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| Bill O'Reilly at the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, September 30, 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The Federal Communications Commission declares the Internet to be a utility and sides with net neutrality, which means that the Comcasts of the world can't push its favorite sites onto a faster lane than everyone else. Be careful what you wish for, because this is the FCC we're talking about.
The same Republican Congress that held the Department of Homeland Security's budget hostage saw no problem in inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak before a joint session, without the White House's blessing. Putting politics before public safety is just par for the course for these guys.
Groups who threaten to blow up civilian targets such as shopping malls, even if they're just bluffing, are enough to keep many potential customers at home. Same goes for those who believe their Second Amendment rights allow them to carry weapons that have more firepower than the police has, defending themselves against those who are likely to be wearing their bombs.
President Obama has vetoed the Keystone XL oil pipeline. So which would you rather have? A pipeline drawing oil from Canada that might rupture and cause untold environmental damage? Or having oil delivered from North Dakota on aging trains and rail lines, causing explosions resulting in deaths and even more environmental damage? But hey, anything to ensure more jobs and cheaper gas prices, right?
Bill O'Reilly is not going to lose his TV job just because his telling of how he covered the Falkland Islands War of 1982 as a CBS correspondent differed from anyone else's. O'Reilly works for Fox News, a trusted source for Republicans and anyone else who doesn't care about being informed. To paraphrase an old ad slogan: You expect less from Fox News. And you get it.
In a new series of promos for WCCO-TV, anchors Frank Vascellaro and Amelia Santaniello sound like they're claiming their station to be the King of Local News. They're more like court jesters.
We don't know if Dick Chapman, the former WCCO-AM personality who recently passed away, was the first local media person to pronounce the name of Bemidji, Minnesota as "BER-midji" instead of "BEM-idji". But now that we're hearing some local media yokels who didn't originally come from the Gopher State pronounce Bemidji the Chapman way, this really needs to stop because it's annoying as hell. What has Bemidji done to deserve this?
A Little League baseball team from Chicago is stripped of its U.S. championship because they used players from outside its area. A Minnesota high school won a dance team championship despite allegations of their plagiarizing the moves of another team in Utah, while their opponents stood to one side and refused to accept their consolation trophies. We lay blame on the adults for manipulating the kids into situations like these. But how much of it is the kids' fault, and why are they never blamed? Is that how they think they can get away with anything in life, including murder?
Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015) played a pointy-eared scientist from a distant planet on a celebrated science-fiction TV series, and it defined him for the rest of his life. Fortunately, Nimoy was talented enough to succeed in other forms of acting and directing so that he could live long and prosper on this planet without always being tagged as the guy with the pointy ears. Now he belongs in another dimension.
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