Abandoned Stuff by Saskboy

The last couple mornings I’ve tried two different radio stations to wake up to. The first one, Z99, was rambling about Miley Cyrus (the pseudonymously famous daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus, I later learned) who apparently set off some controversy for posing partly nude for a trashy [are there any other kinds?] checkout magazine. She’s only 15 years old.

Tuesday morning I switched to the new Astral Media country station “Big Dog”, and they were talking about guess who? Miley Cyrus is the correct answer. They mentioned how former Rosanne child actor M. Fishman (or someone anyway) was on The View (the trashy media just keeps on rollin’) and his comment on the Miley story was that it was “great”. It must mean the Iraq War is over if that’s what the news is now. Zing!

I can’t wait to hear what station number 3 presents on Wednesday morning. :-\

UPDATE: Country 100 in Moose Jaw didn’t talk about Miley, yay! Here’s another blogger’s take on the controversy.

The protest was in response to a blog entry by John Gormley Live producer Tammy Robert. In the post (which doesn’t reflect the official position of the Rawlco radio station, apparently) she criticized Amber Jones, the leader of the Green Party of Saskatchewan, for breasfeeding her infant while off stage at a news event.

- Photo courtesy CanineCaptures.com through Facebook for Saskatoon Attachment Parenting/ Natural Family Living Group

There are two versions of the story up at Rawlco (times two, because it’s duplicated at 650 and 980), and no other sources for information the protest can be found by me at this time.

About 35 breast feeding mothers brought their babies with them to protest a News Talk Radio blog site at the Saskatoon station.

Last week John Gormley Live’s producer Tammy Robert wrote about breast feeding politicians who use their babies as political props.

Green Party president [sic] Amber Jones had her baby at a news conference where she breast fed the child.

Jones has been invited to do a guest blog on News Talk Radio, and guest on one of our talk shows.

Opinions on blogs are one person’s opinion and not those of the the radio station.

What’s funny, is that Tammy appeared to be looking for a way to slam Amber, and lacking any policy reason, she took offence to Amber’s supposed use of her baby as a political prop. Well, Tammy finally got to witness first hand what it looks like when a mother (a whole group of them) breastfeeds a child in a political demonstration.

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UPDATE: A random bit of funny stuff. At the bottom of my blog I have Google Ads. One displayed on my homepage the following:

Breastfeeding Baby
Join the program today & get free samples, coupons, emails, & more!

*confused look* “free samples” :-S
Naturally it’s an ad for formula, not breastfeeding support. Note that the company stresses that their formula won’t cause brain and eye deficiencies! Sign me up!

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And there’s some real, and serious news too. “Prepare to be shocked.” Indeed.

Food Prices On The Rise

By Sarah Mills
Updated April 28, 2008 - 1:44pm

Your grocery bill is going up.

No food rationing yet, but that is the case in the United States right now and starvation is becoming more serious in poorer countries.

Inflation rates have been fairly low since the 80s.

But business professor Dr. Ian Lee, of Ontario’s Carleton University, is predicting hard times ahead.

With a recession and people possibly losing their jobs, he argues people can’t put off buying food for a few years while waiting for the economy to recover, like they can a big purchase.

Lee claims since people under 30 haven’t seen a big economic crisis before, they will be the most shocked.

Where’s food rationing taking place in the USA? [In Sam's Club, and Costco, where law allows.] I’d be more shocked if I hadn’t been expecting something like this for many years now. I don’t think I’m alone, but those who have seen and lived through worse times are going to be better prepared. I’m sure it will be a lot harder to accept when it actually hits here. [The comment in the link to the Coloradoan story, is probably correct. Even though the US may produce most of its rice, if the rest of the world is struggling, most of that rice will be exported for more money to be made! Patriotism doesn't pay the bills in the USofA.]

I got a tip about this story, because I missed it before (obviously). It seems Tammy of News Talk Radio in Saskatchewan needed something controversial to write for her blog, so she picked on Amber Jones of the Saskatchewan Green Party (not a hard target given how many people are pro-nukes in this province). Many people have already smacked down her insults(including Kelly Patrick, Pres. Green Party of Sask.), and Tammy has offered no retraction after having a chance to rethink her prudish, and outdated opinion on breastfeeding (not to mention the apparent facts of the press conference format). Coupling that with her uninformed, and apparent burning need to slam the Sask Greens over non-policy issues, and it says something about her (and her organization) that isn’t flattering.

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I had another close call with a four legged Bambi today. After noticing a loner antelope on the way into Saskatoon the other day, it made no attempt to cross the highway in front of my car; it was never a danger. But coming home in the dark tonight from Saskatoon, I had a close encounter, of the four legged kind. I saw a flash of fast moving fur hurtling into the ditch from a field, on a collision course with my car, and another car was quickly coming up behind me to pass. Fortunately it was a divided highway, and the car behind me didn’t smack into me from behind when I braked sharply, as I laid on the horn. The deer threw on its brakes too, it’s legs looking almost parallel to the ground at the mid-point of the ditch, and it avoided the looming fight with my fender as it took off in the opposite direction.

It can be very important to avoid collisions with animals.

That was the end of my excitement (and hopefully the deer’s too) for the ride home. I had a new Bon Jovi CD to listen to, and got part way through, because the new Saskatoon radio stations were interesting to listen to. Rawlco has a new one called Wired (I think) and Hot 93 is now The Bull 92.9. Rock 102 was surprisingly good while I was there as well, and there was an oldies station, and 95.1 too. I never even bothered with the AM stations.

I finished watching “Splash” [5/10] the other night, and wasn’t too impressed. It had a very weak ending. And a weak middle.

-Chamberlain’s church for sale

Air Farce has set a date on pulling the plug on itself. It’s been on radio and/or TV for quite a while, and I stopped watching it years ago when it was surpassed by 22 Minutes and The Daily Show for political snark. It’s always been good for a chuckle, but it’s hard to do side splitting humour and keep up with a daily show. The market is saturated. Blogs have pounded every joke for a situation into the ground by the time a weekly show rolls around.

I feel sorry for people who didn’t realize this happens. Anyone who has read blogs for even a few months, then listens to a talk radio hears the same tired talking points not only from radio hosts and frequent callers of the Conservative bend, but also others who get their kool-aid and unoriginality from different pitchers.

The Conservatives describe the practice as state-of-the-art politicking. A party spokesman said the practice offers enhanced transparency, and is used elsewhere in the world.

… in fine places like Burma, China, Rhodesia, Venezuela, Columbia, and parts of former East Germany.

“Enhanced transparency”. Gotta love it, eh? Also known as, “opaqueness“. Expect to hear it a lot on talk radio soon.

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I learned quite a bit at the Minifie Memorial Lecture today. I didn’t know that Canadian “peacekeepers” killed almost 60 soldiers in Croatia in a single battle. Unfortunately for the civilians, the Canadians arrived too late at Medak Pocket. It was certainly a surprise that I hadn’t heard of it before. Most Canadians are like me. Many more know of the disgrace in Somalia where soldiers killed a teenager. It happened at about the same time. Guess where the journalists focused attention?

Ms. Off was critical of the lack of coverage for the Medak Pocket slaughter. Indeed, she seemed to suggest that the lack of collective knowledge of the battle back home, ended up destroying most of the Canadian soldiers who fought there. Collective Canadian thought told them they were insignificant, and their killing of the other soldiers was thus not vindicated. To them it may have felt like murder, instead of a defense of the innocent. There’s a danger for that to happen to our soldiers returning from Afghanistan.

After the lecture wrapped up, there was plenty of time for questions and answers. No one got up to the microphone. Eventually after about 15 seconds, someone moved to a microphone. Many others followed in turn, including myself, and a student I’d convinced to come to the talk as well. I hadn’t intended to ask any questions when I arrived, but I realized I could ask about Ms. Off’s opinion on so called “new media”, blogs and other independent news sources like student newspapers.

I’m sure the answer given would interest most political bloggers. At first we started out as a monolithic group that uses only the main stream media for our sources, and as Ms. Off talked her way through the answer, she evolved her point to conclude that blogs will be an important part of shaping Canadian journalism in the new era of media. I unfortunately missed her 360 degree about face in the video clip I recorded. She was talking to a lot of ‘traditional journalism students’ in the room, and it must be hard to tell them that they face a job in a corporate owned monolithic employer if they don’t fight to be independent journalists.

After the Q&A finished and people were milling in the hallway, I had some snacks, and spoke with a fellow from SaskPower who reads Cathie in Canada, and several American blogs. He recommended this Onion video. (All of the other Onion headlines are pure gold on that video’s page.) There was also the parents of my friend Peter in the crowd, and a pair of women asked me how they could find blogs on the Internet. I directed them over to Saskblogs, and explained blog commenting, privacy, and search techniques for a few minutes.

I had my photo taken with Ms. Off, thanks to a journalist student, and listened to some stories in the crowd around her and attempted to contribute a joke about trains, which I didn’t realize I’d forgotten the set-up to until I’d already announced I was telling a joke. Talk about the train leaving the station with some empty cars… Let me off at the next station, please.

Sometimes a rambling, angry person on the web has a point. Greed kills; There’s no any better way to sum up what is going to happen (and indeed what we’re seeing the genesis of) in the United States economy.

I turned on the streaming radio to John Gormley Live (haven’t done it in a while because my work environment isn’t conducive to listening to radio), hoping to hear about the Regina school closures. Instead, I was confronted with Gormley telling everyone how bad Spitzer was for strictly prosecuting white collar criminals, while he used prostitutes in his private life. It’s as if Gormley wants us to think that the most shameful part of the scandal was how Spitzer hadn’t given wealthy people a break for getting caught at their crimes that destroyed the financial futures of less wealthy people (poor people). Because you know, hypocrites have to give breaks to wealthy criminals. Think of the real victims — old, rich, money junkies who got prosecuted for making more money outside of the law!

Chris explains why Spitzer isn’t “unethical”, even if his action was immoral and unfair to his family and office.

Gormley’s show also covered a drinking/smoking scandal involving kids and adults on a trip out of the country. That is unethical, given the context, and immoral. It was done “on the job”.

I thought it was interesting how Gormley’s show so keenly demonstrated this morning how our main stream media perpetuates the myth that wealth absolves people from acting ethically. He’s acting as a cog in the wheel that is crushing the remaining wealth from middle and lower classes in the world.