Category: Serious Stuff

Now that I’ve had a bit of sleep to clear my head, I’ll do a bit of a core dump here. It’ll probably be messy. Like most any other dumps I could take.
Bowled over at the polls. I’m extremely pleased, for the most part, with how things went in the elections last night. I don’t think that a Democratic power shift in Congress is going to be an instant cure for what ails Washington; the remainder of Bush’s term ensures that. But the thing to remember about the executive, legistlative and judicial branches is that they’re supposed to be checks and balances, not necessarily joined in lockstep and not necessarily permanently gridlocked. And to give credit where it’s due, I don’t think the majority of sitting Republican senators and representatives were necessarily doing a godawful job – they just got painted with the same brush as their president, and then we had that whole shopping spree of scandals that those affected accomplished all by themselves. Congressman John Boozman (R) kept his seat for my district, and I’m okay with that. I voted for his competitor in the interests of trying to minimize gridlock, but you know, there are a lot worse guys we could have in Washington than Boozman – he’s Genuinely A Nice Guy and I kinda felt bad voting against him.
I was over the moon at getting Mike Beebe into office as Governor – honestly, I think that race was going to be dangerously close until Asa shot himself in the foot with some of the nastiest campaign advertising tactics I’ve ever seen in a lifetime in this state – and I was also very concerned with several local and county races. Of course, I’m interested in how things are going in Washington, but I had quite a vested interest in making some course changes in local government, and for the most part, that happened. I’m deeply concerned that the question that would allow “charitable bingo and lotto” in Arkansas finally seems to have passed, opening the floodgates for the inevitable vote on allowing casino gambling in the next two years. Here’s the funny thing: I tend to vote liberal on candidates, and conservative on issues and ballot questions (though not always). That may seem forehead-slappingly counterproductive on one level, but by God, when you get the chance to pass or kill a new law yourself, you’ve got to do what you feel is right. And I’m against legalizing gambling in this state for a variety of reasons. Arkansas’ economy is already tenuous enough without introducing the debt and social support issues (i.e. addiction & treatment, court caseloads for divorce, child custody, non-payment of loans, etc.) that gambling tends to bring with it. And the language on the “charitable bingo & lotto” question was very byzantine and not just a little misleading. I can see where it would work for another state, but with the local and state economy? Nope. No way. I’ll vote no every single time until I see evidence with my own eyes that it would do more good than harm.
Registered user duck-blind time here (and, for LJ, this whole thing’s going to be a friends-only post). I got an e-mail today from my brother letting me know that our stepmother called him and told him he “needs to go see Dad, soon” because his mind is “slipping.” I’m a little bit worried about this, but on the other hand, I spoke to my dad fairly recently and yes, the old thought processes are slowing down a bit – the man’s in his 80s. And my stepmother has a gift for exaggeration (among other worthless talents, such as needless hostility, lying through her teeth to try to divide the family up against each other, and the ability to hold grudges until the sun cools). If not for the fact that he’s told me himself that he regularly gets himself checked up at the VA hospital, I’d worry that maybe he’s had another stroke, maybe just a small one (and frankly, if anyone in his life can raise his blood pressure enough to put him at risk for that…well, it’s not any of the kids, so who does that leave?).
I realize that he has more days behind him than ahead of him. Heck, there are some days when I feel weird aches and pains that I’ve never felt before when I start to think I’ve got more days behind me than ahead of me. But something just smells wrong about this, like she’s about to try to pull another scam of some kind. Dad has even looked me in the eye and told me that he doesn’t trust her. The biggest tragedy of his life, frankly, is not my mother dying almost 20 years ago – it’s that he got stuck in this dead-end rat trap of a marriage with someone who, ultimately, he can’t possibly really feel any love for. If only for that, I hate to admit it, but I pray that when the time comes, he’ll pass peacefully in his sleep, sooner rather than later, and be free of it.
He and I have had our problems, mended them, and I think my dad’s a great guy and deserves so much better than he has set himself up for over the past 20 years. Quite a few friends of the family who used to tell me how much I looked like my mother now comment on how much I look (and act) like my father. And I take that as a compliment. Even when he was battling his own demons, that was a lesson for me: look at what this is doing to him, you don’t want to do this with your life. I hate that the cost of my object lessons in life was watching him go through those things, even as self-inflicted as they were. I’m not trying to aggrandize the things he used to do with his life; just pointing out that witnessing those things changed the direction of my life.
And I worry about what my stepmother will try to pull once he’s gone. I’ve actually discussed it with my wife, and the thought that the day my father dies will be the day I become a gun owner has been floated more than once. Yeah, I get along with her that well, and yeah, there’s definitely a worry that something would happen where I’d have to protect myself on that level. I mean…my dad has never seen my house, doesn’t know the directions to get there, he’s never been to visit. Because if he writes that stuff down, she’ll have it. That’s an utterly crazy way to relate to one’s sole surviving parent, and I hate it.… Read more

For the first time in many years, I’m very satisfied with how things went in yesterday’s election. For the first time in many years, I don’t feel like I went to the polling place to piss in the wind.
More later. I’m gonna scoop up my cats and go to sleep now.… Read more

I’m sitting here in the newsroom, glancing up at the three TVs that are always on, monitoring the major local stations, and see a promo on KNWA (the local NBC affiliate) for a site called “PreserveLocalTV.com”. The sound is down on that screen, but my interest is piqued, so I go to that site to have a look see.
Go ahead and click on the link – you’ll see what I see nearly every Sunday morning: a big pile of horse crap. Basically, the Nexstar station group (which owns KNWA and one of the Little Rock stations, and currently runs the local Fox station while it takes a suspiciously long time for the group that supposedly bought that station to take control of it) is arguing for a relaxation of FCC station ownership rules, contending that “A media monopoly today is impossible,” and that “less local news” could result. Nexstar’s nebulous and selective interpretation of what’s at stake here is dangerously misleading. Some time back on Not News I wrote an article about what we stand to lose with media conglomerate ownership sucking up small-town broadcast stations under one homogenized umbrella. The current newscast on Fort Smith’s Fox station, populated and produced by talent from KNWA, is a good example of the problem. Sure, you might see a couple of different faces at the anchor desk than you’d see if you just watched KNWA’s news itself, but editorially, it’s the same product.
Sounds to me like KNWA wants to hold on to KFTA (the current Fox affiliate). By operating and controlling the Fort Smith Fox station and the Fayetteville NBC affiliate, each of which is seen via cable in the other’s nearby market, you essentially have two Nexstar stations versus one Hearst station, one New York Times station, and a couple of indies with no news. That isn’t preserving local TV. That’s one company trying to spread its own influence. (If Hearst attempted the same thing, which they have in some markets, even though I work for that company, I would be against it in that context as well.)
I wish I could say nobody is fooled by Nexstar’s ploy, but this comment on that site’s feedback board is proof that people are going for the knee-jerk okeydoke, just like Nexstar hopes they will. This fellow in particular doesn’t even appear to know who’s really playing the game, let alone what the score is:

To our “fearless leaders”(?) in Washington: Stay out of broadcast regulation. Specifically, re: The squeezing out of medium and small market tv. We want our local news brought to us by small stations not owned by a handful of super-companies. Keep your miserable fingers out of our local airwaves. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR????????

You want your local news brought to you by small stations not owned by a handful of super-companies? Then you definitely don’t need to be gobbling up the propaganda Nexstar is feeding you, bub.
Give it up, Nexstar. Just operate your one station in the market – kinda like the rest of us have to. You don’t get to double-dip.… Read more

Really. You can’t beat flip-flops. Very comfortable. Plenty of room for movement, you see. Like, for example, if you get stuck in the mud, in a worst-case scenario, you can actually pull your foot out of the flip-flop, rather than getting yourself entrenched in one position. I’d rather have options like that with my footwear. Or my gubernatorial candidates. Y’see, Asa, while I respect your credentials, all of your campaign trail blithering about how Mike Beebe “flip-flops” on the issues makes me realize that I’d rather have someone in office who’s capable of realizing that he needs to reassess his thinking and his course of action, rather than pointing in one direction and staying that course, even if it leads straight to hell. Not that I’m implying that anyone else in Mr. Hutchinson’s party would be capable of doing such a thing, nor would I wish to insult anyone’s intelligence by implying that an informed modern American electorate would put such a person in office and keep them there. That would be the very height of silliness.
Beebe for Governor of Arkansas in ’06. Because sometimes, so-called “flip-flops” are pretty comfortable.
Tomorrow: let’s talk sandals.… Read more