Thursday, December 29, 2011

Some stuff from the news desk
  Society piece by John David Powell

Here at the world blogcast headquarters of ShadeyHill Ranch, we still do some things the old-fashion way. Take the way we cover the news, for instance.

Nowadays, newsrooms have done away with beats like city hall, police, education, the courts. Under the old system, reporters would spend a lot of time covering their beats, cultivating sources, getting to know the people and issues. Today, everyone is a generalist, a slot we used to give to kids just out school and slackers.

Of course, today’s reporters don’t have time to cover beats. Their bosses keep them busy writing three or four stories a day and constantly updating blogs to feed the newsroom’s cyber beast.

Well, we roll a little differently here at the ranch. The work flow is a bit more segmented than in most places. That’s why we have beats, or “desks” to use the old print vernacular.

The end of the year gives us a chance to clean off the desks of stories we didn’t write about or forgot to file away. It also gives us a chance to share with our readers some of the items that kept us amused.

From the “workin’ on our night moves” desk comes the story out of Michigan where police busted a couple deeply engaged in the back of a Buick Regal parked outside the front door of a restaurant. The two crazy kids, naked at the time of their discovery, had met at a nearby bar not too long before they chose to continue their discussion in the back seat of her car. Each admitted not to knowing the other’s name, maybe because 1) they never exchanged the information, 2) they were too drunk to remember, or 3) who needs names at their ages. She is 71 and he is 54.

From the “hairy, crazy ants” desk comes a warning of an invasion of hairy, crazy ants making their way through Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. They’re hairy, they’re crazy, and they’re destructive. Kill 100 and a million show up ready to fight. An exterminator said he put down insecticide over a half-acre site and in 30 days he had two inches of dead ants covering the land with the top layer a constant movement of live ants.

From the “don’t say Eat Me to her” desk comes the story from California that the woman who killed, boiled, fried, and ate her husband on Thanksgiving 20 years ago is up for early release from prison. What prison? Chowchilla State Prison. Hey, even I can’t make up stuff like this.

From the “it’s the Chicago way” desk comes details of a demand by Windy City cabbies to increase rates by 22 percent and to charge a $50 fee for using a fraudulent credit card, which begs the question, if you know it’s fraudulent, why are you taking it?

From the “I’m nekkid, what are you wearing?“ desk comes the results of a study that found people are more likely to lie while texting, compared to talking on the phone, video chatting, or bio-facing. That’s a term we made up here at the ranch to refer to any communication with another person that does not involve an e-communication device.

From the “just because he can sing, he thinks he can dance?“ desk comes word that Stevie Wonder wants to be on Dancing with the Stars.

From the “terrorists beware” desk comes word that the Department of Homeland Security is on the job. Today’s terror alert: don’t fry partially frozen turkeys.

From the “do they know something we don’t” desk comes word that Egypt’s state security apparatus, infamous for domestic spying and torturing dissidents, has renamed itself: Homeland Security.
From the “no, it wasn’t Demi Moore” desk comes the story out of Florida of cops finding a dead cougar in the freezer of a 73-year-old man.

From the “Forsooth, verily, alackaday, prithee, tosspot, and anon” desk comes a statement from English actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes that Twitter is killing the English (as in England) language, noting that Shakespearean text is a challenge to those more familiar with truncated prose used on social networks. IDK, but TTFN.

John David Powell

Posted by John David Powell on 12/29/11

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