dkmcclurkin

Cleveland Plain Dealer to remain daily, but 7-day home-delivery will end

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 09:48:00 -0400

Look, feel and historic value of print news takes a hit. Not such bad news for us readers in the short term, but more journalists and staff to become metrics of change. Digital natives rule.

http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2013/04/plain_dealer_to_remain_daily_b.html

"The Christian Science Monitor: Its History, Mission and People"

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 08:47:00 -0400

Here is a must read book and commentary for anyone interested in how The Christian Science Monitor came to be started a century ago. What was the purpose back then and how has it been going toward that goal over the years? The book is very readable even with author Keith S. Collins’ solid research and interviews that never make it tedious. The present Monitor Editor, John Yemma, writes about the book from his informed perspective. The maturing Web-first discipline there has evolved into a news source that is more and more noticed these days.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/editors-blog/2012/0426/What-makes-The-Monitor-tick

Not Michaelangelo, but...

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 09:47:08 -0400

Not Michaelangelo, but...:

Debt Ceiling Repainted

After the midterm elections, who will drive bipartisanship? - CSMonitor.com

Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:33:00 -0400

After the midterm elections, who will drive bipartisanship? - CSMonitor.com:

Posted Oct 26th, 2010 4:33pm: “Bridging the partisan divide in Washington” takes builders from both sides working toward a common goal so that the ends meet. Only then is the result a finished and connected path for progress. Isn’t it safe to expect that the partisan spread in both chambers will be much narrower than now? Shouldn’t this encourage more openness and compromise for finding solutions? It is incumbent on the parties to focus on how good progress is for all, not just is it good for their particular point of view. It is incumbent on us voters to make sure that only those who work effectively for solutions will earn our future votes. The media’s job is to showcase where and how solutions are found and to report on cases where there is any anti-progressive conduct. The piece fails to acknowledge the most influential players on a day-to-day basis - the lobbyists and interest groups that outnumber our elected representatives. How do we get their consciousness of the common good to be raised to the level needed to also contribute to solutions? Without them in the “meet up” you were not playing with a complete deck. What about that?

Now today, someone else noticed: Lobbyists Court Potential Stars of House Panels

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/us/politics/27chairs.htm

Food safety: From Mexican farm, to Costco, to your plate - CSMonitor.com

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 19:45:58 -0400

Food safety: From Mexican farm, to Costco, to your plate - CSMonitor.com:

It isn’t just the US that is affected: “The vegetables grown and packaged at this exporting farm in the vegetable heartland of Mexico’s Guanajuato State may have been, or could one day be, consumed by you. They go east to Europe, west to Japan, and north to Canada and the United States. The iceberg lettuce basking in a field on a recent sunny day could end up in an Olive Garden salad bar or a Big Mac; the flowering cauliflower might roll down the checkout belt at Costco or Wal-Mart.”

While these stories focus is on offshore food sources, at least a nod to what is or isn’t better than early this decade when Secretary Ann Veneman was in charge when the potential for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) endangering the nation’s food supply played out on her watch. A year earlier, the New York Times headlined: “Mad Cow Disease in the United States: …Expert Warned That Mad Cow Was Imminent.” Like the president, who encouraged us to “go shopping” in the face of unknown dangers, Ms. Veneman could only say “I plan to serve beef for my Christmas dinner and we remain confident in our food supply.” How can we trust a food supply overseen by such beef industry “watchdogs?” Has anything improved? Perhaps as our grateful nation prepares for Thanksgiving, you might want to follow up on how this aspect of food safety is doing these days.

Christine O'Donnell only the iceberg's tip

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:42:18 -0400

From the CSM today: “So long as sensational programming drives TV news ratings, outlandish figures will stick around. You vote with your remote – for either real solutions to complicated issues or snarky comments and snappy sound bites.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2010/1019/Christine-O-Donnell-and-the-rise-of-cable-TV-politics-Why-we-re-responsible

Watching the character and civility of American political discourse deteriorate at the increasing rate of late is numbing us for the certain failure of some of our most essential institutions. To the extent that we have given up on government ever doing anything right we listen to the zaniness, hyperbole, and outright lies from all sides, trying to believe that all this is just a game to be played out. Somehow we suspect that all will be well and good, but what right have we to that expectation when we regularly throw the fuel of attention and belief on the flames? Sometime within this century the failure of our democratic institutions and our republic will be written as history. The only question today, if we do nothing to reverse these collective behaviors, is at what point in the path to the nadir are we? How many years yet to go in the arc? Five? Fifteen? Maybe twenty?

"From the introduction to “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine: …Time makes more converts than reason…and..."

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 18:15:04 -0400

“

From the introduction to “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine:

…Time makes more converts than reason…and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed… they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both (the President and Congress), and equally to reject the usurpations of either…

”