My blog is worth $192,508.14.
How much is your blog worth?
The White House News Photographers Association has the winning photo entries for 2008's competition online. Click any category at the top of the page to see the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners along with a short explanation of the shot.
Michelle Obama is all over the place today. There must be a concerted effort going on within the campaign or within the media to get her life story out. On their terms.
She's the center of a long piece in the New York Times today and will appear on The View later this morning.
This is interesting. The Obama campaign is filled with multi-taskers who seem to be on top of things, cover all bases, anticipate everything.
Tim Russert's untimely death yesterday brought much talk of his tenure as host of NBC's Meet the Press. Acolades poured in on his interview style and show preparation. It was mentioned that he was the longest tenured host and that he made that program his own, forcing guests to do their own thorough preparation before appearing.
While watching and listening to the tributes to Tim yesterday we tried to remember who the Meet the Press hosts were before him and could not even remember who he replaced. After a bit of searching, here's the list of former Meet the Press hosts.
Martha Rountree 1947-1953 So far the only woman to ever sit in that position.
Ned Brooks 1953-1965
Lawrence Spivak 1966-1975
Bill Monroe 1975-1984
Roger Mudd
Marvin Kalb 1984-1985 Co-moderators
Marvin Kalb 1985-1987
Chris Wallace 1987-1988
Garrick Utley 1989-1991
Tim Russert 1991-2008
Wikipedia can be a wonderful thing, someone has already updated the Meet the Press entry to include Russert's death.
During a lunchtime conversation last week, local metro east/Collinsville/Highland Post Dispatch reporter, Pat Gauen's name came up. His name reminded me that I hadn't noticed his byline in the paper for some time and wondered if he'd retired or taken a buy out or some such. But as often happens in things like this, I stumbled on Gauen's byline in the P-D today as he gave answers to a quiz on past local events he must have published last week. So he is still around.
A couple questions caught my eye.
Fairmount Park in Collinsville is the only horse racing track in the region. Why did it close for a while in the mid-70's? Answer: The grandstand burned to the ground. I didn't know that and have never heard any conversation about it.
A developer planning to build homes on a tract near Caseyville filed a federal lawsuit last year against the previous owner, alleging a failure to disclose the presence of 159,000 tons of what? Answer: Manure from Fairmount Park and some farms. This strikes me funny, farmers have laid their livestock manure on their fields forever. Why would it be a surprise?
What star of the silent screen was from East St. Louis? Answer: Lillian Gish. Was she the "it girl"? No, that was Clara Bow.
A must read column by Peggy Noonan. NBC's Brian Williams went so far as to say on his blog,"Peggy is doing the work of her career and must be considered an early favorite for the next cycle's Pulitzer for commentary."
I don't know if I'd go that far, but this column touches very close to home. While waiting at the airport yesterday CNN was playing on the monitors at the gate and no one was watching, just as Noonan said in her piece. Oh, wait, one thing that got any of us to turn to the TV was a clip of Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright speaking to some group. He was animated, sort of loud, funny, and not helping Obama at all.
Yesterday it was reported that Tony Snow will be joining CNN, but today the Shenanigans column at Politico mentions a rumor that he has signed on with CBS' Katie Couric newscast.
Then, in honor of Earth Day celebrations Shenanigans describes the new "ecotainers" used for coffee in the Capitol's cafeterias. "
"Stir your coffee with one of the new straws in Longworth, and the straws melt," said one unlucky-in-coffee staffer. And, adding insult to injury, it leaks. Happy Earth Day, everyone!"
There's a big untapped market made up of people who want to buy environmentally friendly products, but too much of the current selection is badly done and/or unattractive. Plus too many big companies are advertising green items which really aren't. They may have the color green, but that's about it.
Former White House press secretary and former Fox News regular, Tony Snow has begun work as a political commentator with CNN this week.
Some media observers are shocked he did not land back at Fox while others see this as a great move by CNN, a cable news station which has been gradually closing the ratings gap between themselves and long time leader, Fox News.
Snow is a huge hire for CNN, a man well respected by most news people, knowledgeable and affable.
CNN has a full page ad in today's New York Times congratulating themselves on being the place where America goes for news, or some such. But looking at the cable news ratings website it sure appears as though they are well in second place behind Fox News, with MSNBC in third.
A "can't put it down" look into the life of MSNBC"s Chris Matthews by Mark Liebovich in the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
If you're a political or media junkie, this is just what you need. Liebovich was with him for some weeks and loads up this Matthews profile with gossipy tidbits about other MSNBC journalists and Washington types.
This week the Post-Dispatch began two new blogs, one of which allows readers to comment on the paper's daily editorials and the other on religion.
Newspapers have finally seen that the popularity of blogs are not going away and have begun creating their own for columnists and reporters. These will probably never have the true look and feel of traditional blogs, but they do serve to give the local papers a feel for what readers are thinking and where readers take issue with reporting and editorializing.
I was happy to see the new religion blog, Civil Religion, has a Lutheran as one of its contributors. So often St. Louis has completely ignored the fact that this city is the international center of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and home of one of the largest seminaries in North America. New religion editor/writer, Tim Townsend is doing thorough job, much more wide ranging and thought provoking than in the past.
The editorial blog, asking readers for comments on the paper's opinion page has been name The Platform.
