'Normal' weather is not normal
The only thing normal about the weather anymore is that it is never normal. It never warmed up this spring and now it always rains. Next thing you know, it will never rain.
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We watched an old Turner Classic Movie Saturday night called "The Big Sleep" starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Since I had never seen a Humphrey Bogart movie in its entirety, I decided to give it a go.
Actually I didn't see this one in its entirety either because I couldn't stay awake for the end. Nancy recorded it and I finished it on Sunday afternoon.
They sure don't make movies like that any more. In many ways it was quite humorous for being a detective story. One line that broke me up was when Bogart said about one of the bad guys, "He'd knock my teeth out and then kick me in the stomach for mumbling."
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The Internet opens up everything and anything in the world. I am completely intrigued by what can be found with simple searches.
I had heard of wind-up radios, so I did a search for the same. It turns out there are such things and they are made, among other purposes, for underdeveloped countries where there is no electricity but where people need to be informed about preventing AIDS and other life-saving measures.
These radios contain a generator, which, when cranked up, provide up to a half hour of listening time.
The company that makes the wind-up radio also makes a shaker flashlight that has no batteries or bulb. It is an LED flashlight and 15 to 30 seconds of shaking provides up to five minutes of light that is visible for a mile.
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In preparation for my upcoming pilgrimage to Mountain Lake, Minn., I was talking with my mom about some of the things I was going to try to see there.
She asked me if I remembered the grocery store, and I said I did. Then she asked me if I remembered walking home from there when I was 3 years old. That I didn't remember.
Apparently, I couldn't find her in the store, so I went home-which was a couple of blocks away and across the highway.
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A recent survey in Editor & Publisher magazine reveals a wide gap on many media issues between journalists and the general public.
In one finding, 43 percent of the public say they believe the press has too much freedom, while only 3 percent of journalists agree. Only 14 percent of the public can name "freedom of the press" as a guarantee in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Six in 10 of the persons polled feel the media show bias in reporting the news, and 22 percent say the government should be allowed to censor the press. More than seven in 10 journalists believe the media does a good or excellent job on accuracy-but only four in 10 among the public feel that way. And a solid 53 percent of the public thinks stories with unnamed sources should not be published at all.
It's scary to me that one in five people think the government should be able to censor the press. Where does that come from?