Annie Knits

Have Soapbox, Will Travel

Good Sunday morning to you all.  I got up early today to enjoy the birds singing, the morning paper, and a cup of coffee.  By myself. 

But the front page of my local paper is what got my blood really coursing.  Or my mouth cursing.  Whatever.   

So, this morning at 7:00 a.m., I drafted and sent the following letter to the assistant managing editor of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.  Stupid heads.

Dear Mr. Parker,

I am a 20 plus year subscriber to the Post Dispatch.  I read your paper every morning. 

I've noticed an alarming trend, epitomized by this morning's edition. Three of the six stories on the first three pages of the front section of the Final Metro Edition of the paper are what I'd call sensationalist.  Not necessarily in content, but certainly in tone. 

Above the fold, page one, the story is about the city's policy concerning rewarding long-time employees for not using all available sick days.  Your headline shrieks about "pricey perks" and uses the term "draining the city of millions".  You go on the enumerate several employees, most of which have worked for the city for 20 plus years, and their retirement bonuses for not using sick days.  One gal worked for 43 years and got more than $81,000.  Sounds like a lot until you do math and realize that she actually gets about $1800 for each year -- not a huge bonus but generous and delayed over time.  Frankly it's not whether or not I object to the city policy, but your article is written which such slanted, sensationalist language so as to leave me no question as to whether you all object to it.  Which shouldn't matter -- unless this is an op-ed piece.  At which point, put it on the right page.

Also on page one is a story about looming recession.  Breathlessly reporting that "more people are eating in" and "some" worry about gas and getting to jobs.  Flip to page eight and the story elaborates about a few people eating out less, ostensibly to both save money and stay home with their three year old.  I don't know about you but I've had several three year olds and I stayed at home with them too as they often aren't fit for public consumption ... or consumption in public. And there was a dropped line about certain restaurants noticing a downturn, but no facts, no numbers.  Well, except for the insert which noted what I'd term modestly rising prices on 4 different things from meat to washers.  Which I guess is my point.  There is no dearth of number crunching going on out there about the current down turn, but the Post chose, on the front page no less, to do a fluff piece about this very serious topic.

Finally, on page three, there is another fluffy piece about exhausted bloggers.  The news reporters becoming the news.  Again.  I felt the same way about your fugitive series.  The first bit was well researched, and while I thought it tended toward slamming the police when I think it's really that they don't get the resources from government to do this important job -- Homeland security my ear...  But the follow-up, self congratulatory, "look at the what happens when WE shine the light on this stuff" articles were, well, biased.  As in not "strictly the facts, ma'am."

The Sunday edition would seem to me the time to take on the serious stuff and go in depth.  Folks have all day to consume the paper and more people get the Sunday paper than the daily one.  Really... a missed opportunity I think, and the low road.  Not all of us want sensationalist news.  We want a myriad of sources and we want to weigh what we read and hear and see and make decisions for ourselves.  I've always wanted my print news to give me what radio and tv won't -- depth.  And unflinching, unbiased reporting.  The bias that is creeping into the Post's reporting is what I find disturbing.  Because it sneaks past the casual reader and masquerades as fact.

Sincerely,

Annie
St. Louis

Ok.  I didn't sign it Annie -- but the rest is exactly what I sent this guy.  And I couldn't find a link on their website to the ombudsman either ... you know, the person who's supposed to be the link between the public and the paper?  I guess they don't call it that any more.  Or they think we're too dumb to know what an ombudsman is.   And you probably think I'm nit picking or over the edge or "Really, Annie, it's just the paper, it's not about you".  But this kind of sloppiness or blurry reporting (obviously) really bugs me.

You'll remember the last time I blogged about my local paper.  And the time after that.  It's getting to be a trend.  I'd really like another choice.  'Cause I'm really a morning paper kind of girl, you know?  And I'd prefer that it be my coffee that gets me going in the morning, not the contents of the paper. 

And you know what else?  Hubster would prefer that too as he is often the victim of the first run of any of my opinions.  And bless him.  He is not a morning person, coffee or no.

Auntie McRanty Pants Rides Again!

I'd show you pictures of the merino/yak mix I plied yesterday, but I'd have to wade through electricians and carpenters and plastic sheeting to get to daughter's camera since mine is on the fritz.  Suffice to say that it's soooffffttt.   Looks crunchy, in that rustic Lopi kind of way, but it's super, close-to-the-skin soft.

Plus, I have rants to get out of my system, and that's more productive. 

First, why can't I get that shhhhing in my headphones to stop so I can write and listen to music with no words and drown out the country music and commercials coming from the electrician's radio in the other room?  It's enough to put me over the edge.

Second, for what possible reason would my local paper publish a picture of a black man in KKK garb taunting our mayor on its front page above the fold in the city edition, but put just a cropped version of that picture, sans KKK guy, on the front page of the suburban edition.  Are they trying to foment racial anger?  Did the editors make a conscious decision to inflame city dwellers with that picture and think that maybe suburbanites wouldn't really care about downtown goings on?  On my list of things to do is contact the ombudsman of our esteemed media outlet and ask these exact questions.  Out of towners might wonder why there was a picture of a black man wearing KKK garb on the front page of our paper.  Um.  Yeah.  There was a kerfuffle downtown where a bunch of protesters taunted and shouted down and disrupted the MLK event at which our white mayor was a speaker.  The protesters, mostly black, think our mayor has behaved badly toward a black former fire chief.  Maybe there are grounds for the protest (I haven't kept up with that story), but I do think  that the rude nature of the shouting and the downright offensive nature of the guy evoking the KKK and their lynchings and violence was not exactly in the spirit of Dr. King's message or his legacy.  That said, I guess it's news, but how come it's only news here in the urban part of our metro area?  Just sayin'.

Third, Dear Daughter wants to go to the Jonas Brothers concert here next month.  Questionable taste notwithstanding (**grin**), we got online at precisely the moment the tickets were to go on sale and my Metrotix account was perfectly up to date, but when we clicked on the tickets at the appointed time, we were blocked.  Next click, the tickets were sold out.  Within the minute that they were to go on sale.  But, to my astonishment, there were tickets available within 5 minutes on a ticket scalping site, TicketsNow, for -- get this -- 10 times the face value, sometimes more!  That quickly those slimebags had snagged all of the tickets and were scalping them, legally I guess, to us.  Lovely.  Well, I'm not paying that markup.  I know that the artists or the venue aren't getting that money.  Why should scalpers?  If you are one of the parents out there who are supporting this horrible practice so that your kids can get these tickets, shame on you.  Really. You're probably the ones  who pulled up with your 7-year-old to High School Musical at the Fox last month in a stretch Hummer Limousine. What are you going to do for her wedding?  Or you're the lady I sat next to at the Hannah Montana concert with a 4-year-old in a Hannah wig in your lap sucking her thumb and sleeping because it was after 9 when the second set started!   And if you have that much disposable income, really, I know of  several places that could really use a hand up.   (BTW, we got tickets to both of those shows because we are subscribers or season ticket holders and got a heads up ahead of time... otherwise, I'd have experienced this scam much earlier.)  I'm composing a letter to my city and state representatives concerning this topic. 

I do have other things burning a hole in my panties.  They are school and traffic related, though, so they can wait for another day.  Plus... you've heard them before.  **grin again**

The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth

And are those three different things?  I was reading a post this week on  Language Log which held forth on this exact subject in light of the Alberto Gonzales thing.   Can you tell someone some part of the truth without telling them the whole truth, say, in order to spare their feelings?  That tack rarely works and sometimes causes real damage.  Can you bring up extraneous items that are simply tangential to the truth to bolster your case?  Even less honorable or ethical.  So.  The three are not the same thing but they all have to be present in order for there to be truth?  Gosh, is it kind of like the Triune God -- inexorably linked?  Talk amongst yourselves.

'Cause yesterday was all kinds of crazy in the shop.  No, not busy, in fact there were only these two customers.  But when two customers result in a rash and and some other kind of histamine reaction and a crisis of understanding in terms of the purpose of things, well... all kinds of crazy like I said. 

Two older ladies, friends it seems came in together.  One gal had bought several alpacas as an investment.  Which I understand not at all.  Oh.  Wait, I get that they are a write off and that you sink like $35,000.00 into a breeding animal and develop a herd.. blah, blah, blah, ... yes, I get the economics of it.  But this gal had a bag full of spun yarn and was looking for a purpose for it. 

One bag.  Like a plastic grocery bag.  Of yarn.  From several multi-thousand dollar animals.  Wait.  She did say she had another bag of same out in the car.  And I wondered aloud, "So, the purpose of these animals is... yarn?  Meat?  What?"   'Cause I was thinking this thing would have to live like 500 years to make back an investment in yarn at this rate.  And she proceeded to explain the write-offs she's getting and how she lost so much money in the stock market crash after 9-11 and how alpacas were going to be just it for her retirement.   Um.  But what are they for?

"Honey," she said, "you write them off.  Their vet bills, their food, everything." 

We weren't speaking the same language.   Meanwhile, Rachel had to go wash her hands so the histamine reaction to the yarn she was experiencing on her hands and arms didn't spread.  I thought the yarn was seriously twine like -- no loft or softness, but Rachel liked the heft of it.  It was still quite dirty -- lots of dander and VM and who knows what else.  There was also some baby alpaca yarn that was a lovely chocolate brown and very soft -- much better processing, I think.  Anyway, I too was getting rashy so I put it all away.   

What this gal really wanted was advice.  Not really selling or processing advice, but knitting advice.  But she doesn't knit.  It's her friend who knits.  And this friend is going to knit her 10 or so scarves out of this yarn to give as holiday gifts.  (We said wash it first...)  So together, the ladies chose a number of skeins of novelty yarn to put with the alpaca and went off to Ted Drewes for frozen custard.  Leaving me to scratch ... my head and the rash on the back of my hand. 

Somehow, investing in several alpacas, the intrinsic value of which is virtually nil considering the yarn this gal brought in seems wrong.  Smoke and mirrors.  And I see ads for "the alpaca lifestyle" all over cable television and yarn industry publications.  I guess I can see it if you have a farm... or if you spin or knit.  (I'll tell you who's making the money -- the rancher guy who provides the service of taking care of these investment animals.)  She told me that since the government had banned the importation of more alpacas, the value of her existing blue-ribbon animals had sky-rocketed. 

Ok.  If you have gobs of money and need a write-off and can get said write-off with animals in this manner, something is terribly wrong with our tax system.  And what's to stop the code from changing - maybe next year the ban will be lifted on alpacas and instated on angora goats.  Then, I'd say you've got yourself a 9 dollar llama.  Excuse me, alpaca.

Edited to add:  Kelly and Margene bring up good points.  I think I've been a bit flip here.  Who me?  Nah... I never publish anything to the internet off the cuff or in a flip manner.  Well, just this once.  I kind of feel that this gal's been taken advantage of.  Either that or that  her tax shelter takes advantage of me.  And maybe it's because this particular investment had absolutely nothing to do with the alpaca's fleece.  Which I love.  Wherein I think lies it's value in a marketplace.  And the really nasty preparation of the yarn... So.  I bet you haven't heard the last of me on this subject.