If you’re old enough to remember the TV show “Hee Haw”, you’ve been through a couple pretty big recessions in your life. There was a recurring skit on the show where four hillbillies surrounded by moonshine jugs would recount tales of woe, accompanied by a song:
“Gloom, despair, and agony on me; deep, dark depression, excessive misery! If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all; gloom, despair, and agony on me!!
I thought of that old tune yesterday while glancing through the morning news items. Everywhere I looked I got another dose of gloom about the economy, with predictions that we’re headed for the feared “double-dip” – a recession where the economy takes a nose-dive, comes back up a bit, and then takes another big nose-dive.
The National Bureau of Economic Research officially decides whether the economy is expanding or contracting, and the NBER, despite urging from a number of politicians and public officials will not say the recession is over. Nor will the NBER predict a double-dip, but that doesn’t stop the pundits from doing it.
Near as I can tell, the tea leaves some of the financial pundits are reading concern housing, employment, the bond market, and a few other intangibles.
Housing is still way, way down. You don’t need to know that last week’s official housing numbers were horrible, with a steep drop in new home sales. If you have anybody in your family or in your neighborhood who works in the building trades, you know housing isn’t “back” yet.
Unemployment is still very high, and “under-employment” is rampant. Everyone interprets the weekly unemployment reports differently, it seems, but Monday Vice President Biden said there’s no possibility to restore 8 million jobs lost since the beginning of the recession, a remark easily interpreted as gloom and doom.
Another sign of the world economic climate came last weekend at the G-20 meeting, where most of the policymakers disagreed with President Obama about more stimulus spending, and said now is the time to cut spending and pay down debt, rather than launch more new programs and create more debt.
The bond market’s not exactly roses: the yield on the 20-year Treasury hit its lowest levels since 1962 last week.
All these things lead some of the economic tea-leaf-readers to predict that dire times are ahead.
I’m no economist, and while my native tendencies run more toward pessimism than optimism, I’d prefer to believe that the worst is behind us, but the road to recovery will be long and twisting, and it’s going to take a while to get to whatever the “new normal” is.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Peggy West: FAIL
You’ve either seen it or heard about it by now. The video and audio track was all over the national media Friday. Milwaukee County Board Supervisor Peggy West, whose official county profile proudly declares her to be the first Latina elected to the Milwaukee County Board, proposed a boycott of Arizona.
She opined, during a county board meeting, that it would be one thing if Texas, which is right on the border with Mexico, passed restrictive laws against illegal immigrants, and denigrated Arizona’s new law, referring to the state as being “a ways removed from the border.”
Everybody from CNN to Rush Limbaugh played the clip, and the blogosphere was ablaze with snarky comments about the kind of people Wisconsinites elect.
Peggy West’s 15 minutes of fame (notoriety) are over, and the news cycle has moved on. But her ignorance still resonates. It’s one thing for the average Joe or Jane to be unaware that Arizona does indeed share a border with Mexico, but quite another for a public policy maker suggesting a boycott based on her abysmal ignorance not only of geography but of current events.
A few moments later in her spiel, she refers to “the troops on the border” in Arizona, further demonstrating that Supervisor West’s brain really is out to lunch.
Of course, after the onslaught of media attention to her stupidity, Ms. West attempted to lie her way out of the situation, claiming she got passing marks in Geography in the Milwaukee public school system (another ringing endorsement of Milwaukee schools) and at Milwaukee Area Tech College, and that she knows Arizona borders Mexico, blah blah blah.
Her south-side Milwaukee constituents will only remember that she tried to “represent” for them. She’ll be re-elected to her 50-grand-a-year county board seat. ($50,679 to be exact.)
In the grand scheme of things, I guess it’s not that important for most folks to know whether Arizona shares a border with Mexico (350 miles) or if Idaho shares a border with Canada (45 miles). It’s one of the myriad things that fall under the category “if I need to know, I can look it up.”
I’m sure some curriculum consultant would tell me that there are far more important topics for teachers to cover these days than back in my grade school days, when we were shown a map with only the outlines of the states, and the teacher would point to one and we’d have to name it.
However, I do expect that an elected representative, prior to making a major public policy decision like boycotting an entire state and its products, would have spent enough time studying the issue (and I don’t mean “Googling it”, as Ms. West said she did in her spiel) to understand WHY the people of Arizona passed such a law.
I don’t think that’s too much to ask of somebody who holds a 50-grand-a-year job.
She opined, during a county board meeting, that it would be one thing if Texas, which is right on the border with Mexico, passed restrictive laws against illegal immigrants, and denigrated Arizona’s new law, referring to the state as being “a ways removed from the border.”
Everybody from CNN to Rush Limbaugh played the clip, and the blogosphere was ablaze with snarky comments about the kind of people Wisconsinites elect.
Peggy West’s 15 minutes of fame (notoriety) are over, and the news cycle has moved on. But her ignorance still resonates. It’s one thing for the average Joe or Jane to be unaware that Arizona does indeed share a border with Mexico, but quite another for a public policy maker suggesting a boycott based on her abysmal ignorance not only of geography but of current events.
A few moments later in her spiel, she refers to “the troops on the border” in Arizona, further demonstrating that Supervisor West’s brain really is out to lunch.
Of course, after the onslaught of media attention to her stupidity, Ms. West attempted to lie her way out of the situation, claiming she got passing marks in Geography in the Milwaukee public school system (another ringing endorsement of Milwaukee schools) and at Milwaukee Area Tech College, and that she knows Arizona borders Mexico, blah blah blah.
Her south-side Milwaukee constituents will only remember that she tried to “represent” for them. She’ll be re-elected to her 50-grand-a-year county board seat. ($50,679 to be exact.)
In the grand scheme of things, I guess it’s not that important for most folks to know whether Arizona shares a border with Mexico (350 miles) or if Idaho shares a border with Canada (45 miles). It’s one of the myriad things that fall under the category “if I need to know, I can look it up.”
I’m sure some curriculum consultant would tell me that there are far more important topics for teachers to cover these days than back in my grade school days, when we were shown a map with only the outlines of the states, and the teacher would point to one and we’d have to name it.
However, I do expect that an elected representative, prior to making a major public policy decision like boycotting an entire state and its products, would have spent enough time studying the issue (and I don’t mean “Googling it”, as Ms. West said she did in her spiel) to understand WHY the people of Arizona passed such a law.
I don’t think that’s too much to ask of somebody who holds a 50-grand-a-year job.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Bob Bodden: Broadcaster's Broadcaster
Bob Bodden passed away last week. He was 91 years young. Everybody in the Platteville area knew Bob, and generations of Wisconsin broadcasters all over the state knew, liked, and respected Bob. He started his career in Wisconsin radio back in 1941 as a student at Marquette, and over the next six decades touched the lives of countless people. They don’t make ‘em like Bob Bodden any more.
Bob was elected to the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 1991, and I have no doubt that no matter which profession Bob chose, he would have been in that profession’s hall of fame. Bob still gave regular commentaries on one of the stations he founded, WSWW in Platteville, until he passed. And he had something of substance to say every time he turned on the microphone.
In addition to his many leadership positions in the Broadcast industry in Wisconsin, Bob was deeply involved in his community, leading several civic organizations in Platteville and as a member of the Grant County board.
But I always regarded Bob as the consummate radio news man.
When I was a still-wet-behind-the-ears fledgling radio announcer, news was usually gathered two ways. One was the staff member – the “News Director” - who went out and covered local events and wrote up stories about it; the other was via the Associated Press teletype. Back in the 60’s, if you gave a tour of the radio station to a friend, the thing that fascinated them the most was the AP teletype.
Here was this glorified typewriter, about three feet tall, with a huge roll of paper feeding into it, and it just sat there and typed line after line of news copy. Visitors would stand transfixed in front of it, reading the news copy from all over the world as it was spewing out, fascinated. Three or four times a day there’d be a “state split” on the wire, when the AP would send about a dozen Wisconsin stories.
Since the AP is essentially a big co-op, member stations would contribute stories. It seemed every time there was a “state split”, there’d be a story from southwest Wisconsin, and, as is still the practice today, after the story there’d be a credit line, like “Thanks to Bob Bodden, WSWW.”
All I knew was that this Bodden guy really had a handle on anything that was happening in southwest Wisconsin. His contributions were all over the AP wire. Eventually, as I advanced in my career, I finally met Bob at an Associated Press meeting in Milwaukee. We had a brief chat about radio news, which I’m sure Bob would never have remembered, but to me, it was a brush with fame. This guy was an icon!
If you applied for a broadcast news job in Wisconsin and had WSWW on your resume, you got hired. Bob Bodden trained and developed countless news people, and if you worked for Bob, it was like getting a PhD in local news. Whether you’re covering news in Potosi or Pittsburgh, the principles are the same. And Bob Bodden was truly a man of principle.
Bob Bodden: father of 10 children, 33 grandchildren, and 39 great-grandchildren; and mentor to thousands and thousands of Wisconsin broadcasters.
If there’s news happening in heaven, Bob knows about it, and has filed a story on it.
Bob was elected to the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame in 1991, and I have no doubt that no matter which profession Bob chose, he would have been in that profession’s hall of fame. Bob still gave regular commentaries on one of the stations he founded, WSWW in Platteville, until he passed. And he had something of substance to say every time he turned on the microphone.
In addition to his many leadership positions in the Broadcast industry in Wisconsin, Bob was deeply involved in his community, leading several civic organizations in Platteville and as a member of the Grant County board.
But I always regarded Bob as the consummate radio news man.
When I was a still-wet-behind-the-ears fledgling radio announcer, news was usually gathered two ways. One was the staff member – the “News Director” - who went out and covered local events and wrote up stories about it; the other was via the Associated Press teletype. Back in the 60’s, if you gave a tour of the radio station to a friend, the thing that fascinated them the most was the AP teletype.
Here was this glorified typewriter, about three feet tall, with a huge roll of paper feeding into it, and it just sat there and typed line after line of news copy. Visitors would stand transfixed in front of it, reading the news copy from all over the world as it was spewing out, fascinated. Three or four times a day there’d be a “state split” on the wire, when the AP would send about a dozen Wisconsin stories.
Since the AP is essentially a big co-op, member stations would contribute stories. It seemed every time there was a “state split”, there’d be a story from southwest Wisconsin, and, as is still the practice today, after the story there’d be a credit line, like “Thanks to Bob Bodden, WSWW.”
All I knew was that this Bodden guy really had a handle on anything that was happening in southwest Wisconsin. His contributions were all over the AP wire. Eventually, as I advanced in my career, I finally met Bob at an Associated Press meeting in Milwaukee. We had a brief chat about radio news, which I’m sure Bob would never have remembered, but to me, it was a brush with fame. This guy was an icon!
If you applied for a broadcast news job in Wisconsin and had WSWW on your resume, you got hired. Bob Bodden trained and developed countless news people, and if you worked for Bob, it was like getting a PhD in local news. Whether you’re covering news in Potosi or Pittsburgh, the principles are the same. And Bob Bodden was truly a man of principle.
Bob Bodden: father of 10 children, 33 grandchildren, and 39 great-grandchildren; and mentor to thousands and thousands of Wisconsin broadcasters.
If there’s news happening in heaven, Bob knows about it, and has filed a story on it.
Friday, June 25, 2010
We'll All Burn To Death In Our Sleep
Could this burned-out hulk be your home (cue video of smoldering pile of rubble)? Are you living in a death-trap? Is your family safe? Are you and your family at risk of dying in a horrible fire? Do you know what your house is made of?
I keep waiting for one of the local media outlets to pick up on the story of the house fire on Stockbridge Drive on the far east side, and try to scare us to death. If we were in a ratings sweep, I’ll bet somebody would do the story.
The article yesterday morning in the State Journal quoted Fire Lt. Dave Peterson saying homes built in the past 15 years use a lot more lightweight, pre-fabricated pieces, which meet code – but fail a lot faster than old-fashioned lumber in a fire. The paper also had quotes from local home builders talking about the newer materials and construction.
City Fire Marshall Ed Ruckriegel told the paper firefighters want the state building code updated to reflect the changes in construction materials, with a code requirement for sprinkler systems in single-family homes to the tune of a few thousand bucks.
Earlier this week I read a column by Paul Fanlund in the Cap Times talking about how “emotional heat” may be at the core of the future of news, and this house fire story is perfect for some media outlet to try and make us lose sleep about what our house is really made of.
The house Toni and I bought in 1999 is built like a rock. It was a builder’s home. The contractor built it as his “dream home” in 1997, but not too long after he and his wife moved in, the marriage fell apart. I’ve often joked that the coldest place I’ve ever been was Madison on August 18th, 1999. We closed on the house that day at Lawyer’s Title on Applegate Court. You could hang meat in that room, and it wasn’t because of the air conditioning. The two former owners really hated each other. Needless to say, we were able to get a good deal on the price. The wife got the house in the divorce agreement and she wanted cash, now.
The floors are built over real wood joists with real plywood, not OSB (oriented strand board), which a friend of mine calls “glit”, a combination of glue and s*it. Ask somebody whose floors are OSB what it’s like when the OSB gets wet in a kitchen flood or from storm damage.
There’s 5/8 drywall everywhere, not the thin stuff. This house holds heat in the winter and a/c in the summer. The three outside decks total a bit under a thousand square feet, and with all the sealant I’ve put on them in the past decade, they’re probably our biggest fire risk!
I have a bone to pick with the electrical contractor who wired the house, though, and all I’ll say is thank goodness our son’s best friend is a licensed journeyman electrician. We’ve dealt with a few “issues.” And the guy who built the house did his own cable wiring and had no clue what he was doing. Two installers from Charter spent the better part of two full days ripping out his nightmarish arrangement and re-wiring every room in the house. (It helps to have a senior exec at Charter corporate who was an old college drinking pal.)
So if one of the other local media outlets picks up on the State Journal’s east-side house fire story, they’ll be able to scare a lot of homeowners, who probably have no clue how their house was built or what kind of materials were used.
Maybe they’ll save the idea for the fall ratings sweep.
I keep waiting for one of the local media outlets to pick up on the story of the house fire on Stockbridge Drive on the far east side, and try to scare us to death. If we were in a ratings sweep, I’ll bet somebody would do the story.
The article yesterday morning in the State Journal quoted Fire Lt. Dave Peterson saying homes built in the past 15 years use a lot more lightweight, pre-fabricated pieces, which meet code – but fail a lot faster than old-fashioned lumber in a fire. The paper also had quotes from local home builders talking about the newer materials and construction.
City Fire Marshall Ed Ruckriegel told the paper firefighters want the state building code updated to reflect the changes in construction materials, with a code requirement for sprinkler systems in single-family homes to the tune of a few thousand bucks.
Earlier this week I read a column by Paul Fanlund in the Cap Times talking about how “emotional heat” may be at the core of the future of news, and this house fire story is perfect for some media outlet to try and make us lose sleep about what our house is really made of.
The house Toni and I bought in 1999 is built like a rock. It was a builder’s home. The contractor built it as his “dream home” in 1997, but not too long after he and his wife moved in, the marriage fell apart. I’ve often joked that the coldest place I’ve ever been was Madison on August 18th, 1999. We closed on the house that day at Lawyer’s Title on Applegate Court. You could hang meat in that room, and it wasn’t because of the air conditioning. The two former owners really hated each other. Needless to say, we were able to get a good deal on the price. The wife got the house in the divorce agreement and she wanted cash, now.
The floors are built over real wood joists with real plywood, not OSB (oriented strand board), which a friend of mine calls “glit”, a combination of glue and s*it. Ask somebody whose floors are OSB what it’s like when the OSB gets wet in a kitchen flood or from storm damage.
There’s 5/8 drywall everywhere, not the thin stuff. This house holds heat in the winter and a/c in the summer. The three outside decks total a bit under a thousand square feet, and with all the sealant I’ve put on them in the past decade, they’re probably our biggest fire risk!
I have a bone to pick with the electrical contractor who wired the house, though, and all I’ll say is thank goodness our son’s best friend is a licensed journeyman electrician. We’ve dealt with a few “issues.” And the guy who built the house did his own cable wiring and had no clue what he was doing. Two installers from Charter spent the better part of two full days ripping out his nightmarish arrangement and re-wiring every room in the house. (It helps to have a senior exec at Charter corporate who was an old college drinking pal.)
So if one of the other local media outlets picks up on the State Journal’s east-side house fire story, they’ll be able to scare a lot of homeowners, who probably have no clue how their house was built or what kind of materials were used.
Maybe they’ll save the idea for the fall ratings sweep.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Four-Star Failure
They don’t put a 4th star on your shoulder-board because you’re popular. And they don’t do it lightly. There are rules about how many general officers there can be, but, the rules also say the Commander in Chief can pretty much make up any rules he (or she) wants, concerning who is and who is not a four-star general.
Right now, there are only a dozen 4-star generals in the Army, and General Stanley McChrystal has only had the fourth star on his shoulder-board for a year. He got the 4th star in June last year when he took over command of our troops in Afghanistan.
And yesterday, when the Commander in Chief called him on the carpet for saying stupid things about members of the Obama administration and its policies, the Commander in Chief accepted General McChrystal’s resignation from his command in Afghanistan, and put General David Patraeus in charge.
It’s not the first time General McChrystal has been connected to a controversy. Several years ago, when he was Special Operations Commander in Afghanistan, he came under great criticism for the cover-up regarding the friendly-fire death of former NFL player Pat Tillman. We were told Corporal Tillman died valiantly fighting the enemy, but later the truth came out that he was actually killed by friendly fire. There was no enemy fire whatsoever. The Bush administration and General McChrystal were lying.
What McChrystal did in the Pat Tillman incident was to submit a fraudulent recommendation that Tillman get the Silver Star for his actions against the enemy, in an attempt to cover up the fact that Tillman was killed by friendly fire. Of course, then three-star General McChrystal then lied to congress about it last June when he was up for the new job and the 4th star.
In case you don’t know, the Uniform Code of Military Justice forbids our troops from making disparaging remarks about the Commander in Chief, the Congress, and political appointees. General McChrystal could have faced a court-martial for his snide comments about Vice President Biden and other top officials in the Rolling Stone Magazine article.
General McChrystal must have made the mistake of thinking the Commander in Chief would give him a pass, because he knew what he said to the reporter was clearly out-of-bounds, if not downright insubordinate. He apologized to the President and the Vice-President and several of the other civilian officials he denigrated in the article.
It takes a special person to qualify for a four-star slot in any of our armed services. General McChrystal made a big mistake, and he’s paying the price. He may still have four stars on his shoulder boards – for now – but he has no doubt now that the Commander in Chief – a civilian – is in charge.
And that’s the way our Constitution says it should be.
Right now, there are only a dozen 4-star generals in the Army, and General Stanley McChrystal has only had the fourth star on his shoulder-board for a year. He got the 4th star in June last year when he took over command of our troops in Afghanistan.
And yesterday, when the Commander in Chief called him on the carpet for saying stupid things about members of the Obama administration and its policies, the Commander in Chief accepted General McChrystal’s resignation from his command in Afghanistan, and put General David Patraeus in charge.
It’s not the first time General McChrystal has been connected to a controversy. Several years ago, when he was Special Operations Commander in Afghanistan, he came under great criticism for the cover-up regarding the friendly-fire death of former NFL player Pat Tillman. We were told Corporal Tillman died valiantly fighting the enemy, but later the truth came out that he was actually killed by friendly fire. There was no enemy fire whatsoever. The Bush administration and General McChrystal were lying.
What McChrystal did in the Pat Tillman incident was to submit a fraudulent recommendation that Tillman get the Silver Star for his actions against the enemy, in an attempt to cover up the fact that Tillman was killed by friendly fire. Of course, then three-star General McChrystal then lied to congress about it last June when he was up for the new job and the 4th star.
In case you don’t know, the Uniform Code of Military Justice forbids our troops from making disparaging remarks about the Commander in Chief, the Congress, and political appointees. General McChrystal could have faced a court-martial for his snide comments about Vice President Biden and other top officials in the Rolling Stone Magazine article.
General McChrystal must have made the mistake of thinking the Commander in Chief would give him a pass, because he knew what he said to the reporter was clearly out-of-bounds, if not downright insubordinate. He apologized to the President and the Vice-President and several of the other civilian officials he denigrated in the article.
It takes a special person to qualify for a four-star slot in any of our armed services. General McChrystal made a big mistake, and he’s paying the price. He may still have four stars on his shoulder boards – for now – but he has no doubt now that the Commander in Chief – a civilian – is in charge.
And that’s the way our Constitution says it should be.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Wednesday Media Rant: Them Changes
We got a bit of water in the lower level of our home in Monday night’s storm; not a lot. My wife sopped it up with a bunch of towels and I manned the mop. Several years ago, our lowest level would flood every time it rained hard, so we replaced the carpet with tile, and installed commercial six-inch rain gutters. We have a lot of roof to “drain”. Expensive, but it turned out to be one of the best investments in the house we’ve ever made. Now, it takes a downpour like Monday night’s to get us wet, and we can clean it up quickly. The sump pump ran almost continuously until about 10 PM.
I have a pretty good amateur weather station set up at home, and we got 1.76 inches of rain in 40 minutes at our south suburban Madison location. That’s a LOT of rain in a short time, a rate of almost three inches an hour, and that’s serious rainfall.
We were watching TV until DishNet gave out about 7:45. Channel 15’s David George said the cloud tops over Rock County were between 40 and 45 thousand feet – VERY unusually high – and since our dish looks south, there was just too much “weather” for the signal to get through. Our Charter broadband stayed up, though, so we were able to get weather coverage and radar on my wife’s iPad. DishNet popped back on about 8:45, when the storms south of us had moved away to the east.
I have railed year after year about the excesses of the local TV stations when there’s a storm; but, to be honest, I really think they’ve toned it down a bit. At least it seemed so, Monday night. All 3 stations – Channels 3, 15, and 27 – had their chief meteorologists on board; all had one of their principal news anchors contributing; and their coverage was WAY toned down compared to prior years. No gloom-and-doom; just the facts.
I sense the public still weighs in on my side of this weather coverage equation, because the anchors kept acknowledging the number of calls they were getting about interrupting programming, and re-stating their “policy” of staying on continuous weather coverage any time there’s a tornado warning in the area.
Local radio? WIBA-AM had the full crew on, going wall-to-wall with News Director Robin Colbert coordinating and anchoring the coverage, with live reports from all over Dane County and constant weather updates from the Channel 27 crew. My old alma mater, WTDY-AM, was in syndicated programming, with “Doctor” Drew and his locker room pals holding a disgustingly graphic discussion about anal sex. Fail.
The biggest media change I noted was Tuesday morning’s State Journal. A couple hundred words on page 3 of the print edition. Just a brief narrative about the regional aspects of the storm.
But – when I fired up the computer Tuesday morning and went to Madison.com I found a great article about the storm, written by that crafty observer and talented wordsmith George Hesselberg, complete with details about local street flooding, regional affects of the storm, and accompanied by several interesting photos of the storm’s aftermath.
That’s a BIG change. The paper’s best and most compelling coverage of an event that everybody talked about all day Tuesday was not in their print edition, but in their online portal.
Toned-down local TV weather coverage, and the State Journal’s best stuff is online? Certainly the apocalypse is nigh.
I have a pretty good amateur weather station set up at home, and we got 1.76 inches of rain in 40 minutes at our south suburban Madison location. That’s a LOT of rain in a short time, a rate of almost three inches an hour, and that’s serious rainfall.
We were watching TV until DishNet gave out about 7:45. Channel 15’s David George said the cloud tops over Rock County were between 40 and 45 thousand feet – VERY unusually high – and since our dish looks south, there was just too much “weather” for the signal to get through. Our Charter broadband stayed up, though, so we were able to get weather coverage and radar on my wife’s iPad. DishNet popped back on about 8:45, when the storms south of us had moved away to the east.
I have railed year after year about the excesses of the local TV stations when there’s a storm; but, to be honest, I really think they’ve toned it down a bit. At least it seemed so, Monday night. All 3 stations – Channels 3, 15, and 27 – had their chief meteorologists on board; all had one of their principal news anchors contributing; and their coverage was WAY toned down compared to prior years. No gloom-and-doom; just the facts.
I sense the public still weighs in on my side of this weather coverage equation, because the anchors kept acknowledging the number of calls they were getting about interrupting programming, and re-stating their “policy” of staying on continuous weather coverage any time there’s a tornado warning in the area.
Local radio? WIBA-AM had the full crew on, going wall-to-wall with News Director Robin Colbert coordinating and anchoring the coverage, with live reports from all over Dane County and constant weather updates from the Channel 27 crew. My old alma mater, WTDY-AM, was in syndicated programming, with “Doctor” Drew and his locker room pals holding a disgustingly graphic discussion about anal sex. Fail.
The biggest media change I noted was Tuesday morning’s State Journal. A couple hundred words on page 3 of the print edition. Just a brief narrative about the regional aspects of the storm.
But – when I fired up the computer Tuesday morning and went to Madison.com I found a great article about the storm, written by that crafty observer and talented wordsmith George Hesselberg, complete with details about local street flooding, regional affects of the storm, and accompanied by several interesting photos of the storm’s aftermath.
That’s a BIG change. The paper’s best and most compelling coverage of an event that everybody talked about all day Tuesday was not in their print edition, but in their online portal.
Toned-down local TV weather coverage, and the State Journal’s best stuff is online? Certainly the apocalypse is nigh.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
What We Won't Give Up In The Recession
Folks up in the Fox Valley always used to say the area had a great hedge against economic downturns because people will always need toilet paper. But – surprise! – US News and World Report says we’re actually buying less toilet paper now than a year ago. We’re being more frugal about using it.
The magazine lists a number of things we’ve cut back on, and a few that we won’t cut back on, and at the top of the list is the portable computer. Not necessarily the flashy new iPad, but your basic, portable computer. We won’t give them up. Even homeless people log on to free wi-fi services to stay in touch. Sales of notebook computers have skyrocketed over the past three years.
Similarly, we’re not giving up our high-speed internet access. It’s one of those “microwave oven” things: once you’ve had it, you won’t give it up. And use is still expanding: one prediction is that within the next three years, more than 90% of American homes will have high-speed internet.
We’re still going to the movies, too. Ticket sales were down in 2008 but bounced back strong in 2009 and are looking good for 2010. Theater owners were concerned about losing ground to home theater systems and the wide array of DVD’s and streaming online movies available now.
In general, Americans are spending less on entertainment, but we’re watching more TV these days. Some of the increase could be more unemployed people who have nothing better to do with their time than sit in front of the tube, but the typical American now spends 18 hours a week watching TV at home.
Kitty and Fido aren’t feeling the impact of the recession. We love our pets and continue to spend money on them. Pet food, supplies, grooming, and vet care have been growing uninterrupted at about 5% a year for the past decade with no sign of slowing down.
Smoking continues to decline, and US News and World Report says we’ve cut back our spending on high-end booze. But we’re drinking more of the cheap stuff, which is typical during economic downturns. Restaurant and bar sales are down, so it’s likely that more people are drinking at home, and they’re not buying expensive beer or booze.
More people are brewing their java at home, while places like Starbucks are reporting steady declines in sales over the past couple years. The National Coffee Association says 86% of coffee drinkers are making their own at home, compared to 82% a year ago.
And, we still love our tunes. More people considered an iPod a necessity in 2009 than in 2006, despite the recession. Downloads of singles and albums are up 21% in the past year.
Retail sales are down; sales of homes, cars, and appliances are way down; we’re using less toilet paper and going out to eat less; but we still spend money on our pets, entertainment, and high-speed internet; and we’ve cut down on the $5 latte and the high-end booze.
Most of us are still finding a way to have fun once in a while; we’re just not spending as much to do it.
The magazine lists a number of things we’ve cut back on, and a few that we won’t cut back on, and at the top of the list is the portable computer. Not necessarily the flashy new iPad, but your basic, portable computer. We won’t give them up. Even homeless people log on to free wi-fi services to stay in touch. Sales of notebook computers have skyrocketed over the past three years.
Similarly, we’re not giving up our high-speed internet access. It’s one of those “microwave oven” things: once you’ve had it, you won’t give it up. And use is still expanding: one prediction is that within the next three years, more than 90% of American homes will have high-speed internet.
We’re still going to the movies, too. Ticket sales were down in 2008 but bounced back strong in 2009 and are looking good for 2010. Theater owners were concerned about losing ground to home theater systems and the wide array of DVD’s and streaming online movies available now.
In general, Americans are spending less on entertainment, but we’re watching more TV these days. Some of the increase could be more unemployed people who have nothing better to do with their time than sit in front of the tube, but the typical American now spends 18 hours a week watching TV at home.
Kitty and Fido aren’t feeling the impact of the recession. We love our pets and continue to spend money on them. Pet food, supplies, grooming, and vet care have been growing uninterrupted at about 5% a year for the past decade with no sign of slowing down.
Smoking continues to decline, and US News and World Report says we’ve cut back our spending on high-end booze. But we’re drinking more of the cheap stuff, which is typical during economic downturns. Restaurant and bar sales are down, so it’s likely that more people are drinking at home, and they’re not buying expensive beer or booze.
More people are brewing their java at home, while places like Starbucks are reporting steady declines in sales over the past couple years. The National Coffee Association says 86% of coffee drinkers are making their own at home, compared to 82% a year ago.
And, we still love our tunes. More people considered an iPod a necessity in 2009 than in 2006, despite the recession. Downloads of singles and albums are up 21% in the past year.
Retail sales are down; sales of homes, cars, and appliances are way down; we’re using less toilet paper and going out to eat less; but we still spend money on our pets, entertainment, and high-speed internet; and we’ve cut down on the $5 latte and the high-end booze.
Most of us are still finding a way to have fun once in a while; we’re just not spending as much to do it.
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