Once every couple of years people get to talking about the “hot” political issues. Seems like the fact of an upcoming election gets everybody worked up. Or does it?
I can’t be the only person who has noticed that the issues that get brought up every time an election is near are distractions, detritus, and pure horse shit.
I was thinking the other day about the level of paranoia in U.S. society. People living here might actually be used to it, but you really notice it when you live abroad. I lived in Spain for five years and never felt so calm and relaxed.
Whenever I hear that message I often come to the same conclusion. If my call really was important then they would increase their service staff so I could speak to a human being right away. Instead you wait. You wait while your children fight. You wait while someone rings the doorbell. You wait all the way through an episode of some program you’d never watch on TV except for the fact that you are sitting around waiting.
You probably think I am writing about the fact that our Vice President seems to be in favor of torture. But I’m not.
As you may have heard, Miers has withdrawn her nomination. I thought I had better write something today since by tomorrow half the rest of Bush’s aides may be indicted and Miers will be old news very quickly.
It’s always interesting to see a survey like this. Someone, somewhere has come up with a test, which once scored, assigns to you a science fiction or fantasy character that matches your personality. The only problems are: The test is hardly scientific; and you have no clue ahead of time to which of the many science fiction or fantasy stories the test will refer. It turns out to be a short list.
Almost no one would deny that Steve Jobs pretty much single-handedly saved the record industry from piracy (and from themselves). But the time is approaching when Apple will need to renew the license from which the whole iTunes price structure has been based. So wouldn’t you know we get this news on the wire:
Record executives, however, are seeking some flexibility in prices, including the ability to charge more for some songs and less for others, the way they do in the traditional retail world.
“There’s no content in the world that has doesn’t have some price flexibility,” said Warner Music Group Corp. chief executive Edgar Bronfman at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia investor conference here. “Not all songs are created equal. Not all albums are created equal.
“That’s not to say we want to raise prices across the board or that we don’t believe in a 99-cent price point for most music,” he said. “But there are some songs for which consumers would be willing to pay more. And some we’d be willing to sell for less.”
Apple’s Jobs blasted the record industry for mulling higher prices. “If they want to raise the prices, it means that they are getting greedy,” he said at a press conference, adding that if the price goes up, the industry faces a higher risk of piracy.
I was reading an article in the SF Chronicle about the Bush Administration’s approval of the new plans for NASA and the eventual replacement of the aged shuttle. And it struck me that like most things the administration has done, it is a return to the past. The Bush republican conservatism is not conservative at all. It is just nostalgia.
If any of you watch “The Daily Show” with Jon Stuart then you’ve probably seen a better criticism of the handling of the hurricane then anything that I could write in 10,000 words or less. If you get your news from network television instead of getting it (and your laughs) from Jon Stewart then you are probably sadly misinformed.
I’ve heard the news media calling parishes in Louisiana counties. It seems to me that if you are going to claim that your profession is “journalist” then you should at least do your homework. But then again, expecting due diligence from journalists is really asking a lot, isn’t it? No, let me rephrase that. Can we expect journalists to make any sense at all?
