Some news of the day

Iranian protest shooting victim Neda Agha Soltan, photo via Wikipedia

Could this be the face to launch a revolution?

The last few days, the news media has played up the death of an Iranian woman, who was shot on the streets of Tehran during some protests by opponents of the current Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration and supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi over the weekend. The video of the aftermath of Neda Agha Soltan's shooting has been shown all over YouTube and later broadcast, in brief on the major news networks, including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. The broadcasters do not show the whole video in detail out of concern for young people who may view the newscasts.

The full video on YouTube does show Neda bleeding profusely from the mouth and nose, and it's pooling around her on the street. Two men try to keep her alive. They're afraid that if they can get her to a hospital, the Republican Guard or the Basij, a para-military, plain-clothed security forces that help Ahmadinejad and the clerical regime keep order. Think of it as a KGB-like group that secretly serve the president and supreme leader to keep the public in line.

Looking at the bio posted on Wikipedia, she was born in 1982, a part-time worker in a travel agency, and was at a street corner with her father when a Basij sniper shot her in the neck. Her last words, apparently, translated to, "I'm burning! I'm burning!"

Mousavi has called for peaceful assemblies to honor Neda and others who have died in the protests since June 12, when the ruling clerical council declared Ahmadinejad the winner on a 2-to-1 margin. However, the regime has been preventing the protests, which I heard on CNN this afternoon, is against Article 27 of the Islamic Republic of Iran's constitution, guaranteeing the rights to protest peacefully.

Thus the bloodshed. Thus Neda. Of course, she has become somewhat a martyr, because her name translates from Persian into "voice" or "calling." Media also report that protesters have been shouting from the rooftops the last two nights, "I am Neda!" rather than "God is Great!"

I hope that the people do rise up and either take the rights they're guaranteed from the oppressive government or topple this regime. But they must do it themselves. Pres. Obama this afternoon said that he supports the people of Iran in the protests, but the U.S. will not get involved.

Ed McMahon, who died this morning. Photo courtesy Wikipedia

Good night, Ed!

This morning, we lost a true TV legend with the passing of Ed McMahon. He was 86.

McMahon was best known as being the sidekick to Johnny Carson on "The Tonight Show" for 30 years, as well as serving as an advertising pitchman, most notably for Alpo dog food, Budweiser and American Family Publishers. He also hosted the 1980s talent show "Star Search," basically my generation's "American Idol." He also co-hosted "Bloopers" with Dick Clark, and the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon.

While on "Tonight," he had several guffaw laughs at what Carson said, with a "Hey-ooooooo!" every once in a while, but he was known most for introducing Carson onto the stage with his trademark "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrre's Johnny!"

He'll always be a legend, and he'll always be remembered.

Chinese county encouraging zentai purchases?

photo courtsey chinaspike.com

I was checking a few of the sites I follow on Blogger, and found an article linked through Zentailifestyle. The article is from ChinaSpike.com about a county in rural China asking its people and officials to buy zentai suits from a local manufacturer. Of course, it's been pointed otu that ChinaSpike.com is a lot like The Onion, in that the site is full of fake news.

Quoting the article:

"To make up the lost revenue, officials will now be required to purchase one zentai suit for each family member over the age of eighteen from the Gongan Zentai Trading Company. The company is one of the county largest employers with revenues in 2008 of USD 23,998,000. Since the economic downturn sales of the skin-tight suits to the UK, Japan France, USA, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia and New Zealand have dropped by more than 90 percent.

"Local officials working at various government departments will not be asked to choose a particular type of suit, but must accept their duty and meet the specified quotas, according the government website."

The reason the article said they're asking the county officials to buy the suits: It's to make up for money lost from their original idea to buy 230,000 packs a year of local cigarettes.

Just think, a community of people wearing zentai. How quaint that is! Even though this article isn't real, just think of the posibilities.

Why don't we invade Iran, too?

Over the weekend, the government of Iran announced that current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won re-election over three challengers, the closest being former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. However, supporters of the pro-reformist candidate, as well as many from the rest of the world, are crying foul and fraud.

The main issue with the election result was announced within an hour or two after the polls closed rather than days or weeks later with the usual paper ballots. There also were no outside election monitors from the international community watching to make sure the Ahmadinejad government isn't pressuring the electorate to vote for him when they don't want to.

The result of the announced result? Mousavi's supporters started marching the streets calling for a reversal of the election, or at least an investigation of the vote. It seems Iran's supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has listened to the people. He's ordered an investigation on the vote. Of course, the international community is calling for an outside entity to investigate.

The point is here that Iran's rulers may have fixed the election so that their favored candidate, Ahmadinejad, continues to be the figurehead to the rest of the world. Ahmadinejad has been calling for the elimination of Israel, ambitious in getting nuclear weapons, though the Iranians say the nuclear ambitions are for peaceful (i.e. electricity) means, and has been threatening the rest of the world.

Seven years ago, we invaded Afghanistan, Iran's eastern neighbor, to hunt down Osama bin Laden and get an oppressive regime, the Taliban, out of power so that bin Laden's network, al Qaeda, doesn't have a safe haven there. We were initially successful, but the Taliban is strengthening both there and in Pakistan. Two years later, we invated Iraq, Iran's western neighbor and long-time enemy, because its oppressive leader, Saddam Hussein, was 1) an ally of al Qaeda (which he wasn't), 2) obtaining nuclear weapons (he wasn't) and/or 3) still had weapons of mass destruction and was hiding them from UN inspectors (he didn't).

Now that we have a different president, the U.S. has been trying to get into talks with Ahmadinejad and Khamenei about ending the nuclear ambitions of Iran, as well as eliminating its state sponsorship of terrorist groups like Hamas. It seems that Iran has slapped that hand away by fixing this election. Reports were that Mousavi was wanting to better Iran's ties to the West, which has been almost non-existent since the 1979 Islamic Revolution 30 years ago. Of course, that was highlighted by Iranian university students capturing the U.S. embassy there and holding 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

President Obama has a tough choice now. Does he continue his quest to open relations with Iran's current regime, or does he do what he predecessor, former Pres. George W. Bush, did and invade Iran to get rid of the clerics that really rule the country? Or does he take a middle ground, help encourage a new revolution by Iranians who feel oppressed by the current system?

Whatever Washington, the rest of the world or the UN does for this issue, they'd better do it soon.

Journalistic sensationalism

Early this morning, my friend Jill Lavender posted an article from The New York Times about the number of actors and actresses in the adult film industry that have contracted HIV, the virus that nine out of 10 times leads to AIDS. You all remember that disease, the one that killed Queen lead singer Freddy Mercury and led to the end of the basketball career of Ervin "Magic" Johnson, all of this happening in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, it seemed the spread of the word to use condoms or not to have sex with people you don't know that well has quelled the AIDS scare, so it's not that much in the news.

However, as Jill posted here, 22 actors have contracted HIV since 2004. Well, that is just a five-year span. And as she explained in her personal comments:

"So 11,000 films x 4 years = 44,000 films divided by 22 infected actors = one infection for every 2,000 films. Or, another way, 22 actors divided by 4 years = 5.5, say 6 infections per year which in a population of 1500 actors = .4% infection rate which in my opinion is quite remarkable, under the circumstances since we are talking about the adult film industry."

Four-tenths of one percent. That's a problem? I can see it being a problem with those four-tenths of one percent were mainstream actors and actresses and been working in the major film and TV industry and can spread the disease all over Hollywood. However, the Times article simply stated the adult film industry is mainly centered in the San Fernando Valley. And as Jill has posted in her past blogs, "sex workers" usually keep within themselves. They would only go outside their circle if they absolutely know if their intended parter is clean. Otherwise, they would use a condom.

Now, my rantings isn't all about Jill's, it's about how the news can become senationalized in today's 24-hour news cycle, where radio stations, TV networks and newspapers with online outlets are trying to find the angle on certain stories that will generate the most eyeballs or eardrums that will either read, watch or listen to their reports.

I am a journalist myself. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Iowa. I have a grand total of seven years of experience doing both general news and sports with five different newspapers, both weekly and daily, though neither having a general circulation of more than 20,000. The Times circulates more than 10 million copies around the world, with countless his on its website every day. I always had a dream to get to a major metropolitan daily, or even get on ESPN's SportsCenter or be the Chicago Cubs play-by-play voice on WGN (and also now Comcast SportsNet Chicago).

Still, the way several stories have been played out over these last few years, it makes me realize my ideals may not mesh with the editorial boards of some of these newspapers or networks. In fact, it made me glad I focus more on sports nowadays, though some sports pages are getting more senational with the obcession on whether Brett Favre will play for the Minnesota Vikings this season or stay retired, how rampant the use of steroids is still in baseball, or the fact Portugese soccer star Cristiano Rinaldo garnered a £80 million ($131 million) transfer fee paid to his current club Manchester United so he can go to Real Madrid next season.

Here's my thing on this: It's OK to report on what's going on with certain people or events. It's also great to uncover what our government is doing, because that's why the Founding Fathers put the First Amendment into the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution when this country started way back when. However, if you must try to scare people with how many people have been infected with AIDS in the last five years or whether the H1N1 ("Swine Flu") virus will become a full-blown pandemic when the Southern Hemisphere goes into winter next week, or even whether Judge Sonia Sotomayor is fit to be a Supreme Court justice just because she thinks a Latina would be better at making decisions than a white man, then that's getting a bit too far.

We journalists have to get back to being the eyes and ears of the public and report what we see and hear to the public, who by buying newspapers and magazines, clicking on links on the Internet, watching us on TV or listening to us on the radio, pay our salaries. It may be directly through newstand sales or subscriptions or indirectly through buying the goods and services our advertisers advertise. We journalists have to be servants of the public, just like those who serve in a democratically-elected government do. The "Fourth Estate" is a key to a robust society like ours.

However, when the media goes too far to sensationalize the stories, people start tuning out or stop reading newspapers, magazines or Internet news sites and instead watch shows like "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" or "The Real Housewives of [insert geographic region here]" or "The Hills." If we lose the news media - and I'm talking all of them, not just the dying newspapers - then we lose the conduit between us and those who represent us.

However, if sensationalism continues to grow, then it should die a horrible, painful death.

Busy last few weeks

As with any high school sports season, when I have to cover successful programs, I have to expect to see the teams go deep into the post season, and that usually means a busy schedule for me. Especially when there is an overlap in seasons.

Usually, there isn't an overlap in high school seasons, except if we're talking about practices starting when one season is ending. However, the spring season always overlaps into the summer season with regional, district, substate and state play in golf, tennis, track and field, and soccer.

These last couple weeks has been one period where I have been pretty busy, and driving about a lot. Everything started last Monday, Memorial Day. I covered a pair of baseball games in a season-opening tournament at Riverfront Stadium in Waterloo. In the games, Waterloo West beat Cedar Falls, 6-3, and Columbus Catholic downed Waterloo East, 6-2.

I originally was going to cover the boys' soccer substate first-round match between Cedar Falls and East at the Cedar Valley Soccer Complex the next night, but Pat Racette, the sports editor for both the Cedar Falls Times and Waverly Newspapers, told me that I didn't need to go. We knew the Tigers would beat the Trojans, as they had earlier in the season. They did.

Last Wednesday, I was to cover a baseball twinbill between NU High (the high school attached to the University of Northern Iowa, part of its laboratory school) and Springville, but it got cancelled due to rain.

Thursday night, I traveled to Fort Dodge for the boys substate soccer semifinal between the Tigers and Fort Dodge. C.F. did win that game, 1-0, but the following picture I think puntuated the deal:

As you can see, four of these guys wore their track uniforms, with the other wearing an old soccer jersey. They also painted their faces, and the guy on the right, Kyle Bernard, wore his football pants. Sometimes, high school kids can be crazy.

Friday, I had nothing, so I took the night off after I was done with my other job at 2 p.m. I then worked Saturday until about 6, went to Jenny's after she got home from her father's birthday celebration, and went to work again Sunday from 11 to 5.

Monday, I went to cover the substate final between C.F. and West. West was ranked No. 11 in the state, but the two teams are bitter rivals. West won the game earlier this season on their home pitch, 2-1. The Tigers got the best of the Wahawks on that night, 2-1, to advance to state. They will play tomorrow at noon at Southeast Polk against top-seeded Ankeny, who was tied for No. 2 in the state with Iowa City West in the final rankings. Here is a picture of the Tigers with their state qualification banner:

Last night, I was thinking about going to cover the C.F.-Mason City girls' regional soccer first round game, but Pat thought the Tigers would beat the Mohawks, and they did, so I instead went to cover a softball doubleheader between C.F. and Dubuque Wahlert. The Tigers swept the double header, 4-3 and 2-1. In the first game, the Tigers were down 3-0 through three, and the same score going into the bottom of the sixth. They rallied behind a Imonee Qualls leadoff single, a catcher's interference call that allowed Meghan Kleitsch to reach first, and a single by Jillian Zaputil to load the bases with one out.

Then Lauren Smith smacked a double to right-center to score Qualls and Kleitsch and put Zaputil on third. Sarah Korte grounded to first to drive in Zaputil and put Smith on third with two gone. During the next at bat, Smith scored on a passed ball to put the Tigers up by their winning margin. That allowed their ace pitcher and Drexel University recruit Shyann Beach to take the win.

In game two, Korte tripled and Cari Collins homered to give the Tigers their winning margin.

Tonight, I went to Coe College in Cedar Rapids to cover the girls' regional soccer semifinal between C.F. and Cedar Rapids Washington. Wash won that game 2-1, but the Tigers tried to get the equalizer in the final minute on two corner kicks. Their best chance went over the cross bar with eight seconds left.

As I said, I'm on my way to the Des Moines area tomorrow for the boys' state soccer first round match. That'll be the only one I'll cover for state, not because we know Ankeny might wipe the field with them, but because we won't have enough room to put in any other game. In fact, we're so out of room, I'm not needed to do anything Friday.

Well, that's it for now. Watch this space for more of my musings.

Get rid of Billo or get rid of FNC

Those of you who follow the news, like I do, might have heard about the murder of Kansas doctor George Tiller in Wichita. Today, according to The Associated Press, Scott Roeder, 51, has been charged with Tiller's murder in the first degree.

Some might ask why I am talking about Tiller when my headline mentioned Fox News Channel and Bill O'Reilly. Let me explain:

Over the last few years, O'Reilly, on his Fox News Channel show, has been labelling Dr. Tiller "the Baby Killer" because of the fact he was one of the few left in this country who still performs late-term abortions, also known as "partial-birth abortions" because the not-quite-to-term fetus is pulled partway out the birth canal, and then the doctor severs the spinal chord to terminate the pregnancy. It does sound quite barbaric.

The reason O'Reilly lambasted Tiller, along with many people in the "Right-to-Life" Movement, is that he contended Dr. Tiller had performed the abortions without the need for a medical reason, as long as the mother wanting the termination can pay $5,000.

I don't watch O'Reilly, rather I view his main competitor, Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. Olbermann talked about the comments O'Reilly and other FNC "anchors" and "analysts" made about Dr. Tiller. He was appalled about the wordings of the Fox talking heads, and said that those comments may have incited Roeder to go to Tiller's Lutheran church Sunday morning, where Tiller was an usher, and shoot him.

What makes this case so apalling is that Roeder allegedly did this in a church, a place of worship, a place of sanctuary, the place most of the "Right-to-Life" Movement believes God tells them to preserve the unborn. I'm sorry, but being against abortion in any form does not give one license to kill someone who performs the proceedure.

Also, it's naive of O'Reilly and others at Fox News Channel to think their words didn't incite violence. It seems that hate speech is very prevalent on that network, mostly from talking points from either the Republican Party or different conservative groups, like those in the "Right-to-Life" Movement.

News flash, FNC and Mr. O'Reilly! Roe v. Wade is the law of the land because the Supreme Court ruled, using the Equal Protections clause, that a woman has the right to choose what they want to do with their own bodies. And, until her baby/fetus/whatever is born and can live outside the womb without assistance of an incubator, it is still part of the woman. It is hers to do with as she pleases.

You all say that a fetus is a living, breathing, growing being. Well, so is cancer, yet when we apply radiation and chemotherapy on cancerous cells, it's quite alright. I know that's a bad parallel, but some women would think of the embryo as a cancer if she doesn't want to be pregnant.

I am pro-choice. If my girlfriend and I would happen to do it when her birth control isn't working and she conceives, I would want her to make the final decision whether she would bring it to term. It's her body, even though the baby would be mine, too. She spends the nine months with the child, not I. I would also like her to discuss it with me, but if she isn't ready for motherhood, I would defer to her judgment as a nurse and a woman to make the final decision.

But I would not, as a responsible journalist, use inflamitory verbage talking about a doctor that provides abortions, even if I were pro-life. Like it or not, Mr. O'Reilly, some people out there who follow you, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or any other conservative talk-show host will take your words to heart and think of it as an invitation to do what they want to people who do things to which you're opposed.

I would suggest that you and your ilk tone down the rhetoric, stop the hate speech, and encourage people to instead of confronting those who do the proceedure, get their state and federal representatives to change the law. Unfortunately for you, any anti-abortion law may be struck down because of Roe. And Roe is not going to be overturned anytime in the near future.

So, those of you who see this blog, I encourage you all to contact your local cable operator and ask for the removal of Fox News Channel from their line-up, and tell them it's because the personalities on that channel have indirectly caused the murder of Dr. Tiller. If the cable companies get enough requests, either they'll remove it, or they could advise News Corp. to get rid of Bill O'Reilly.

Hello Blogger/Blogspot!

I'm starting a new blog on this site due to the fact that Yahoo! is shutting down its 360° site. I'm going to try to post whatever moves me to write blogs, whenever I have time to do them.

Let me give you a little background about myself, if you haven't read my old Y360° blogs: I am 36 years old, currently live in the house I grew up in, mainly because I had to help out with the care of my mother. Now, she's in a nursing home in an Alzheimer's unit due to her aphasia being too far advanced for my brother, father and I to effectively care for her. I have a BA in Liberal Arts, majoring in Journalism and Mass Communication, from the University of Iowa, where I graduated December 1995. I currently work as both a Pizza Hut delivery driver and a sports correspondent for the Cedar Falls Times, the latter of which I hope to get back to full-time status. The regional editor of the media group, Anelia Dimitrova, had been trying to get me on full-time with the Cedar Valley Daily Times in Vinton, but the recession hit hard right when I was going to be hired. She's been trying to find a position for me since.

Prior to my current situation, I worked as a reporter for the Cherokee Daily Times, which now is called the Chronicle-Times after a merger with its former competition, a reporter/copy editor for The Messenger in Fort Dodge, reporter for Newspapers of Fayette County, which included at the time the Elgin Echo, Fayette Leader, and Hawkeye Booster, and sportswriter for the Britt News-Tribune and Forest City Summit.

You'd see in my profile, I have a bunch of varied interests. I am a fan of the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bears, Chicago Bulls, Chicago Blackhawks, and Iowa Hawkeyes. View my profile for the rest of my interests, which I may touch on in the future.

Personally, I am dating a wonderful woman, named Jenny. She's a registered nurse, and works at both St. Luke's Medical Center in Cedar Rapids and Sunnycrest Nursing Home in Dysart, where she lives. We've been going together officially for five months, but we've been virtually together for another three months prior through texts, calls and e-mails. We met through Match.com, and she said it was a fluke that we got together. She just had been laid off at Principal Financial, where she was a case specialist in the health insurance division. She has a dog, named Toto. He's a Cairns Terrior, and bears a striking resemblence to the dog in "The Wizard of Oz." His picture is below:

Excuse the quality of the picture. It was taken on my cell phone, and it doesn't have any good autofocus. He's wearing a John Deere cap and a T-shirt that says: "Squirrels: They aren't just for breakfast anymore." I do have a picture of Jenny, too, but she doesn't want me to publish it or show anyone else.

I guess that's about it in a nutshell for now. My next post will be about something in the news.