Within the small sphere of our life, we can stare into the past, but only our future is within our control.
Brooks & Dunn – Calling it Quits!
Okay so I’m behind on the “breaking news” front. I’ve always been a procrastinator. And, I’m not a huge country music fan. I mean, I like a lot of country groups, have a lot of favorite songs that are country, but I don’t really follow any group or artist closely, so this shocked me when I heard it. This group is probably one of, if not the, best duos of country music history, and they’re just quitting? Seriously?
Brooks & Dunn, who I really haven’t liked all that much, a few songs, but not so much that I’d buy a whole CD, are breaking up after 20 years together. (Statement from their official website is here.)
If you ask me, this is not really a smart move. I mean, I hope they both have enough money saved up for life, and have invested wisely, because I personally don’t see either one of them succeeding as a single’s artist – they both tried before they came together as a group, without success. And if they do release music as single artists, the sales would probably just be riding the reputation of the group, and not the actual new material.
Don’t get me wrong, I think they are good, but I think they are good together; the reason they are popular is the way they sing together, the sound it produces is unique in country music. I’ve seen them perform live, and trust me, they don’t do that well; they are often very off key (of course, this can be said of 95% of the artists today, if not more – without computer tuning in studio, the majority of “singers” would have no careers at all), and I just can’t see them going solo and having the same kind of success. Maybe that’s cynical of me, but if you look at the stats for successful groups that later broke up, to put out solo material, not very many solo artists went on to become anywhere near as big as the groups they were part of. Sad, but true.
I think the other thing that bothers me about it is all the fans of theirs that are so disappointed by this news. It is one thing to retire altogether, but to break up a 20 year successful duo just to go do solo work? I just don’t get it…
Of course, maybe they could pull a Garth Brooks, and “retire” for a few years, and then get back together. 
Lordy knows enough groups have done that!
Balloon Boy…
So, Thursday October 15th, I was reading CNN.com, as I usually do each day, and perusing the day’s comments on Twitter, and along comes this breaking story about a 6 year old boy who was trapped in a home-made hot air balloon, which accidentally broke away from the ground and was soaring seven thousand feet over the northern Colorado skies… a parent’s worst nightmare, right? The boy’s older brother had told police that he saw his brother enter the balloon, and then it lifted off the ground.
The entire country stopped what it was doing for several hours that afternoon, from 2:30 p.m. Eastern time, until after 7 p.m., there was nothing on any of the news networks, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, all had commercial-free coverage of this breaking story.
The National Guard dispatched several helicopters to circle the balloon, and ground troops were working on “rescue” plans, that ranged from dropping parachute-outfitted rescuers to try to grab the tethers, to some sort of “net” that could capture the balloon, to all sorts of scenarios. The specifications given of the balloon’s construction showed that there was no way the “basket” could survive any sort of crash landing, being made of mostly plywood. The goal was to try to get this poor child out while the balloon was still in the air…
Each network brought in “experts” in various areas, from the National Guard, to experts in hot air balloons, physicists, pilots, you name it – they were there giving their opinions. As the coverage unfolded, most experts agreed that the way the balloon was listing in the air, the way it was affected by winds, would indicate that it did not have a person inside. Also, doubts arose whether the balloon could have even lifted off with a 60 pound child inside.
When the balloon finally landed softly in a freshly plowed field near Denver International Airport, and the news was that there was nobody inside, the stories turned to the possibility that the child fell out of the balloon sometime after liftoff. A picture was shown on screen that appeared to have an object falling from the balloon, shortly after it left the house. The father had reportedly stated to authorities that there was a “module” of some sort that was attached, but not there when it landed, leading to the theory that the “basket” holding the boy had fallen off in flight.
The parents were reported to have spoken to the Sheriff of Larimer County, and the Sheriff was on record saying that she believed them, that they were truly worried their child was aboard the balloon when it took off.
During the Twitter-fest, in which hundreds of thousands of Twitter users were tweeting updates for hours, Miles O’Brien, former Space Reporter for CNN, tweeted: “It is a gut feeling that this is a hoax. Maybe it is wishful thinking. family of “balloon boy” appeared on wife swap – dad rides bikes into hurricanes. Submitted for your consideration.”
A lot of twitter folks found the URL that showed the family had been on this show (that I’ve never heard of) called “Wife Swap”, which is some sort of “reality” (yeah right) show, and the URL to that was tossed out every few minutes. Then stories began to come up that this father was a storm chaser, extremely strange, “mad scientist” as referred to by his neighbors, and had been trying to get a reality program picked up by some networks. Not a good thing for credibility… While I think most people wanted to believe that this was all a big accident, many people began to speculate whether this wasn’t some horrible, awful publicity stunt.
Who on earth would do such a stunt though? It was unthinkable to many. Would any parent honestly call the police and say their little baby was trapped in a home made balloon that was flying wild in the skies with no way to get it down? Seriously, isn’t that insane? I’m not a parent, but from the responses on Twitter that afternoon from parents all over the country, and even the world, it was a nightmare… and nobody saw how it could possibly have a happy ending if this child was truly inside.
Yet, after the balloon landed, and it was empty, while the Deputy Sheriff maintained that she believed the family, the news coverage turned to the fact that this family had been on a reality show, and newscasters were focusing on the fact that the 6 year old boy had still not been found. Obviously, the police had searched the house, the garage, the grounds around the house, and the search had grown to involve more people, cover more ground, and became more organized, focusing on a path that the balloon would have taken after liftoff, with the dreaded thought that the child had fallen out.
Let’s think about the resources that were used up during this time: News shows had continuous coverage of this event, not breaking for commercials of any kind for over 3 hours. Now, sure we all hate commercials, but the fact is, they do pay for the shows we watch. They are an evil necessity. Then, the local police: They mobilized every member of the department, and surrounding counties and agencies were brought in as well to aid in the search. The Army National Guard was mobilized; helicopters were in the air, fuel was expended trying to catch and then keep up with this wild-flying balloon.
I can’t even begin to imagine the financial total all of these things adds up to, but I would guess it is far more than a hundred thousand dollars.
Finally, the child was found! At first no details were given, just that he had been “found alive”. Then, details came out, the child was found in the attic of the garage! What was he doing there? It turns out he was hiding… supposedly because he was afraid that he’d be in trouble for setting the balloon free.
Well, at least he was safe, right? That was the overwhelming sentiment that evening, as the news programs finally broke for commercials, and turned to other news.
But obviously, this whole event made this family instant “news fodder”, and shows all over scrambled to get them on their program: The Today Show, Good Morning America, even Larry King Live. And the family didn’t seem to have any problem doing these rounds. But when the child – named Falcon (who the hell names their kid “Falcon”?) – was asked by Larry what happened, the child evidently said “We did it for the show.” Wait… what? What “show”? What did he mean? And as the kid appeared on other shows, he was sick, throwing up on camera during one show when the host asked him what happened. More than once, he referred to this “show”… and thus, the truth began to emerge.
The whole thing was, as Miles speculated late that first afternoon, a stunt. A giant publicity stunt, a big joke perpetrated on the American public by this publicity-seeking father. The wife finally admitted it to police, after several days of questioning. And the police planned on charging the family with, at the very least, a class 3 misdemeanor, which the Deputy Sheriff said hardly seemed like a serious enough charge. The Sheriff was going to consult with the FAA, to see if there were any federal charges that could be filed as well. Unbelievable…
These children basically told the world that their little baby was trapped in a wild flying balloon, most probably dead… and it was all for a laugh? To get them on some television show? Please.
As the investigation continues, I certainly hope that serious charges will be filed, I hope this family has to repay all the expenses accrued during this hoax, and I hope that the children are taken away from this family – they obviously are unfit to be parents. My God, seriously?
I’ll update this post as more news comes out…
Top Ten Places Where Life Shouldn’t Exist… But Does
I’m always amazed when new species of life are discovered. Maybe I shouldn’t be, I mean, while man has thoughtlessly ravaged so much of our Earth, there should be at least some places still undiscovered, and it goes without saying that there would be life in those areas. But as man’s foray into more and more of these precious, isolated areas continues, it seems that more species go extinct, and discovering new species becomes a rare thing.
But, life, in may ways like man, is a hardy thing. And there are some species of life that live in the most inhospitable areas, in extreme cold or extreme heat, in complete isolation, and one species even lives 100% alone, without any symbiosis whatsoever.
The Smithsonian article about these unique life forms is worth a read, it is as fascinating as it is enlightening.
Expedition 20 Lands Safely in Kazakhstan
After 199 days in space, Michael Barratt and Gennady Padalka have safely returned to Earth. Expedition 20 landed in Kazakhstan on October 11, at 12:32 a.m. EDT. Padalka has spent 586 days in space over the course of three flights, which puts him sixth on all time list. Sergei Krikalev has the most time in space, with 803 days, 9 hours and 39 minutes in space (that is over two years!) – a record that is unlikely to be surpassed any time soon.
ISS Expedition 20 Wrapping up
The International Space Station is getting ready to change crews, officially. While an unofficial “Change of Command” ceremony was held earlier today, Frank De Winne will officially become the Expedition 21 commander Saturday when Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer Michael Barratt undock from the station from the Soyuz TMA-14 later tonight.
They will say farewell around 5:30 p.m. Eastern time, and close the hatch. After performing leak checks and other configuration procedures, they will undock at approximately 9:07 p.m. EDT, and begin their short journey back to Earth. Landing in Kazakhstan is expected at 12:31 a.m. Sunday morning.
As with all major events, it can be viewed live on NASA TV.
LCROSS – NASA smashing satellite into the Moon!
After several months of orbiting the moon, taking images, examining sites, and sending data back to NASA, the two satellites that were launched on June 18, 2009 will finish their mission by crashing into the surface of the moon.
On final approach, the shepherding spacecraft and Centaur will separate. The Centaur will act as a heavy impactor to create a debris plume that will rise above the lunar surface. Projected impact at the lunar South Pole is currently: Oct 9, 2009 at 4:30 a.m. PDT. Following four minutes behind, the shepherding spacecraft will fly through the debris plume, collecting and relaying data back to Earth before impacting the lunar surface and creating a second debris plume.
The LCROSS science payload consists of two near-infrared spectrometers, a visible light spectrometer, two mid-infrared cameras, two near-infrared cameras, a visible camera and a visible radiometer. The LCROSS instruments were selected to provide mission scientists with multiple complimentary views of the debris plume created by the Centaur impact.
As the ejecta rises above the target crater’s rim and is exposed to sunlight, any water-ice, hydrocarbons or organics will vaporize and break down into their basic components. These components primarily will be monitored by the visible and infrared spectrometers. The near-infrared and mid-infrared cameras will determine the total amount and distribution of water in the debris plume. The spacecraft’s visible camera will track the impact location and the behavior of the debris plume while the visible radiometer will measure the flash created by the Centaur impact.
The impact is scheduled to occur Friday, October 9, at 7:30 a.m. ET.
NASA’s live coverage of LCROSS Impact Event starts at 3:15 a.m. PDT or 6:15 a.m. EDT on NASA TV
My Guilty Pleasure
The whole “reality TV” craze I never have understood. I guess, from what I read, that it all started with some show called “Survivor” (which I’ve never seen) and at first, I didn’t really notice reality shows, they were few and far between.
But, now everything has changed. Every night there is some sort of reality show on TV, often many more than one. And the thing is, these aren’t “real”! I mean, supposedly reality TV is unscripted, normal people doing their thing while cameras follow along, but the fact is, the vast majority of these shows are scripted – at least to a point. Sure, there may not be a “script” like what drama or comedy shows have, but let’s get this clear: These programs are scripted. The people are “chosen” based on ratings. Even Survivor (from what I’ve read) has done this. While it first was supposedly just random people chosen, it came out that some seasons the people were hand-picked based on things like personality, appearance, etc, and chosen specifically for ratings. That’s just lame, sorry, but it is.
So, overall, I’ve really disliked reality shows, and never got into them. But, a few years ago, I wandered through the channels, and happened across Hell’s Kitchen. I’d never heard of this mean, foul-mouthed guy, Gordon Ramsay, but I couldn’t change the channel, it was almost mesmerizing, the way he berated these “applicants” who were vying for a chance to run one of his famous restaurants. It was so obviously a show that was planned specifically for TV (do most kitchens have 10+ cameras in them, placed in strategic positions to monitor the action going on at all times? Come on…), and obviously his rants were overdone – seriously, could anyone be that much of a jerk to his employees? And yet, from that day, I’ve been hooked. Go figure.
And then I found Top Chef, which was like Hell’s Kitchen, but nicer, and funnier, and the judge dude, Tom Colicchio: So fine! And Iron Chef, while I absolutely, totally, completely, and in all other ways, abhor this “chairman” dude (can you say overacting?), I just like the idea I guess, chefs vying for a prize, creating crazy and wild dishes I’ve never heard of, with ingredients I’ve never heard of. And my most recent find, Man vs. Food. A guy who isn’t a competitive eater goes around the country trying restaurant’s “Eating Challenges”, that usually are based on the concept of eating mass amounts of something, but occasionally are about eating spicy things. This one show, the guy (Adam) has to eat only 6 of these really hot wings – but they are made from the Ghost Chili – the hottest chili in the entire world. This chili is basically like pouring pepper spray into your mouth, when you consider the Scoville Scale.
Now, all of this may not seem that strange to you, but you have to understand some things about me: First, I’m a vegetarian. That alone, should indicate the strangeness of the appeal of these shows to me. Why would someone who never eats meat want to watch a show that revolves around how to prepare a variety of foods, meat included? Who knows. I can’t explain it. But the other strange thing is that I honestly do not enjoy food. I don’t like to eat, I don’t go out to restaurants, I don’t cook. For me, food is something that is sort of necessary, sometimes, but not something I particularly enjoy. I have a pretty limited list of foods I eat, I could count them on two hands easily. So it really is strange that of all the “reality” shows out there, this genre would be the genre I watch the most.
Strange, right? Go figure…
Rainforests – Vanishing Treasures
- Rainforests cover less than two percent of the Earth’s surface, yet they are home to 50 to 70 percent of all life forms on our planet.
- As many as 30 million species of plants and animals – more than half of all life forms – live in tropical rainforests.
- One acre of rainforest can have as many as 80 different tree species, as compared to only up to 25 species, in the forests of the USA.
- 11/12ths of the world’s ferns are found in the rainforests.
- Rainforest vines can grow longer than a football field, and thicker than a man’s body. Some leaves can reach six feet in length!
- North America has about 850 different species of trees. In the forests of the Amazon, an area half the size of England holds 2500 different tree species!
- Epiphytes are plants that don’t need soil to live. They are commonly called “Air Plants”, and live in trees that are in the rainforest. They derive all the nutrients and water they need either directly from the air, or from the water and debris that falls from the trees in the canopy. Orchids are the most famous of epiphytes, and as many as 50 different orchids have been found on ONE single rainforest tree! Over 27,000 species of air plants have been found in the rainforests.
- Of all the plants that have cancer fighting pharmacological properties, over 70 percent are found in tropical rainforests.
- Every second, an area the size of a football field of rainforest land is burned, bulldozed, and completely destroyed.
- In one minute, the time it will take to read these facts, an area equal to 10 city blocks of rainforests will vanish forever- over 2.4 acres a second! Over 214,000 acres a day are destroyed, amounting to an area larger than the country of Poland, every single year… over 78 million acres a year, until nothing remains… or we stop it, whichever comes first. For our sakes, I pray it is the latter.
- At the current rate of destruction, by the end of the century, nothing will remain. The children of the future will have to read about hundreds of thousands of extinct plants, animals, and other life that lives in the rainforest.
- Tropical Rainforests encircling the equatorial region once amounted to over 8 million square miles, now, less than 3 million square miles remain.
- Latin America and Asia, which once held nearly half of all rainforests, have lost nearly half of their tropical wonderlands. With them, countless birds, insects, plants, and other life has been wiped out forever. Many of the species of plants and animals are extinct before ever being seen and identified.
- Scientists estimate an average of 137 species of life forms become extinct every day… 50,000 each year.
- The United States has less than 3% of it’s original forests left! 97 percent, have been logged, burned, and completely obliterated!
- If the destruction of rainforests continue at the current rate, scientists estimate nearly 80-90 percent of tropical rainforest ecosystems will be destroyed by the year 2040.
- In a reserve about half the size of San Franciso in Peru, there are over 545 species of birds, over 100 species of dragonflies, and nearly 800 different types of butterflies. Half of the plants there haven’t even been named yet.
- Nearly 17 percent of all the birds in the world reside in the rainforests of Indonesia.
- The Rainforests of Southeast Asia have nearly 660 mammal species, and over 850 amphibian species, nearly one third of ALL the mammals and amphibians in the world. Compared to Europe, which has only about 130 native mammal species.
- One out of every three bird species is found in the rainforest. In one wildlife reserve in Costa Rica, there are more bird species than in the entire North American continent!
- Insects are the most numerous inhabitants of the rainforest. Since many have never even been seen, much less identified, an estimate is that there are over 80 million species of insects that live in the rainforests.
- In one square mile of rainforest in Africa, biologists have counted over 300 different types of butterflies alone.
Don’t buy tropical wood products. Skip the rosewood and mahogany furniture and paneling. If you’re a carpenter or building contractor, don’t buy plywood made from rainforest timber, and help your customers to understand the importance of avoiding tropical woods. If you are an architect or designer, don’t select tropical hardwoods for construction.
Change your diet. Don’t eat rainforest beef. It’s typically found in fast-food hamburgers or processed beef products. Each year the U.S. imports over 100 million pounds of fresh and frozen beef from Central American countries. Two thirds of these countries’ rainforest has been cleared primarily to raise cattle, whose stringy, cheap meat is exported to profit the U.S. food industry. Because the beef is not labeled with its county of origin upon entering the U.S., there is no way to trace it to it’s sources. Write to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and let him know that you want a ban on the import of beef from rainforest countries.
Only buy foods like bananas and coffee that are grown in a sustainable way that is safe for the environment, for wildlife, and for people.
Visit the Rainforest Alliance and learn about Rainforests, how to help save them, and what you can do around the house that helps.
Watching Live Events on TV – A Viral Epidemic has Afflicted Network Reporters
I first noticed this issue bothering me a few years ago, when during a mining accident, I tuned to CNN to get the latest news and up to the minute reports. Anderson Cooper was on the scene reporting, but it quickly became obvious that he was not using a teleprompter as he normally does when doing his show, “Anderson Cooper 360″. It was literally painful for me to sit through his reports, but also those of all the other “on the scene” reporters, and I’ll tell you why:
In the past few years, a disturbing trend has affected newscasters who are reporting on live events, such as accidents, earthquakes, plane crashes, and other events such as today’s inauguration.
TV anchors and newscasters seem to have become infected with the “um” virus. It seems impossible for anyone, Anderson Cooper especially, but even Mr. Blitzer and Ms O’Brien, to complete a single sentence without injecting multiple “filler words” such as “um”, “ah”, “er”, “eh”, and other such nonsense words.
For instance, while I type this, (6:31 EST) Mr. Blitzer is saying, and I quote: “I think all of the states uh, ah, are being represented in this, uh, in this parade before the President of the United states, uh, and the First Lady. “ And at 6:52: “Uh, uh, only moments ago, by the way, uh, the former President of the United States, uh, George W. Bush in Midland, uh, spoke to a crowd there…” And at 7:01, Anderson Cooper reporting: “Right now let’s uh, check in, ah, well actually let’s just, um, stay with what we were doing, ah, we have witnessed some immense changes…”
And I am left sitting here thinking, “What? What the heck are they trying to say?”
By no means is this a CNN-only affliction, I see it on every network during any sort of live reporting, but as a leader in the field of up-to-the-minute news such as CNN, I would think the network would want to take steps to overcome this malady, and remind all on-screen reporters to avoid using these filler words and avoid stuttering when reporting.
It shocks me that nobody, not the directors, the producers, editors, Jane Maxwell (director of live events for CNN for decades), or other people responsible for putting out quality live-news programming has ever reviewed the live broadcasts and noticed just how many times these filler words are used. It seems that this new generation of reporters either never had classes in public speaking, or they have forgotten the lessons taught in the most basic classes on reporting live events.
It seems to me that this is something that even the most basic of journalism schools would address in the first year, heck, even a community college would teach: “Don’t stutter, don’t use filler words, they make you look like you have no idea what you’re doing.” Are these new newscasters a reflection of the escalating decline in American education that is so very evident in blogs all over the Internet, with heinous fourth-grade spelling and grammatical errors from even respected individuals. Are reporters truly incapable of forming sentences without resorting to saying “um” every few words? Are they simply not trained for live public speaking? What is the cause of this viral infection in the media today?
I’m not the only one that has noticed this trend; people I talk to about what network they watch for things like live event programming, also have communicated their frustration with trying to understand what is actually being said through all the “um”s and “ah”s that reporters inject into each sentence.
It seems to me that this was never an issue back in the days of the iconic anchormen, Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, David Brinkley, Sam Donaldson, Harry Reasoner, and others of the 70s and 80s.
It needs to stop. It is so very hard to sit through even a few sentences of live programming when every other word is a nonsense, gibberish filler word; the intent of whatever these people are saying is completely lost while the viewer tries to ignore all the filler words and figure out what the heck these people are actually trying to say.
I urge those in charge, the directors of programming, producers, editors, and others, to realize that your viewers do notice the reporters stuttering through their comments with filler words, that it is very distracting, not to mention unprofessional, and that it reflects on your network, and your quality of reporting. I urge you to take even a simple step such as putting out a memo reminding all reporters that these filler words are distracting and unprofessional.
