Seeing this photo just gave me the warm fuzzies. Steve and I stopped to check out this same plane on static display at Livermore Municipal Airport last summer, much to Danica’s consternation. It’s a sweet plane, and seeing it along with a few vets really gave me a profound appreciation for what they did. Oh, and Seattle is a beautiful city, even when it’s cloudy.
The results are finally tallied and the report complete on the survey I ran earlier this month attempting to get data on how Medill’s grad students feel about the D.C. housing situation. You can read the full report right here.
There’s a summary of major findings on Page 2, discussion of results starting on Page 4, and the full text of comments received on the survey starting on Page 13. Some of it may be a bit jargony, a byproduct of my sociology background, so if you have questions about anything that’s in there, or anything else that you’re still wondering, drop me a line.
Here are some of the highlights from the survey, which collected data from 55 students out of 82 in the sample population, a healthy 67 percent response rate.
Finally, I view this report as a first step, and I am definitely open to revising and expanding its findings. This is by no means the last word on the topic. Thanks to Keith Farrington and Neal Christopherson, two of my former thesis advisers at Whitman College. Neither worked with me directly on this undertaking but small versions of both sat on my shoulders (MiniKeith was particularly prone to quipping) as I pulled this together.
Just what you need to start your day off right, and bringing new meaning to the “Pointed Observations” category here on the Weekday Hump: Time to regulate stapling, says an editorial in the Mobile (Ala.) Press-Register.
Inserting staples in a person’s ear, if it isn’t done right, can lead to infection. … Only one ear-stapling business has opened in the state so far, but it’s likely that more are on the way.
Oh really? Interesting, because I was also pretty sure that inserting toothpicks, skewers, highlighters, cattle prods, shards of glass or mortar casings into one’s ear could cause infection.
When it comes to domestic wiretapping, Laura and I arrived at this possible outcome and its implications for journalists on Friday night over tacos and beer at the Press Club.
Sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.
I can’t even begin to describe how many things are illegal, unconstitutional and arguably downright WRONG about this revelation. More so than any previous government attempts to squash the press, this will have an incredible and immeasurable chilling effect on our profession.
If there is a plus side, public opinion has swung around since the USA Today story last week, with a slim majority (51%) of Americans opposed to the domestic wiretapping program. Sadly, a large percentage (44%) also are not concerned about the government keeping records of their phone calls. Perhaps a brief review of the Constitution and Bill of Rights is in order.
That’s how Helen Thomas described the Bush Administration today. She came by the newsroom for a brown-bag lunch packed full of perspective and invective. She’s been reporting on the White House since the start of the Kennedy Administration, so she has an incredible depth and breadth of historical context that she can call up. Her conversation with the class centered mostly on the failings of Bush 43, but winded through Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton.
Among her very pointed observations, she called Bush an imperialist president and said “he prides himself. He thinks he’s president.”
A woman after my own thinking, Helen Thomas is not afraid to voice her own opinions–loudly (”I have an opinion on everything that moves, and then some,” she said) –and also write straight fact-based news stories when she isn’t writing her column for Hearst Newspapers. Yes kids, it really is possible to be an informed and critically thinking journalist while holding strong and vocal opinions on the same stories you cover.
Other pearls of wisdom from Helen Thomas:
-”We missed the boat on Watergate.”
-Bush should be actively talking with Iran, not shunning the country. An 18-page letter from one leader to another is a cry for help.
-The press is finally coming back to life after being fairly effectively silenced by the 9/11 fear card.
-The revelation that domestic wiretapping has been ongoing for years is only the tip of the iceburg. And I thought everything else before this was the tip. Man, that’s one huge iceburg.
There’s always plenty going on in DC when it comes to finding a story to cover, so sometimes things get lost in the daily six-volume Associated Press Daybook. Like, for example, this event tomorrow:
11 a.m. JFK ASSASSINATION _ Five JFK assassination experts hold a news conference to present new findings on a government coverup in the case. Participants include James Getzer, David Mantik, Douglas Horne, Thomas Lipscomb, and Joan Mellen.
Count me among the curious. Unless something else comes up, I may go just to see what the buzz is. I had it in my head that the History Channel and Bravo had pretty much explored all the possibilities and debunked the conspiracies, but perhaps I missed something.
By popular demand, fifth in a series
They say the third time is the charm, but that old adage and fine journalistic cliche is debatable when it comes to Mitchell, which is plopped in between Prineville and John Day. The town as only about 125 residents now, but in its heyday was an important stop on the wagon road between Portland and the gold mining country in eastern Oregon. The problematic “three” probably could have been avoided if the town’s founders had avoided platting it in a canyon. The three, of course, being a series of massive floods that swept down the canyon and pretty much obliterated the town in 1884, 1904 and 1960. There are tales of walls of water nine feet high ravaging the town.
Yep, the subject was just too good to pass up using a second time. Saturday was barbecue-tastic, and Mark and I felt the need to take full advantage of a cooked pig in close proximity to airplanes. A couple of the flight instructors at Freeway are also Air Force and Park Service helicopter pilots, respectively, so they brought over some helicopters. Not often you get to say that. Some helicopters. Since W00 is right on the edge of the DC Flight Restricted Zone, it was a little unnerving to see these helicopters hover and land right next to the maintenance hanger. When the pilots stepped out with a case of Mountain Dew, we knew all was well. The pictures of that fine afternoon are coming soon, as soon as Mark finds his camera’s data cable, a replacement for which the Sony Store apparently doesn’t sell. Vegetarian readers, you will not be disappointed. Loss of appetite, perhaps, but definitely not disappointment.
I mentioned wanting to “prefunk” in passing the other day and received a bunch of blank stares. Apparently it’s a West Coast thing? Just so we’re all on the same page,
Prefunk is preferable because the alternative that the rest of the world uses has a weird internal alliteration going on, and it is also three syllables long, for no good reason.
I smell a conspiracy. Monroe, Louisiana’s CBS affiliate, KNOE, did a story on gas prices Friday night. There is a car in some of the shots that looks a lot like my navy blue Passat, and the reporter looks uncannily like my former roommate, Mark. Nah, can’t be. Makes you wonder how we in the media get our stories, don’t it? Once I can get my hands on the video, I’ll dump it here for you all to enjoy.