Posted by
Scott Keys on Thursday, October 25, 2007 11:15:23 PM
"My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives!!" (Hedley Lamarr)
Since I wrote about the fires in the canyons and on hillsides the other day they spread to neighborhoods that are not thusly situated. These people obviously had no reasonable expectation of losing their homes to fire when they built here and I wasn't talking about these folks. Also several of these fires were evidently the result of arson.
As bad as the mindset is by which most media march, the general level of incompetence by so-called professional journalists is truly remarkable. Laziness in verifying sources, bad grammar and syntax, misuse in the meaning of words; all these are often the result of beginning the coverage of an event or starting a story with a pre-conceived notion of the narrative. It certainly makes it easier when stories fit into a nice mold and you can just fill it up and put it in the oven, but it makes for sloppy and misleading reporting.
Speaking of misusing words, here's a very common one: Irony and coincidence do not mean the same thing. If your wife buys you a new pair of gloves the day you have an accident and cut off one of your hands, that's irony. It is NOT ironic if you get a phone call from a friend as you are talking about him. That's a coincidence. Listen and take note of how often you hear them mentioned by the media's braintrust.
I'm tired of hearing how tough our lives are and how difficult it is to be a teenager these days. How "stressed out" we all are due to the pressures of modern life. Harumph. How'd you like to wonder where your next meal's coming from? Or where you're sleeping tonight? Like I always said to my kids: Do you have a warm, dry place to sleep? Enough to eat? Then you've pretty much got it made. Everything else is gravy.
When you meet someone the very first thing you'll notice about them is their physical appearance, including their skin color. I thinks that's inevitable. But that ought to be one of the last things you think about them after that.
So President Bush was scolded for not visiting New Orleans sooner after Katrina and now California's Democrat Lt. Gov., John Garamendi, takes the opportunity to criticize him for actually coming to California after the fires. The president obviously can't win, no matter what he decides to do, can he? It's great to be able to have it both ways, huh Dems? What a buffoon.
Most people could use to go back to school and get a degree in LISTENING to what is actually said, as opposed to HEARING what they would like to hear.
"People's Radio" station KPFK-FM, here in LA, has been doing their fund-raising drive on-air for, it seems, the last 20 weeks. One of the premiums is a DVD extolling the virtues of the Hugo Chavez presidency in Venezuela. No, seriously. It's truly better than Comedy Central although more maddening. They need to rename the station the "Useful Idiots" station.
Here's another reason baseball's the greatest game: the Red Sox 2nd baseman, Dustin Pedroia. Why is that, you ask. Because he's only about 5'7" and yet he's tearing it up in the postseason. The lesson is, you don't have to be a physical freak to play the national pastime.