Sunday 'Shotgun' Blast

"I'm Dick Cheney and I approve this torture...I mean BLOGGING method!"

It’s been a few days since I’ve posted anything to my blog (I’ve ‘relapsed’ back to ‘Speak Up!’ after a 2-week absence and have been discussing a variety of issues in that forum). I don’t want to have this initiative stall again, so I want to try something different. Instead of taking just ONE issue and giving my opinion about it, I’m going to try the method that some of the more popular blogs (Booman Tribune, Eschaton, etc.) use—the ‘shotgun’ approach. This is where you bring up a lot of topics and give them a few lines (or just hyperlink to other sites) before moving on to the next one. I’ll take a shot at this so if anyone actually reads this blog, please feel free to comment…

- I promised my wife that I’d mention the DDN’s habit of putting a fold-out on the front page of their Sunday comics. Instead of just opening and closing it for that short period of reading ‘Blondie’, ‘Closer to Home’, ‘Zits’, ‘The Family Circus’ and ‘FoxTrot’, she has to audibly express her displeasure (a weekly occurrence) and physically tear this tab off from the main part of that page. I noticed that today’s edition did not have a flap…could they have read her mind?

- A story in the Friday edition of the DDN mentioned that a union representing 120 reporters, copy editors and photographers urged the paper to begin negotiations on a contract to replace a 20-year-old pact the union says is outdated. After I saw that piece, I was going through the weekend entertainment section and noticed that they gave the new Helen Mirren movie 'The Queen' a rating of 'X+'...I didn't think it would be THAT graphic. I believe it was supposed to be a 'C+' (the 'X' and 'C' keys are adjacent on our 'QWERTY' keyboards). If I were the DDN, I would suggest that these journalism professionals review the simple process of editing their copy before sending it to print.

The DDN gave this movie an 'X+'...
this erroneous review just might improve local ticket sales!

- The DDN also mentioned a story about the latest 'fantasy' game to pique the interest of political junkies--Fantasy Congress! The Chicago Tribune's October 26th story describes how instead of athletes, each player gets to choose from the 535 legislators on Capitol Hill to form their own 'dream teams'. Points are awarded based upon their real legislative accomplishments. The game is schedule to go live after the Tuesday elections.

- I did notice in the Sunday DDN (and on other occasions over the past several months) where advertisements are 'popping' up in some mighty peculiar places on their pages. Back in the days before 'cold type' printing plate preparation, the pagesetters had to fit advertisements into square or rectangular spaces to fit on the page and keep them in line with the publication's columnar scheme. In today's publishing arsenal, ads can be placed ANYWHERE inside the boundaries of the entire page. For example, a Kroger spot was placed as a large diamond centered in the middle of the page. Around it, four news/feature stories were inserted to take up the remaining white space. As a 'traditionalist', I find this practice somewhat distracting but my opinions don't pay the bills. If the advertisers want it, the paper will give it to them.


- In a recent editorial by Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, I saw that he used the most peculiar phrase (highlighted below):

According to the pollsters, pundits and pols -- Democratic and nervous Republican -- a great anti-Republican wave is a-coming. Well, let's assume major Democratic gains: 20 to 25 House seats and four to six Senate seats. The House goes Democratic for the first time in 12 years. The Senate probably stays Republican, but by such an excruciatingly small margin that there is no governing majority.

In many of my on-line duels with the 'red' tribe members on the DDN's 'Speak Up!' forum, they always alude to the fact that when the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 was passed in the US Senate in October of that year, that body was controlled by the Democrats (Senator Jim Jeffords/R-VT opted for 'independent' status in May 2001 which turned a 50-50 split of that body into a 50-49-1 on paper advantage for the Dems). In my frequent rebuttals on this issue, I would try to explain that since Dems normally can't even agree on the most basic of things, (like what to have for lunch), this 'majority' status is pretty much in name only. Since my GOP colleagues believe ALL political parties must behave just like theirs (think lockstep), this is a very foreign concept for many of them to grasp. Now that I have the words of an avowed RW conservative on record, maybe they'll stop their fringe complaints and focus on the issues...yeah, right!

Finally, something meaningful from 'Sir Charles'...

- Speaking of 'war games', a read an online article about a 1999 Pentagon war scenario with the primary subject being the overthrow of Iraq. While details can be found at the National Security Archive website, the posting's bottom line was that even with 400,000 troops, removing Saddam Hussein would still put that country in the same condition it is in today. These findings make it seem that even if former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki had his way, it might not have made a difference...but just tell that to the families of the troops who have lost their lives when Rumsfeld only deployed one-third the total of that scenio's recommended total.

I had more on my list of things to 'spray' (Joe Paterno's unfortunate injuries, traffic at the Nutter Center, Air America 'blackout' memo) but I don't want to delay this any longer than I have. Fire in the hole!