All I Want Is A Normal Life

According to this letter from the publisher, the LA Times is not going to stop publishing. The Chapter 11 is just a restructuring to re-evaluate their asset-to-debt ratio, which I do all the time (but I don’t call it a Chapter 11, I call it “biting the bullet”).

If they do start shutting down, I really hope they ask for donations. I’d throw some money their way… but I was thinking about how I could subscribe or something, and I really can’t justify getting all that paper product for charity purposes. I never read the paper part of the paper, just the website. I wonder if they’ll implement a subscription model for the website.

So, now the Tribune is getting little X marks over its eyes. They’re filing Chapter 11, which is probably among the last motions in a series of death convulsions. They laid off hundreds of workers 5 years ago when I was working with the Medianews Corp (the other major competing news org that promises bargain basement news coverage with about as much quality). They’d even just won one of those fancy schmancy Pulitzer prizes. That’s how journalistic excellence repays, I guess. And now, one of the finer news organizations in the world is twitching and frothing on the floor. If they don’t deserve a bailout, I don’t know who does.

But still. I have a real problem with all these bailouts. The banks, ok, I see that. I don’t agree with it, but I do see that a major economic collapse might, oh, cause rioting and chaos. Ok. Most of us don’t like rioting and societal mayhem. Especially the government. So they kind of have to bail out the banks if they want to keep a functional government.

The auto makers, though. I mean, really. Really? Really. I know there are thousands of jobs at stake. I know it’s awful. But I think if we’re going to toss money into the black hole of mismanaged corporations, we should consider tossing that money at the workers for some other job training… maybe a WPA-style thing. If we take the money we’d give to the Big Three and give it to the Big Three Thousand (no idea how many there are… how many?) for better training for better jobs, then hey! They’re better for it, we’ve stopped funding an industry clearly so much better done in other countries, and we’d probably even save money.

And now… the Tribune. Ok, if Tribune goes under, there are still some other news sources. Medianews Corp, Hearst… Reuters, Associated Press, um… what others? Most of the places like Yahoo and Google don’t create news, they just aggregate it. And there’s the television news, but there’s no great excellence of writing from them. But if the government props the Tribune up, then we’ll have a government-owned media, which is one of the things that makes me sick to my stomach. But if no advertisers will pay for honest media unconditionally, just because it’s the right thing to do, then only news organizations who cater to advertisers will survive.

The other option is public funding. Not through the government, but through fund raising, pledge drives, and subscriptions. I guess Salon is like this, but they’re so liberal that I can’t stand to read their stuff regularly. It’s not that I’m not a liberal. I guess I’m pretty liberal (for an anarchist libertarian). But I can’t stand to read stuff that’s so overtly biased for a certain agenda. That’s why I give money to the Sierra Club, but have a hard time reading their glossy magazine.

Anyways, what do you think? Should we bail out the Tribune? The Big Three? The Banks?

Oh, I know, I can have a poll!

Yeah, this post is a little late. I didn’t realize it was NaBloWriMo until yesterday and I was super sick on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I was watching movies and sleeping instead of writing blogs! Give a girl a break!

I think Barack Obama really embodies the hippie value system if the hippies all grew up and got more realistic about stuff, which I guess they have. His values, his message, and his promises all are in line with the “equality, liberty, care for your fellow man” things the hippies preached. I’m glad to finally see this sort of hope and integrity finally step into the White House. And by such a huge margin, too!
Yes we can.

On a related note, my friend has a blog about his name and the other guy’s name: Barak or Barack?

I sat down with all my books and websites and decided my choices for the 2008 elections:

What do you think?

It’s worth noting that Prop 7 and 10 are NOT good for alternative energy or good for the environment. They give favor to huge corporations and totally disqualify smaller energy sources. Voting NO is the environmental way to go.

Have you been procrastinating spending an hour and a half watching the disheartening, boring, ipecac-style vomit-inducing Vice Presidential debates? Why bother now that SNL NAILED IT:
SNL’s skit (sorry, the embed isn’t working for my dumb blog)

If you’re like me, the only way you’re going to get through the Vice-Presidential debate is by drinking… A LOT. (this is actually why I’m not watching it, but instead am working late)

However, if you’re planning on watching it, I suggest you play the drinking game. Your liver won’t thank you, but your brain will.

Related links:
Palin Bingo! (“There’s no such thing as fun for the whole family.” – Jerry Seinfeld)
The Unofficial Official Drinking Game (depending on who you ask)

As you all know by now, I’m an absolute JUNKIE on the crushing financial disaster that we’re all going to live with every day for the rest of our natural lives, day in, day out, regardless of whether this massive bailout happens (though certainly we can live longer, more significantly worry-filled years if the bailout does go through). side note: man, that was a long sentence! So when I saw that my favorite blog evar, Guanabee, had said something about it, well, you know I just had to perk up my ears!

I just happened to visit The Onion (America’s finest news source) earlier today and saw that article down under the fold. Top news stories for the day were about Hurricane Katrina coming back to apologize for destroying everything, and some news of China’s voluntary astronaut program, with no above-the-fold mention of the financial crisis or the presidential election. What happened to the hard-hitting news days of “American People Would Be Outraged If They Understood Enron”, which single-handedly piqued my interest in the energy crisis and left a lot of high-power exec types bathing in money while shareholders were left eating canned peas and fishsticks for dinner?

Where has The Onion of old gone?

And Guanabee tries their hand at political news, but it’s hard. I don’t really know that this article is about the bailout, though it sure sounds like another case of the rich getting off without so much as a scratch… but that’s the same with celebrities in jail or any other insane double standard of rules. I ask you, where was this quick response when people were dying in New Orleans? So, right there with you, Guanabee, but I don’t know if The Onion deserves a heck of a lot of props for what I feel is pussyfooting the bailout issue.

On the other hand, it’s a satire news site and I’m taking it all way too seriously, kind of like a cat very seriously stalking a piece of tissue on the ground. Mraow.

Related reading:
The Guanabee post
The Onion Post
The Holy Bailout Plan

moar funny pictures

From this:

Comes this:

and also this: