respublica

Cable news ratings down in May

According to the Pew Research Center, cable news networks saw their ratings fall drastically across the board in May:

At CNN the ratings news is consistent — as in consistently dreadful — with several of its prime viewing hours, including the 7 p.m. shows and 9 p.m. shows, attracting the smallest audiences in that channel’s history.

MSNBC also recorded sharp falloffs in viewing compared to last May.
MSNBC was down 26 percent from a year ago in the category of most importance to news channels, viewers between the ages of 25 and 54 (the group news advertisers pay to reach).

Fox News also had some steep declines since last May. It was down about 21 percent in prime time in the 25-to-54 group. News about the political race has apparently not sent viewers flocking to get either the Fox News or MSNBC take (considered polar opposites) on events this spring.

This does not surprise me all that much, so many people are just weary of political talk that repeats and repeats and often just makes up ridiculous things to try and grab our attention. We've been listening to campaign talk since last summer and many of us have just moved on to other things this month. Like summer. Baseball, graduations, swimming, vacations, grilling.

Each presidential election year the campaign and talk gets longer and longer and more tedious with each news outlet trying to out shout the other. Maybe it's their own fault people have turned to other things besides politics.

We'll be back. In September.

Another day, another tree falls

Well, maybe not an entire tree, but a huge section of an old Oak fell onto the fence bordering the seminary soccer field. No rain, no wind, no nothing, but it still fell. A portion of the fence crumpled.

It was up to the grounds people to remove the remnants along with Kirt who was going to move the cut up chunks with the bobcat. Here students David and Adam decide how to go about this with Kirt. And Ferdie.

Christian and Connor spent the day with us and watched entralled as David worked the chainsaw.

Now what? the grown ups debate

Meanwhile the boys sit down to watch the show.

Soda or Pop?

Which? One of life's more pressing questions.

Living in the southern Illinois and St. Louis areas for so many years I've accustomed myself to saying 'soda'. But my mind, I always think, 'pop'.

 

The mayor of bans

New York City's Mayor Bloomberg has called for legislation which would ban the sale of large soda's in restaurants, food carts, movie theaters and sports stadiums. If enacted the purchase of any soda larger than 16 ounces would be prohibited. 

Of course it will be ok to buy 2 sixteen ounce-ers.

You know? It's one thing to wring your hands as an elected official over the number of overweight people in your city, but this is just one more over reach on the part of government. Why is it so many elected people think they can insert themselves into the minutia of our daily personal lives?

Some tweets about this last night:

"Bloomberg is in good company. The Soviets banned Coca Cola until 1985."  @ExJon

"So will Mayor Bloomberg have police to conduct raids to rid homes and businesses of "offensive sodas'".  @sistertoldjah

"Does Bloomberg know a double shot of whiskey has more calories than a 12 ounce Coke? If not, don't tell him." @politicalmath

"Welcome to NYC! Here are your fiber supplements. No, they're not optional." @politicalmath

"Hey Mike Bloomberg! France called. They want the statue of liberty back." @bradthor

Break in season

There has been a rash of break-ins in Clayton during the past week. Every spring and summer this area sees cars being broken into, but the thugs are getting bolder and have begun breaking into homes during the day and even during the night while residents are at home and asleep.

The High Pointe Demun and Hillcrest neighborhoods are bearing the brunt of these robberies, possibly due to their easy access from Skinker. But, really, there has to be a way to crack down on this type of crime before someone gets hurt. It is obvious the police are making every effort to catch these guys, but it's not easy and for some reason they keep coming back and back and back to the same areas.

Keep off the shoe

Two years ago a 7 foot, red, high heeled shoe landed in Belleville's downtown as part of a campaign to "paint the town". Opinions on this big shoe were mixed as you might expect in local towns.

Clayton has its own version of a shoe sculpture, this one being a shoe made of shoes in front of the Brown shoe headquarters on Maryland. Of course the difference is, this shoe does not stand on a public right of way. But still.

photo by WVArtist.com

 

Make your own fly spray

Recipes for fly repellent-body spray and room spray. If anyone decided to try this, let me know if it works. The problem is as I see it, is flys lighting on us is not so much of a problem as mosquitoes. The article does not say if it works for various insects.  

What we have to fear this summer

It's always something. Now it's the ever expanding tick population with the added worry over a new species of tick never seen before.

So far this new tick has only been seen in the southeast.

And by the way, whatever happened to the flood of killer bees supposedly heading our way from South America back in the 70's?

Funny line

In Romney's book, The Real Romney, he writes about his 2 year Mormon mission in France.

"As you can imagine it's quite an experience to go to Bordeaux and say 'give up your wine I've got a great religion for you."

It seems he managed to convert 20 during that time, probably an amazingly high number for France but not so good when compared to other countries.

Memorial Day in Collinsville 2012

The American Legion is all decked out and the parade stepped off.

The Collinsville marching Kahoks

Friendly people

At the end a man and my dog head for home.