the lower casefiles

Keeping the habit up

Today and tomorrow are production days @ work, so no major reporting. Instead, I took the weeks efforts and boiled it into a few stories, then proofed other pages.
But my wish was fulfilled. No Bingo story!
I even asked editor bout it today, and she was cool with skipping the daily update, since nothing was happening on the issue.
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burned out on bama's bingo debate

I really hope this will be the week when my boss chills out about Alabama's bingo issue. He's been on fire for it more than a month now. He demands a story on the front page every issue, whether or not there's something newsworthy to our area. While I understand that issues that affect your bottom line burn hottest (the bingo bosses advertised heavily), they also make it difficult for reporters who were taught to write objectively.

It's pretty obvious who's side we're on, but I'm not allowed to say that. And I get stressed out if I write a story that might favorable present the case against the governor's Task Force on Illegal Gambling (I have a hotkey at work set up for that title).

I don't know what the solution oughta be, but I wish the state would find one, so I could lay off the issue for a while.

My problem with regular blogging, as best I can figure, is my penchant for national political blogs. Lets face it, as a small town reporter in Eclectic, Alabama, I'm about as far from the national political front as possible.
But in my day job, I focus on the mundanities and controversies that drive small town life. The national sphere is my escape.
But national political prose is now ubiquitous in the blogosphere. Henceforth, I shall try to focus on things that affect my small-town, southern state environment. I'm not going to be a D.C. pundit when I grow up; that is obvious now. But as a state and local gadfly, I could perhaps appeal to a greatly underserved population. I've got a friend who does that with Wetumpka political issues. It's a labor of love that earns him not a penny, but he's created a brand for himself that's nearly as strong as the hundred-year-old newspaper for which I write.
When my readers rush for the amateur musings of little league baseball moms, it should serve as my wake-up call.
Think locally, write locally: a motto for someone who never really had a motto. Now if I can just remember to stick to it.

It's interesting how frequently I forget to update this blog. It bears the masthead, err title, of my longest updated blog. On various platforms, it's received literally dozens of hits (low expectations beget cheap satisfaction). But I never think to update here, much less actually author a post.

totally sick of work

Just been sitting here most of today. The power was out for the first three hours this morning. A planned outage, I took the opportunity to handle some work in my coverage area first thing. 

Big mistake. 

I walked in to find the staff 30-45 minutes into some sort of meeting or brainstorm, everyone eyeing me as the asshole who managed to skip out. Everyone except the boss, who was consciously avoiding me to show his anger over my tardiness. Did I mention that, in the communications business, we lacked lights, computers and even telephones? 

But it was a big damn deal that I didn't hurry in to the office. 

Hate this place. Hate this place. Hate this place. 

For too many reasons to scrawl out, I'd rather be anywhere else. 

Church/State debate drops religion to third-class status

Our culture now makes it Ok to proclaim the specialness, sometimes even superiority, of any special group, interest or idea, so long as they aren't the ones held by the majority of folks.
(h/t The Corner)
Freedom from — and for — Religion

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On capitalism: Gordon Gecko was righter than he knew

via www.youtube.com

Milton Friedman explains why greed, as the man says, is good.
It's also ubiquitous. Best that each man keeps it for himself.

Mary Joe Kopechne could not be reached for comment

The Montgomery Aggravator burned 15 inches of news space on the death of a Massachusetts senator. 

Locals recall Kennedy's presence | montgomeryadvertiser.com | Montgomery Advertiser.

Yet, in a continuing bit of blatant double-standards, never once mentions the girl he left to drown in a lake after he drunkenly drove his car into a pond. It's bad enough that he was allowed to serve as a senator in the decades after committing criminally negligent homicide. 

But for that incident to be so carefully omitted from his obituaries qualifies as journalistic malpractice. 

Post title blatantly stolen from James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal. 

Could you spare some rage for, you know, Actual Bad Guys?

Frank J. gets his Hi-larious on. 

Pajamas Media » Memo to the Left: How About Redirecting the Rage and Scorn?.

Pooh-bear notes the Tao of H1N1

Stole this one fair and square, from protein wisdom.

Caught Goldstein whining that no one pays attention to him anymore, since an over-publicized spat with a professional L.A. Times critic (who I was already ignoring). Jeff's got one of the smartest major right-blogs out there, and one of the funniest, when he's feeling his oats (like in his multiple take-downs of the aforementioned Patterico).