respublica

This is one old fashioned word

I was reading a news column this morning and halfway through the writer stopped me with the use of the word "athwart". Now I don't know about anyone else, but the definition of this rarely used word escaped me. The sentence said in part, "too often it has stood athwart history."

I looked up athwart. And the definition given kind of made me laugh because I just can't imagine most of us using the word. The most general definition is "side to side". "From one side to another, across." "a long counter thrown athwart the entrance."

"The stars which shoot athwart the night.""after it enters the Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane is predicted to advance athwart to the Texas coastline."

I mean, who says stuff like this? In any event I stopped reading and moved on to something else. So my best guess as to what the writer was indicating was, the group changed their opinions from one thing to another too often.

WGN America revisited

Some time back I posted about the new prime time news news network WGN America which promoted itself as news as news and not news with bias. When we remember, we tune in and have found it to be a relief. It's almost relaxing to watch a news network that has no arguing or obvious, vehement bias.

It may take awhile for this to catch on since we've been accustomed for so long to hear mostly one sided programming. Or, news with follow-up editorializing by the hosts.

The one thing I wish was different and that is the time they are on the air. The begin at 5 pm and go until 10 each night. We do a lot of our news watching during the day and tend to forget about it during prime time.

Conserve and protect

With this arctic freeze and snow we've had this week, it goes without saying the local news stations will be all over it with information we need. There are stories about how to keep your pipes from freezing or how to deal with pipes which froze. How to stay warm by being slightly cold to conserve energy. If you have one of those furnaces that exhausts out an outside wall, watch for condensation causing freezing and then carbon monoxide. Then there are the stories on the safest way to drive on covered roads-stay home if possible.

Lots of information. But. Have you ever gone to their websites as they ask us to for more complete information? Whether it's a story link on Facebook or a link on the actual web page they are 100 percent impossible to read due to constantly moving, flickering, jumping around, ads. Start reading a story such as "How long will we have to conserve energy this week?" KSDK. Good grief it's not just annoying to try and read, but impossible. There are moving ads on the sides, ads which start up one paragraph in, ads all over and all moving.

Often an ad covers up the story which is advertising themselves. Like, hey, I'm already here, just stop this.

It's all of them. FOX2 Now, KMOV, KSDK, and channels from every city and national news outlet. They have become unreadable.

A British Journalist beats our own to the story

As I was saying in the post below, we need more real journalists to ferret out the vaccine roll-outs and ask the hard questions. The Daily Mail gives us one good option to get us vaccinated.

"A top epidemiologist who advised President Biden's transition team on the Coronavirus pandemic is calling for the US to alter its vaccination plan in the face of a potential 'hurricane' surge in coronavirus infections in the coming weeks. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, appeared on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday to outline the changes he said need to be made with the vaccine rollout.  He said the US should prioritize giving as many people as possible their first of two doses of the vaccine, instead of holding back a certain amount of shots for second doses."

"As of Sunday, 31 million vaccine doses have been administered in the US, out of nearly 50 million delivered to states. Less than eight percent of the US population has gotten one dose, and just 1.7 percent has received both."  States are holding back much of their vaccines, saving them for the second dose.

I say good on Michael Osterholm, at least someone is asking the questions, finding some answers and coming up with an alternative plan of action.

President Biden said his administration would not hold back the vaccines, but unfortunately that is what the individual states are doing and may explain in part the baffling paradox of low rates of shots administered compared to doses distributed even as states report they are running out of doses.

This really has to change. Now someone please find out what is going on in Madison County Illinois.

 

Where Are the Local Journalists?

I find it frustrating that we cannot get up to date information on the Covid Vaccine shots in our local area. Maybe this is true in all areas. We hear this or that, we hear to apply to the county health website, but what has gone on since? How many have had the actual shots and who are they? How much vaccine is available if any? Who is next and when will they know? Why does no news outlet report on what is actually going on?

Part of the reason for this lack of information is the lack of local news reporters. Most local TV news and newspapers are just copying and pasting reports from national news links. Is there no one working in journalism around here going in person to county health offices and asking questions? And that goes for any other issue which apply to people where they live.

In past years the Belleville News Democrat had a host of reporters spread out all over investigating, reporting, asking questions. They were sitting in on city meetings and then asking questions, going out to see for themselves. Most of us read that paper which kept us up to date around here. No more. That paper is a lost soul now.

The most local news we find is now on Facebook city pages which is often misleading or just opinion.

As someone who registered for the Madison County vaccine in the older age group, I really want to know what is going on. Why does it seem nothing is happening.

A comment to ponder

The election is over, but it isn't, and isn't that to be expected in this crazy year? I'm not going to get into a partisan discussion, that will be happening all day on cable, Twitter, Facebook..everywhere. But one guest on MSNBC's Morning Joe program had one of the best recommendations we've heard in a long time. Rather unexpected from that program for sure.

Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Axios and Politico, told the Morning Joe group that this election should make political media look seriously into finding humility. He had good reasons for this statement and included himself in it. He actually seemed chastened and puzzled by results which showed so many Americans who voted took issue with the constant promotion of democrats by the majority of media. The others on the Morning Joe panel were actually kind of stunned into silence and maybe thought by this.

If any take his advice and do some introspective thinking, we may all benefit. That might work for those who promote the right side of politics as well. Although they are much fewer in number no matter how angry people get that there those who don't fall in line with the majority.

It's all about the daily struggle

What times we're in right now. While most of us are still trying to get by day by day with a virus which will not go away, the political class is obsessing over the coming election. Frankly, while I normally rather enjoy most election years, this one just seems as crazy as the life we have to put up with.

News media of all types are fully engaged in reporting every darn thing that is said or done by candidates and their supporters. They're even analyzing each party's digital media group. All the political back and forth is just so much like the sounds and orchestra makes while warming up.

Some wag made a joke about '2020' being the new curse word. "What the 2020 are you talking about?" And so on. Substitute 2020 for your favorite swear word. Totally acceptable.

Photo memories

Yesterday all the news talk was about Joe Biden and the woman who accused him of improper behavior. There was lots and lots of commentary on how differently he was being discussed as opposed to how media went after Justice Kavanaugh.  I will say we watched Morning Joe's interview of Biden with Mika   Brzezinski and she was pretty tough. But, back with Kavanaugh, we sat through weeks of media  and democratic frenzy which brought on the protesters. There were protests everywhere, many pretty scary.

This reminded me of the day loads of Kavanaugh protesters stormed into the Senate Office building where our daughter happens to work. As time went by that afternoon the mobs moved out of the lobby and got up to all floors where they hung out screaming. She called me as this was going on and said "this is the first time I've ever been nervous here."

The protesters had signs, masks, weird clothing in many cases. All were yelling constantly. So don't think now is being treated the same because it isn't. Here is a link to a blog post I put up at that time with a couple of pictures she sent me.

While stuck at home, try boxing

We watch the morning local news every day, sometimes channel 2, other times channel 5 and we've become fascinated by KSDK (5) in St. Louis' traffic reporter, Monica Adams. Like many TV reporters, she's reporting from her home and it turns out she's quite the fitness fanatic. Most every day she is shown in her basement surrounded by all types of professional fitness equipment. Every day we're more amazed by what she's showing us what we can do.

We had a huge laugh when she focused on her professional boxing bag hanging from the basement ceiling. Rather several big boxing bags. She put on the gloves and began whacking the bag while describing how this can help our fitness. Another day the full basement was shown with all the machines. It has been quite an eye-opener and so different from other reporters who report in their kitchens or office in front of bookshelves.

Here is a link to all of her basement reporting. Scroll down to the videos and one is the boxing lessons. The others are great too even though not many of us could duplicate this.

And here we stay

The rules are getting tighter and tighter these days. I'm past the point where I can watch the news without feeling it's all hopeless. We're getting tighter on our rules for people coming onto the seminary campus as well. More of our signs have been placed to let local people know what they can and cannot do while using our campus for outdoor walks and bike rides.

As for our daily life, I can hardly bear the thought of going to get groceries, the news makes this seem like I'll be walking into a germ infested, threatening place.

In any event, it's best to keep the news off for most of the day. We are keeping on keeping on. I clean things around here a dozen times a day as well as puttering in the gardens. Dale has been working in the yard and in his isolated office doing seminary work. Last night was just tv, Dale has put on a baseball retrospective on MLB every night this week. Past games re-played. You can just imagine how exciting this is.  Mainly we sit up for awhile and find ourselves going to bed earlier and earlier just to forget about all this.

Here he was last night looking at pictures people put up on Facebook. I will say I, and probably many others, are thankful for such a thing as Facebook. It keeps us in touch, makes us laugh, and gives us information (good of bad).