Islam, Judaism - Tolerance Could Lead to Democracy, Peace

Arab Spring Women Continue Struggle for Equality

Arab Spring Women Continue Struggle for Equality
This is a story I helped a friend and colleague Frances Alonzo write.  She did most of the work, but I edited her web copy and did the interview.  She set up the guests and did the research, which I used to do the interview.  

Now that's good television

BBC Promo photo for The Hour starring Dominc West, Ben Whishaw

and Romola Garai in a 1950s-based drama.

I've discovered the BBC America series The Hour.

It's kind of a spy thriller, journalism, spooky pre-Mad Men. 

 It really looks good and so far I have watched four episodes.  Lots of smoking and drinking and sex, but very well written.  And the look is just right.  They got it on this one.

But the Beeb always does get it right.  They pounce all over stuff with abandon. It's like a book you can't put down.

Speaking of books, I have been reading Mr. Murder by Dean Koontz.  It's really good. I enjoy thrillers like that one.  My wife is reading another one of his novels.  We both read a couple of John Grisham novels recently as well.  Usually she reads them first and then I read them and we talk about our impressions of the books.

Been doing a lot of video work at work so far.  Boss man seems to like it.  But I still love being on the radio. The magic of radio still has a hook in me, and I think it always will. 

Fiscal restraint?

We spent the better part of an hour this morning learning about some new equipment I will probably never use.

Apparently the powers that be deemed it necessary to spend more than $3,000 on a bunch of toys for the iPhone - and on a new iPhone - so we could do that to do "new media."

What a crock.

The first indication that this thing was not as user friendly as the purple Kool-Aid folks would like us to believe was that the dude demonstrating it couldn't get the iphone to fit into the mount.  Then the bracket he brought out to say "this is what you could mount a tripod on" didn't fit the bracket that was supposed to support the iPhone. And there are special cords - tiny, easily broken, cords - that you have to use to plug a microphone into the iPhone to record sound and to be able to hear the recording.   

And the bracket has a wide angle lens in it so that it can give your iPhone more reach.  Great.  Why not spend the money on a REAL camera? Of course, you can't tweet or twat or twiddle with a camera.  You can only take professional looking video. 

The emperor asked me if I was going to use this thing for my reports.  The answer was simple, and to the point:  "No."

And they wonder about fraud, waste, and abuse.  This thing is so complicated to use that you have to have a PhD from MIT to understand it.  And even then you would miss the thing you took it out for - covering the news. 

Why they bought this crap, I don't know.  They didn't ask those of us who might have to actually use the thing before they poured the taxpayers' dollars into it.  They just bought it and now they want us to risk losing a story because we didn't get step 156 of 237 right and the video didn't record.

Sorry, but no thanks.