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The TiVo is hooked up to the network. No more phone chord to trip over.

Andrea Bocelli being piped from my desktop in my study clear over to my TiVo. Very nice. I'm very pleased.

Now I just need a blind Italian Opera singer in my bed so he can show me how he over-compensates for lack of sight.

Well, I have the next few days off work, but they are chock full of events. So much for a veggie weekend. I've got to work on one of those.

Work shows no sign of easing up through the first week of May. Christ.

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I'm watching Bill Moyers' NOW. Tivo caught it off CBS.

The episode is about the press coverage and state of journalism during this war coverage.

Some things that piqued my interest:
-that studies show that many americans want limitations on freed of speech. Idiots.
-When newspapers or magazines published pictures of corpses, showing merely a real consequence of the war, not necessarily placing any moral judgements on the photo, people construed that as an anti-war photo. If you feel that War is wrong by looking a photo of dead soldiers, maybe you need to run with that feeling.
-Embedded journalists had to sign a contract to follow the rules the military placed upon them. No, this isn't surprising, and it's fair.
-While it was planned that only half of the journalists would be embedded, due to safety issues, nearly all press members are embedded.So much for gutsy journalism. Or perhaps it is just that no place is safe.
-Fox network just sucks. Talk about one sided journalism. They have Oliver North as a journalist. That's all anyone needs to know. He probably has plenty of guidance on dealing with the middle east, though. He was deeply involved with the Iran Contra scandal. It's probably bringing back fond memories for him.
-Media consolidation was discussed, as well. Large media companies are buying up radio stations, often eliminating local competition. Six major companies run a huge chunk of our media. It appears we might have Bill Clinton to blame, since he signed a law in 1996 eliminating barriers to corporations to "consolidate media". But currently a Republican has control of the FCC board.
-Columbia university did a study that smaller news stations provide better quality newscasts, and less "softball celebrity stories".
-Some cities are ending up with homogeneity of newscasts, as different local news stations can be owned by the same company, thereby getting the same news feed.
-The executive Veep of CBS says that they have to buy up these stations to make more money to get a positive return on their investment. Great.
-What's not covered by the largest news organization? Themselves. Disney CEO publicly said that he doesn't want ABC covering his company. They quashed a piece on Disney's poor background check policies leading to the hiring of alleged pedophiles.
-The major networks overlooked covering further FCC deregulation, which of course would be a boon to big media.
-FCC chairman Powell feels there's no need for public input on these issues.Of course not, Mr. Chairman, the public doesn't contribute to your campaign as much as big media does.


I love Bill Moyers shows. They are loaded with interesting tidbits.

AOL Time Warner, GE, Disney, Viacom, News Corporation, Cox are the main corporations to keep an eye on.

"To speak the truth, you need at least two people. One to speak it and one to hear it." --Henry David Thorough