Praises and complaints to start the new year

We tv news watchers all have our favorite deliverers. Oh, they change through the years as retirements, etc. take their toll.
I’ve gone from Edward R. Morrow to Paul Harvey to Walter Cronkite to Dan Rather, etc. Then I ran across Brit Hume. He’d been covering national politics a long time before he showed up on Fox News Network.
His hour-long, 6 p.m. program became a habit for me. His delivery was clear, touched with humor at times, class-sensitive and fair.
He retired from the nightly news show, but will be doing specials, and maybe even have a regular new program, I’ve heard. I miss him now, and it isn’t just the holiday influence.
– – – 0 – – –
Is it just me, or have advertisers moved closer to the censor button with their messages?
Take the ads for pajamas before Christmas. They promoted a way to ‘get her to take her clothes off.?
Buy her a new pair of pajamas.
In the first place, naked bodies of mature men or women don’t exactly send one to the ice cream shop. Between what nature has done to us and the things we do to ourselves, it is visually disgusting.
Changes in bellies and buns, veins and hair, creases and wrinkles ain’t what make poets and song writers rich. Besides, why don’t these pajama makers show the same interest in getting men to take their clothes off? It isn’t just men who shop for pajamas.
Men are as likely to look good naked as the opposite sex.
Then there’s that ad for a doodad that holds straps together in the back to give the ‘perfect fit to make a 1-cup size difference.?
That’s too sexist. They have nothing for men, apparently.
So, take that America!
– – – 0 – – –
I probably read the label wrong before I threw it away, but I think the discarded McDonald containers littering my front yard had my home address on them.
Or, maybe passersby see my yard art manure spreader and think it’s a dump site.
? I don’t have any problem believing it isn’t butter, as per the slogan, ‘I can’t believe it’s not butter!?
? The Catholic organization Knights of Columbus and non-Catholic Knights Templar are airing ads on the tube for members. I can see this efforts rising to the conflict level, especially since the Templars wear swords and plumes.
? An investment tip from Jim Fitzgerald and Will Rogers for 2009: ‘Buy land. They ain’t making any more of that stuff.?
– – – 0 – – –
Everyone who reads the Detroit News or Free Press knows they’ve shrunk in news coverage, number of pages and circulation.
The men who run the Detroit News and Free Press, Dave Hunke and Paul Anger, say, ‘We worked with IDEO (a design company) to understand how the people in metro Detroit use media,? which is grounded in understanding human needs, behaviors and social context, which helped us connect with current media consumption.
In this media publication, Editor and Publisher, article, they also say, ‘Our newsroom is looking forward to engaging our readers and continuing to innovate to evolve our offerings.?
If reporters wrote with that same eloquence they’d all be writing for science fiction publications.