I know the Toad has to be ticked off at the latest antics of one of our beloved Congresscritters, People’s Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas. She insists that the names assigned to hurricanes by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are too “lily white,” and they should use African-American names as well. She even offered a few examples; none of which are African in origin, and some of which have been completely made up by black Americans. This reader’s response puts it all in perspective:
bq. “You can be sure if there were too many ‘black’ names assigned to hurricanes, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee would instead be complaining that this practice unfairly stereotypes blacks as violent. Let’s hope this silly storm blows over!”
And to think that this is our most pressing problem with racism and discrimination…
Tag: rant
When I arrived at work today, the flags–American, Texas, Verizon–were all at half-staff, and I thought to myself, “What the…?” I totally missed the President’s directive to fly flags at half-staff on the day of Hope’s burial. That put my mind at ease. (For a brief moment, I thought some VZ employee had died, and this had been ordered by the corporate bigwigs; a big no-no when it comes to proper flag decorum. In an instance such as that, the only flag that should be lowered would be the Verizon flag.)
Born in 1970, I have no memories of Bob Hope’s vaudeville and radio work, though I have heard excerpts here and there. My greatest memories of him were of the television comedy specials he did, as well as the numerous USO shows he performed throughout the 1970s and ’80s. To me, the latter was the great thing about Bob Hope: not that he was a tremendous entertainer, which he was, having worked in every medium of the time–stage, radio, television, and feature film. Rather, he never forgot those who put their lives on the line to defend our nation, the nation that gave him the freedom to do what he did.
Bob Hope gave back. He gave those who needed it the thing his last name stood for. That is a legacy worth remembering, and one all in the entertainment business should recall and work toward.
(Thanks to Rick for the clarification and link.)
UPDATE, 5:15 PM: I felt the President’s words were worth sharing:
bq. “Bob Hope made us laugh. He lifted our spirits. Bob Hope served our nation. We will mourn the loss of a good man. Bob Hope served our nation when he went to battlefields to entertain thousands of troops from different generations. We extend our prayers to his family. God bless his soul.” –President George W. Bush
Steven offers Frank discussion on why some “artists” don’t want to participate in the iTunes Music Store.
Is the demise of the album format, if it even happens, a bad thing? What about the good things might pop up in its place? What advantages come from embracing the tides of change?
[…]
Or maybe, as the market shifts towards being merit-based, there will be a renewed interest in actually making higher quality individual tracks rather than a lot of filler. Wouldn’t that be awful? Maybe songs would have melodies again, or musicians might learn how to play more than one instrument. It’s even possible that lyrics might stray from the tried-and-true “man, my middle-class white male life here in America sure sucks”. It would be catastrophic.
For you, I mean. Not us, the consumers.
Oh, this is rich:
bq. “There was a disturbing attitude from the Pentagon toward unilaterals,” said Campagna, Mideast program coordinator for the nonprofit group. “They gave the perception that if you weren’t embedded, you covered the war at your own risk, and that U.S. troops were under no obligation to at least avoid endangering you.”
Um, yeah. It’s called war, you blockhead. Everyone is participating at their own peril. The military’s job is to accomplish the task handed to them by the politicians. More often than not, this means moving in, engaging and killing the enemy (while trying to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties; but hey, it’s war), then securing the area they now occupy. They do not have time to babysit reporters who don’t play by the rules. Those unilaterals wanted to be where they were. If you can’t stand the heat…
Knowing the company I work for, the n3rdling thought I would be interested in this article.
Yes, the Yellow Pages business is a cash cow. One of the reasons Bell Atlantic wanted to buy out GTE was that our Yellow Pages business was a major revenue generator; our last year prior to the “merger,” GTE Directories accounted for 20% of all the revenue for all of GTE. I haven’t heard any numbers in the past two years regarding VZ Directories’ contribution to the overall revenue structure, but I’m sure it’s not as high a percentage. In addition to the economic downturn, we’ve got the former Bell Atlantic books dragging us down…
Our workgroup maintains a central server for others in the company to access important information re: our projects, software to install, etc. As part of all of this, our sysadmin recently created a report that shows all of the current “advertisements” going out to our users, reminding them they need to upgrade Application X or what have you. Our great and wise sysadmin then puts a link to this report directly on the front page of our server, easy to find, easy to click on, easy to download.
So then my boss decides that this isn’t good enough, and that the report has to be emailed to our opposite numbers on the eastern seaboard. Now the opposite numbers have the exact same access to the aforementioned web page as we do. They can just as easily go fetch this report as any of us can. But now I have to email them a copy of it every week! <sigh>
Anyone want to hire a Mac-head with some basic web design skills? As long as you’re in Dallas and you’ve got killer health insurance, I’m flexible on other stuff…
- Verizon Wireless rants, raves, and whines about how the FCC regulation for wireless local number portability–letting you keep your same phone number, even when you change providers–is going to cost billions and billions of dollars. Despite the fact that the FCC regulation has been in place for years and wireless providers have chosen to ignore it, since the FCC has failed to enforce it.
- Take the FCC to court over the issue!
- After the court rules against you, give in and announce that you’re going to lead the industry and everyone should copy you, because by Zeus, you’re doing what’s best for the customer. (But only after being forced to…)
Marc Marshall brings up the excellent point that Microsoft has come full circle with regard to Internet Explorer. His is the last post in Macintouch’s Browser Future report for today:
The bottom line in this situation is this: For the past several years, Microsoft gave away a free browser to kill the competition, and succeeded. Now, they have stopped development of their standalone product, and are giving people exactly three choices to get their “standard” product: 1) Buy Windows. 2) Use MSN for Internet access. 3) Pay them $10/month or $80 per year. No free options, no free upgrades.
The price is higher than Opera or Omni’s paid competition, and you don’t have a free option, and you have an ongoing fee. In fact, if MS starts charging annual licensing for Windows, there will be no lifetime-licence-purchasable version of IE. This sounds like exactly the sort of consumer hostile situation that monopolies create, and governments are supposed to protect us from.
Now that they’ve pretty much saturated the market, Microsoft has been scrambling on how to consistently generate revenue. They have long discussed subscription software licensing, and this situation with IE appears to be the first shot across the bow. Unfortunately, I do not forsee the mass sheep of Windows and IE/Mac users torpedoing the Microsoft Bismarck any time soon.
As to the truths contained in Hillary’s ghost-written tome, consider this:
On April 29, 1997, Hillary told CNN’s Larry King that she would never run for public office. Two years later…
So my lovely bride and I have this relatively new tradition (3 years old now) of going for a 4-day weekend the week of our anniversary. This year, our trip took us to San Diego.
We took in Seaworld, saw Shamu. My favorite had to be the dolphin show (with a couple of pilot whales). What can I say, I’m partial to dolphins. Kel really enjoyed the sea lion show, which was an outstanding comedy.
The next day was spent at the world-famous San Diego Zoo. While we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, there were many times when we wondered, what’s the big deal? There are other zoos with better exhibits/enclosures, and far better layouts (Audubon Zoo in New Orleans springs to mind). SDZ does deserve its reputation, however, because of its fantastic research programs; it outspends and outperforms any other zoo in the country; pretty much the world.
Our last full day was spent driving up the 101, aka SH 21, alongside the coastline. Let me say, this was a profound disappointment. While lunch in La Jolla (say La Hoya) was nice, overlooking Scripps Park and the Cove, we only saw the ocean three or four other times, and only briefly as we drove past. Much different than the drive south from San Francisco to Carmel, where you’re hugging the ocean–albeit a few dozen feet up a cliff–nearly every mile. And California road signage sucks. Sucks. I’m talking enormous, Oreck/Kirby/Hoover suckage. We ended up at the south gate of Camp Pendleton, turned back through the Oceanside Marina, then popped over to I-5 back to downtown San Diego.
We roomed at Prava, a three year-old hotel and spa, converted from a time-share property. (They still maintain a relationship with time-share companies, which is how we stayed there.) Located in the heart of San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter, we had plenty of great places to eat within walking distance. Prava makes the Retrophisch Recommends(tm) list of places to stay.