An ugly tidalwave, hopefully not headed here

But I--a lot of us, actually--fear otherwise.

Headlines from the news in the last 24 hours:

Times-Picayune cutting half of newsroom staff (New Orleans)

Advance cuts 400 employees statewide, more than 100 from Birmingham News

Not only is this not good for the newspaper staff, of course, but it's not good for these cities and it's absolutely not good for the citizens.

The shape of things to come, I fear.

Here's hoping people all over the world will continue to read what our government representatives, our government and the corporations and wealthy of the world are doing to us so we know what to do to fight for the working man and woman of the world.

This isn't headed in a good direction, that's for sure.

It's as writer/author/historian David McCollough said, "An Uninformed Citizenry Will Be Fatal to Democracy."

Links: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505244_162-57451699/times-picayune-cutting-half-of-newsroom-staff/


http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article/87519--3-alabama-newspapers-cutting-about-400-jobs


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303936704576395730493447372.html

Don't forget, tonight!

The bad news? We lose an hour. The good news? We get more daylight in the evenings. Kind of. Sort of.

Arthur Bryant's big, national honor

The Daily Meal, an online media site about all things food, just ranked the "101 Best Restaurants for 2012" and--get this--Arthur Bryant's Barbecue came out in the 48th spot. Wow. You should see the big names they're in there with, nationally. Outstanding. Two other things to note about this list. First, the American Restaurant is nowhere on the list and I thought it would be and second, Bryant's is the ONLY Kansas City restaurant on it. Yikes. Link: http://www.thedailymeal.com/101-best-restaurants-america

Raphael Hotel's Jazz Club Touted in WSJ online

On today's Wall Street Journal's Marketwire blog, the Raphael Hotel's Jazz Club gets some good, glowing press: Historic Boutique Hotel Houses One of Top Kansas City Jazz Clubs. Jazz and Other Music Genres Fill the Air at The Raphael's Signature Restaurant. Besides the Raphael Hotel's support of our local jazz, they also support our own symphony orchestra, too, by having quartets play on Saturday evenings in the front of the hotel, out on the lawn in good weather. They really support the local arts and music scene very well. Good on you, Raphael. And thanks. Link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/historic-boutique-hotel-houses-one-of-top-kansas-city-jazz-clubs-2012-02-27

Omaha? One of the "richest cities where no one wants to move"?

Yes it is, ladies and gentlemen, unbelievably enough, at least to me, anyway. There is an article out now titled "The Richest Cities Where No One Wants to Move" and our own Nebraska neighbor to the North is number 10. Don't get me wrong, I totally get the "where no one wants to move", part but "one of the richest cities"? Who knew? It was done by Trulia’s Metro Movers Report and posted on the 24/7 Wall Street site. Here's what they have to say about the town: "The Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan region is relatively stable and economically healthy. It is surprising then that relatively few people want to move to the area compared to the number of people looking to leave. For every person — from outside the region — inquiring about real estate within the region, there are two people within the region searching for homes elsewhere. With home prices in the area falling only 2.8% since their peak, home buyers have little incentive to search in the Omaha region. However, Fiserv-Case Shiller projects home prices to rise 1.5% between third quarter of 2011 and the third quarter of 2012, which is in the top third of increases among major metro regions. Wanting to move to Omaha, Nebraska is nearly as bad as, oh, I don't know, wanting to move to Topeka, Kansas. Link: http://247wallst.com/2012/02/03/the-american-cities-where-no-one-wants-to-move/2/

On doing your taxes online now

If TurboTax is free and H & R Block is free (for doing your taxes online) and you're not from Kansas City (because, after all, you would want to support a local company otherwise, right?), how do you know whom to select, anyway?

I'm so old...

I remember all ten (from an online article): 10 Brand Names Gone, But Not Forgotten They are (were): Woolworth's (first named F.W. Woolworth's), Amiga (computers), Merry Go Round/Chess King (clothing stores), Diners Club Card (a credit card), Tab (sugar-free soft drink), Rustler Steakhouse (I remember it but never ate there. Maybe that's why they failed), McCall's magazine (Mom took this one, at one time as I remember), General Cinema Corporation (a movie theater chain), Pan Am (the jet airline) and Chiclets (chewing gum).

A problem of The Star's they make themselves

One of The Kansas City Star's biggest problems was blatantly obvious today.  I got a copy to read over lunch.

Another mistake, on my part.

The front page of the paper?

Four-fifths of it was on Osama bin Laden.  The last one-fifth was on local issues.

The 2nd section of the paper? 

In their own words:  "Killing Osama bin Laden:  A special 8-page section on the hunt, the death and the consequences"

Page A2?  The 2nd page in the paper?  One-half on national news and one-half advertising.

A3?  Same here.

Page A4 finally is a page of local news.  Finally.

A5?  A full-page ad.

It goes on like that.

The Sports section is the Sports section, they get what they want and need.

The "entertainment" section?  "FYI"?  There's a huge picture and story on the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and then Aaron Barnhart covers the White House Correspondent's Dinner.

My points?

The end result is that Kansas City Star is not a local paper.

The one thing they should do BETTER THAN ANYONE, ANYWHERE, is to cover local stories, local people and local color.

If they don't do that, who will?  The local TV news stations?

We all know that's at least rare.  (See one good exception below).

So on page C4 in the Business section of the paper today is an article--yes, it's finally local--telling of this same Star newspaper laying off yet more staff.

Granted, the newspaper business is dying, sure.

And they've laid off a great deal of reporters, before this latest layoff.

But y'all sure aren't doing yourselves any favor down there at the Star's offices copying and pasting national stories and then expecting us to buy the rag.

The photographer, Eric Bowers, pointed this out on his Facebook page recently:

I reiterate how useless local news stations can be. There was a large demonstration on the Plaza by the Syrian and Arab American community about some slaughtering going on in Syria by the tyrants there and the news stations didn't even send a truck - they're too busy talking about dumb crap like cats stuck in trees in the suburbs to do any actual spreading of world information based on how it relates locally.


And who's covering a scandal up in Parkville right now?  Reporter Russ Ptacek on NBC "Action News".

It sure wasn't The Star.

Link:  http://www.kansascity.com/
http://blog.ericbowersphoto.com/2011/05/protest-in-kansas-city-against-syrias-bashar-al-assad/
https://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=hpskip#!/video/video.php?v=10150579645520582&comments

How "big" is the internets?

Created by Online Education

Quote of the day--on nature and what we're doing to it

There are more cars on the roads now, more satellites in the sky. The footpaths up the fells are like stone motorways, there are turbines on the moors and the farmers are being edged out by south-country refugees like me, trying to escape but bringing with us the things we flee from. The new world is online and loving it, the virtual happily edging out the actual. The darkness is shut out and the night grows lighter and nobody is there to see it. --Paul Kingsnorth, "Confessions of a recovering environmentalist", Open Democracy (OpenDemocracy.net) Link to original post: http://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-kingsnorth/confessions-of-recovering-environmentalist

Money for the war machine, instead of for here, peace and sanity

Go to this link to compare what's been spent on war, instead of having spent it otherwise:

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs

Okay they're up and it looks smart--and good

KC Free Press is up.

And it looks good.

You know what it looks like?

An online newspaper.

An online newspaper that works.

Anyone paying attention at the Star?

You know what it is, right?

A "newspaper" for the next generation.


Addendum:

And note: no racism or sexism.

How refreshing.