http://blahg.orangepekoe.org Church, Politics and Empire Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:32:11 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I loved Action News growing up. It was this clarion call to dinner for the city of brotherly love. The ABC affiliate won the hearts of the city with a format that is now adopted by most local news programs. I've changed a lot, I can't stand local news, but ... http://blahg.orangepekoe.org/?p=127 Rarely do missionaries make the morning news, for these are the last people in the world that would make the sexy news criteria cut of today's bland and boring market driven media. However, I think the news media is struggling for any story they can get related to Haiti. Or they ... http://blahg.orangepekoe.org/?p=125 Not to assume that all bad news comes in threes, but Billy Mays, whose voice is more recognizable than his name as the announcer for various commercials, died this morning (June 28). The NYT blog, Media Decoder, noted that Mays was born within six weeks of Michael Jackson (meaning he's  ... http://blahg.orangepekoe.org/?p=124 Today's stories of the deaths of pop-culture icons Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson may ultimately reflect poorly on the field of plastic surgery. When these people were young and becoming pop icons, I never thought that they would try to prolong their youth-based fame. Then again, the technology has only recently ... http://blahg.orangepekoe.org/?p=121 I have one Michael Jackson song. My husband has the Thriller album. But I can't find it, but it does not matter, all of the radio stations have been playing it all day. I played that one Michael Jackson several times today. I have always been embarrassed to admit that I ... http://blahg.orangepekoe.org/?p=120 A Blog Entry in Three Parts I.  The island that is not baptism II. The plight of the Boston Globe III. Three kinds of Newspaper deaths From "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions: together with Death's duel" (1623) By John Donne 2nd Edition: University of Michigan Press, 1959 XVII Nunc Lento Sonitu Dicunt, Morieris "Now, this bell tolling softly for ... http://blahg.orangepekoe.org/?p=117 This week we are collectively getting sick of celebrities, especially the kind for whom their only claim to fame is being famous. I have ignored most of reality TV, still being traumatized by the Ron and Amber Survivor season finale. I was proud to be the last person to ... http://blahg.orangepekoe.org/?p=116 I have been working on my thesis in a coffee shop (don't ask) and I have found myself sitting next to two gentlemen. Today, they are in the far corner of the shop, which is a good thing, because I found that I was eavesdropping (horrors!). Their conversation was about ... http://blahg.orangepekoe.org/?p=115 The Recession is 17 months old this month. I did not notice -- my daughter was born during the same month of the recession and I was very busy. When I woke from my mommy fog of sleeplessness that  comes from waking every two hours, I noticed that my own ... http://blahg.orangepekoe.org/?p=113 Today I heard that the Boston Globe announced layoffs in the news division. This announcement came after weeks of other signs that the newspaper industry is dying. And most are saying that the salvation of this industry lies in local reporting. I had once been a local report and loved it. ... http://blahg.orangepekoe.org/?p=111