friends
Link Three: must be about yourself
Link Four: must be about something you love
Link Five: can be anything you choose

** Tag five other people (at least two must be new acquaintances so that you can get to know them better).

A post about family:  I almost feel bad claiming this post as my own, because I didn’t write most of it, and definitely didn’t write the best parts of it.  It’s all about my grandfather’s Thanksgiving day in 1945.

A post about friends:  it happened ten or so years ago, but I just posted last year about my buddy Eaton Beavers

A post about me:  in September I was busy damning Scrubs straight to hell.  The writing is corny and contrived, but the clips of highlights at the end of the post make it all worthwhile.

A post about something I love:  I wrote one in in December about the abandoned practice of exchanging emails with My Favorite.  I love My Favorite, and I love exchanging emails with her too…especially the kinds we’ll never ever ever show our kids.

A past about anything I choose:  Back in July, before I had the HUGE following I enjoy today, I wrote a post about Fury Face.  A tale of a terrifying mask or a cartoon character who is perpetually showing his anger?  Nah, just a group of educators who can’t spell.

So I think I’ll tag….

SVD, who is currently enjoying an Instalanche and riding the wave of success.

The Wookie at Total Diatribe, who will probably have something mean to say in every post he chooses

My Favorite, who is very starved for time to write, so everything she writes is very important

Hungry Mother, who has a plethora of interesting posts about every one of these topics.

NewsComa, who probably doesn’t even have time to participate because she’s churning out great posts one right after another.

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Miami Drivers Unite!

Quick!  Take the opportunity this power outage has provided you to prove to the world once and for all that you are the biggest collection of jackasses alive.

We were just watching Fox News here at work and they’re showing a busy intersection (79th and 10th I think) where the stoplights are out.  People are just cruising right through at high speeds like total morons.

And what the hell is the police department doing?  They showed a couple of motorcycle cops cruise through exactly like the rest of the drivers.  It doesn’t take a PR genius to realize that this exact intersection is on worldwide TV and that you need to get this one taken care of–force the, ahem, “news” people to find another intersection to film idiot drivers.  Then again, I guess they’d only have to go a block or so to get the exact same footage.