With that said, she still fills diapers as a profession, so she's not old enough to stop a furiously warped mind like this author's. Without further ado, we return to the regularly-scheduled blogcast...
I have not visited life as a morning news producer in this space yet, so allow me a brief interlude. The game of Pros and Cons with a job like this is relatively short, yet highly descriptive. Allow a moment for a sample:
Pro - New work product every day. No matter how good or bad a show is, there is another to do the next day.
Con - The work in that product involves trying *not* to depress people, yet tell them what's happening in their area. Some level of insight can be had with politics, and having a bit of sport at the expense of local hoodlums who have turned stealing cars, getting chased by police and driving said stolen ride into a house is all fine and good, but having to recount the tragedy of events like the Sendai earthquake or the horror of an immigrant woman putting her baby in a microwave until it died takes the luster off of the career choice.
Pro - Working with some of the newest and best technologies available in broadcast television on a daily basis, and doing so with seasoned professionals in front of the camera.
Con - Having to depend on the outside world being foul and depraved to make content for your work day. While it (sadly) delivers on a regular basis, it is not an ideal way to maintain emotional health.
Just a sampling. The newest of those "pros" is a whole pile of topic matter to write about.
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In recent days, the sports world has supplied plenty of stupidity and general oddball-ism to fill several hard drives with rants. As a fan for more than three decades now, I woefully underestimated the power of an instant media, both in its effective nature in breaking news and its propensity for error.
Neither of those affected the decision by 229-year old (estimates based on carbon dating) Bartolo Colon of the New York Yankees to undergo a stem cell replacement procedure to rejuvenate his flagging career. He responded with a solid year, until another piece of his cadaver-enhanced body broke down, and raised enough eyebrows to have a higher profile athlete try a similar procedure.
Kobe Bean Bryant, resident Laker megastar and alleged misogynist, took advantage of the ill-advised NBA lockout to travel to Germany to undergo a procedure much like Colon did. Envisioning the precocious teen with the wild 'fro as a 15-year vet is tough for me, but the miles of several trips to the NBA Finals have apparently begun to take their toll on old Number Eight (er, number Twenty-Four)...enough so that trying a procedure that has not been tested thoroughly by medical professionals in the hopes of winning one more championship isn't as surprising as I'd like it to be.
Bryant and his aging support crew have been slowly sliding backwards out of the top dog slot in the league, so his competitive nature got the best of him. Why this isn't illegal and against league by-laws in a fashion similar to blood doping and HGH treatment is probably left to the greater minds that run (or lockout) the league. One just hopes that the bust that will eventually go up in Springfield will not be horribly disfigured by some marginally-ethical medical decisions.
(Don't worry. A more extensive look at the NBA labor situation, as well as a reflection on the NFL's scenario, will show up very soon in this space. It may even be some of the following adjectives: insightful, witty, urbane, profane, absurd, reckless, mundane or spotty.)
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Recent news in the 'burg I now hang my hat in has also left me with thoughts that need ventilation. Most recently, the events involving two separate police departments and the alleged actions of one now-deceased felon have left me scratching at my ample head.
An officer for the Twin Rivers School Police Department was shot in an escape attempt by a suspect. When word got out, police officers from several nearby cities began to search for the shooter. The officer, who was injured but not incapacitated enough to prevent identifying the suspect, is recovering from his injuries. The suspect was captured by a department from another jurisdiction, and placed in the back of a squad car, handcuffed and lying on his belly.
Here is where accounts vary a bit. Friends of the suspect (now alleged victim) say he was asthmatic, and could not reach his inhaler from the position he was transported in. Officers deny any issues with placing him in the squad car, but then noticed the shooter was unresponsive during transport. They pulled over and called for medical help. He was pronounced dead minutes later.
The shooter ran from police, even while in cuffs (this is on camera), and was taken down in a manner one might expect when a handcuffed man attempts to run from police. The question of how he died in police custody is contentious and divided along racial lines.
While that is being sorted out, it comes to light that the Officer's Association of the department of the officer who was shot had issued some questionable T-shirts in a fundraising effort years before. (Once again, a police department for a school district.) The shirts had a slogan on them: "You raise 'em, We cage 'em".
Last night, several angry protesters went to the school board meeting to vent about how those shirts show the department's culpability in the shooter's death. Repeat: the police department of a school district, whose officer was wounded, allegedly by the victim, is responsible for the death of a man in custody in another department, all based on a t-shirt.
Putting aside for a moment the guilt or innocence of the deceased, the misplaced anger is disturbing. It can be likened to being mad at the City of Anaheim for Sacramento's failure to build a viable NBA arena for its team, and then saying that the city is at fault for a broken ride at Disneyland. Anger that goes off the boards like this leads to bad situations...something I can attest to, after having lived in Los Angeles in the Spring of 1992.
Even more unsettling, the leadership is distracted from handling this issue well, due to some people wishing to either a) re-enact the grandiose days of Haight-Ashbury, or b) get a camping permit to sleep in a park in the city because they were wronged by the banks during the bailout. Resources and money are being expended daily on people wishing to Occupy places that are not their homes, while a police officer is wounded and another man is dead from being in the back of a squad car.
Not to be pithy, but me thinks some priorities are askew in this town. Many would say the two situations do not compare, but they both reflect the fear and outrage that comes with having a depressed economic situation. Many municipalities have been forced to reduce police presence due to budget constraints, and the towns they patrol are teeming with unemployed and underemployed people, mad at the world that stripped them of their ability to raise their families.
While time heals all wounds, it may take a large stack of greenbacks and a steady hand to slow the rising tensions in this and other towns across the country...stay tuned.
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Being serious all of the time is no fun, so I include this remix of a Jay-Z lyric, overheard on Halloween:
"If you're having ghoul problems, I feel bad for ya, son. I've got 99 problems, but a witch ain't one. Hit me!"
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Just a few entries ago, I can see how clearly I saw the Brett Favre situation unfold in Minnesota. Little did I know that a QB's problem with keeping his cell phone camera pointed away from his nether regions would not force him to quit ruining my team's chances for one full year afterwards.
After the 41-year old Favre retired (for the fourth and apparently final time), the team promptly went younger, trading for 33-year old has been Donovan McNabb. I believe McNabb is Irish for "throws picks like Favre", but my Gaelic is rusty...could have that wrong.
McNabb's first drop back of the season went like one would expect in a situation like this. He fumbled, and the defense recovered. The team proceeded to not win any games with him at the helm, and broke through only after starting the bizarre draft choice Christian Ponder, just 5 games into his rookie campaign. I call the drafting of Ponder bizarre in part because they took him two full rounds ahead of any expert opinion, and had traded a pick to get their Opening Day starter (McNabb) not long before.
In any event, the net result is a team sitting at 2-6, with the triumphant win over Cam Newton's Carolina Panthers (2-6) leading them into the season's second half. I will now go locate a dictionary, find the definition of the word 'immolate', then proceed to re-enact it.
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I will close today's post with a thought about the Occupy movement: A waste. For the first time since the days of Kennedy and Hoover, people across the spectrum were ready to make a move towards change, only to derail themselves with a lack of clarity in message. The protesters appear to be Mad As Hell, And Not Gonna Take It Anymore, but their "its" are all different. Blaming the economy's downswing on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is arguable, as are the bank and auto industry bailout measures. The unemployment numbers are bad and not ready yet to improve, and disasters are all being connected to greed (Gulf Oil Spill, bailouts), government mismanagement (Katrina, wars) and power-hungry leadership maneuvering (overthrows of several Middle Eastern governments, both G.W. Bush election wins).
None of the protesters can agree who's to blame, or what they are blaming them for. Is Bank of America responsible for the thousands killed overseas? Is BP somehow connected to unemployment in Kansas City? Did the stock market dive connect up with FEMA's malfeasance?
As with any block party, a few of the homeowner's dishes were broken during the festivities. People sleeping in parks to prove a point, while voting the people in who chase the homeless out of their encampments any time the city has business leaders visiting (or an Olympic hockey final to lose) is item two in the Webster's definition of hypocrisy. People complaining about government waste, while forcing their city's police forces to make thousands of arrests and pay out millions of collective dollars of overtime to tired officers, who may very well have some of the same beefs as these underemployed Poli-Sci majors have.
My mother once told me, after some friends had come over and made a mess: "Hope it was fun, because it's your mess to clean up, and the damage comes out of your allowance."
Until next time...
Very cool !!
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