The Illinois State Journal Register reported this morning:
"Bomke, R-Springfield, is pushing Senate Bill 41, which would prevent Illinois universities that accept state funds from employing anyone who has “committed an act of violence” against the state or federal government."
Here is the link to the actual text of Illinois Senate Bill 0041
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/96/SB/PDF/09600SB0041lv.pdf
It's time for a history lesson:
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fear. Show all posts
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Still wondering about the future.
I still like to read the State Journal Register because they have career journalists on hand who work full time to get their stories and photos. For a while I even had the notion of applying for work there. But the tide is going out for good on the old media, thanks to the Internet.
I wonder how many generations it will take before subscriptions to actual hard-copy newspapers fall into the red zone of being cost-prohibitive? Would online advertising be sufficient to support the structure that remains after the printing presses have ceased forever?
Remember radio? Radio is still a good hands-free form of entertainment, but AM is dominated by right-wing conservatism, a philosophy which proved its worth over the last eight years in the political spotlight, and evidenced by the presidential election of 2008. Unpopular.
As for FM radio, it depends on the artist and not the genre.
Genre radio is old hat. The Internet has exposed us to the reality of music. That there are really good songs, not really good types of songs. We as an audience can no longer accept being pigeonholed into arbitrary categories of Rock, Pop, Country, Jazz, Lite-Jazz, Classical, Heavy Metal, Blues or Big Band.
I occasionally listen to Amy Winehouse, Bjork, Tom Waits, Dethklok, Muddy Waters, Pete Seeger, Ozzie, Tchaikovsky, Sly and the Family Stone, etc. No radio station will be able to keep me as an audience for very long.
Local Broadcast television is not doing too well either. The local news anchors most of the time are repeating the national news when they can't find local stories. Most of the remote news crews were once Union and are now gone.
During the time slot used by local news broadcasts I'm watching PBS. I'm already searching blogs and YouTube for local video on my computer instead of watching television. The Internet provides weather reports too. I don't know what the local broadcasters have left to hold up against the Internet. I think they are in worse shape than newspapers. Popular shows can be watched at Hulu.com
Barack Obama said change is here. This change is bigger than just politics. We are about to usher in a whole new cultural structure, the likes of which we can't yet imagine. Biggest of the changes is perhaps that there may be no such thing as mass communication anymore. Sub-cultures will re-arrange under totally different flags.
Philosophies will shatter and pieces from different ideologies will combine into never before seen colors.
People will be different in unheard of ways, because they will have their own custom-designed preferences thanks to the Internet. Everyone will be a stranger to everyone else, so we will simply have to shed fear.
I wonder how many generations it will take before subscriptions to actual hard-copy newspapers fall into the red zone of being cost-prohibitive? Would online advertising be sufficient to support the structure that remains after the printing presses have ceased forever?
Remember radio? Radio is still a good hands-free form of entertainment, but AM is dominated by right-wing conservatism, a philosophy which proved its worth over the last eight years in the political spotlight, and evidenced by the presidential election of 2008. Unpopular.
As for FM radio, it depends on the artist and not the genre.
Genre radio is old hat. The Internet has exposed us to the reality of music. That there are really good songs, not really good types of songs. We as an audience can no longer accept being pigeonholed into arbitrary categories of Rock, Pop, Country, Jazz, Lite-Jazz, Classical, Heavy Metal, Blues or Big Band.
I occasionally listen to Amy Winehouse, Bjork, Tom Waits, Dethklok, Muddy Waters, Pete Seeger, Ozzie, Tchaikovsky, Sly and the Family Stone, etc. No radio station will be able to keep me as an audience for very long.
Local Broadcast television is not doing too well either. The local news anchors most of the time are repeating the national news when they can't find local stories. Most of the remote news crews were once Union and are now gone.
During the time slot used by local news broadcasts I'm watching PBS. I'm already searching blogs and YouTube for local video on my computer instead of watching television. The Internet provides weather reports too. I don't know what the local broadcasters have left to hold up against the Internet. I think they are in worse shape than newspapers. Popular shows can be watched at Hulu.com
Barack Obama said change is here. This change is bigger than just politics. We are about to usher in a whole new cultural structure, the likes of which we can't yet imagine. Biggest of the changes is perhaps that there may be no such thing as mass communication anymore. Sub-cultures will re-arrange under totally different flags.
Philosophies will shatter and pieces from different ideologies will combine into never before seen colors.
People will be different in unheard of ways, because they will have their own custom-designed preferences thanks to the Internet. Everyone will be a stranger to everyone else, so we will simply have to shed fear.
Friday, January 05, 2007
The Cursed Earth
Springfield has a problem; too many ancient burial grounds with curses. There are a couple of spots in particular that may not have documented histories of actual desecration. Springfield High School was built over a cemetery, and there are reports of haunting, but a public school is immune to such things more so than the small business.
There’s the Vinegar Hill Mall curse of High Business Turnover, and the curse that recently overtook Thirsty’s, which previously overtook the Ground Round in the same spot. Chi-Chi’s stood empty for more than a decade before it was finally demolished. It was once a good place to eat. What is happening?
MacArthur and Outer Park is a huge area of cursed earth. There is also the gas station that was abandoned at the corner of Wabash and Chatham road, right next to Papa John’s Pizza, and the gas station on the south side of Stevenson Drive, right across from the Quick-n-EZ at 11th Street.
Along the south side of Wabash, there was also the ancient car wash with the green roof. Sitting there for twenty years, it was finally demolished after the tornadoes last March.
That which was ignored for so long is gradually being realized by the next generations. Springfield is cursed. Its people suffer from sheer boredom, coupled with fear of trying something new. After all, what is there to do? Knight’s Action Park? Church? Bars? Movies? The Mall?
Is that really all there is here?
There’s the Vinegar Hill Mall curse of High Business Turnover, and the curse that recently overtook Thirsty’s, which previously overtook the Ground Round in the same spot. Chi-Chi’s stood empty for more than a decade before it was finally demolished. It was once a good place to eat. What is happening?
MacArthur and Outer Park is a huge area of cursed earth. There is also the gas station that was abandoned at the corner of Wabash and Chatham road, right next to Papa John’s Pizza, and the gas station on the south side of Stevenson Drive, right across from the Quick-n-EZ at 11th Street.
Along the south side of Wabash, there was also the ancient car wash with the green roof. Sitting there for twenty years, it was finally demolished after the tornadoes last March.
That which was ignored for so long is gradually being realized by the next generations. Springfield is cursed. Its people suffer from sheer boredom, coupled with fear of trying something new. After all, what is there to do? Knight’s Action Park? Church? Bars? Movies? The Mall?
Is that really all there is here?
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