Instead of churning headlines 24/7 and manufacturing “news” to feed this monster, do long-form, in-depth reporting on topics relating to the news. Use the ubiquitous news ticker to keep folks apprised of current events and break in for live coverage when it actually warrants it. It’s 60 minutes writ large and a damn sight more useful than Paris Hilton nip slips or Celebrity Divorce! or McCain is a mean old man or Obama is a vitriolic church leader’s puppet. Replay these documentaries on a loop the same way you do headlines. Heck myriad cable channels fill time in the same manner with less. And people watch it. Exhibit A: Cartoon Network.

Insightful, meaningful, textbook investigative journalism could feed that monster and still provide a platform for breaking headlines as required. The public just might make decisions on who will lead this country on criteria other than who makes a better bar buddy.

Just my 2 cents.

So the commentary in this post seems to have struck a chord, or maybe a nerve, with the St. Johnny’s crew—especially the righteous Anthony Whorebath. A man who would not normally deign to address little old me, but who has decided to make an exception. A man who is so busy traveling as to not have net access enough to drop comment spam on this wayward [and heretofore little noticed] blog but yet clears enough time and magically finds an internet connection during his travels long enough to engage in a limp effort at a punch up.

It would appear that Righteous Tony is playing the Swift Boat card. By his reckoning there is no way I received a comment on this blog linking to his site from the same IP subnet that serves his site because he was “out of town” and “away from internet access during the time in question.” Never mind that I made no mention of when the comment was actually sent… But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we?

His rant doesn’t stop there, though, because the Good Lord provides in mysterious ways. Never mind how spurious our crossed paths might be, little ol’ sinner me has presented Mr. Whorebath with an opening to attack his perceived enemies. In his world I am in league with Richard Carrier who was subject to a “blistering take down” at the hands of Big Tony over some internecine Battle Royale or other. In fact, Mr. Carrier is so demoralized by the extreme Logical Suplex thrown by Mr. Whorebath that he has now resorted to Gogglebombing.

Memo to Anthony Horvath:

Sometimes getting called out for comment spam is just getting out for comment spam. Spammers all make mistakes at some point. We accept your apology. Now lets just move on.

I would like to say, OTOH, that your quick thinking and opportunistic use of some random inbound linkage to further promote your swindle shows promise. You may just be able to keep a step ahead of your flock as you lead them to slaughter. Good luck, sir.

meh.

So I spent all afternoon cleaning up after the behavior of an ostensibly professional member of the staff who, for whatever reason, decided it would be a good day to pull a psychobilly freakout on one of the more valuable members of my crew. This person gets old. Real fast. And no one at this fine institution does anything about it. Whatever it is she’s been drinking, I want some of that because if I could go around unhinged all day at work I would. So much easier. How the hell does she get away with it?

So today will prove to be exciting. In at 0700 for desk hours. More desk hours from 1200 – 1800. Likely more desk hours from 2100 – 2400. That’s 10 hours at the desk + 4 hours for actual work today. The sucktitude of this job escalates daily. The commitment I have to finishing the redesign project before seeking greener pastures is inversely related in a 1:1 ratio. The Auntship has been circulating tempting offers in my direction. It’s only a matter of time before one breeches the barrier.

On the other side, Elz is still fighting the chest cold which produces frequent and painful-sounding coughing. Sleep is difficult to come by. We do enjoy the new TV though. I never really thought much of HDTV but the difference truly is amazing. Seriously. And I hate TV.

Well, there is contract work to churn out and then actual work to be seen to. It’s a partial rant but I’m engaging in self-censorship because this URL is intimately tied to my professional existence. I’d start a blog elsewhere but I already have problems keeping this one going…

Another day, another meeting. Another meeting, another [uncompensated] responsibility. Another [uncompensated] responsibility, another step closer to the door. You don’t get a web app developer *and* a babysitter for substantially less than $40K/year. I don’t care if it’s BFE Nebraska. Take away the intangible benefits like regular working hours and there’s just not a whole lot exciting about this job.

I really need to bring this site re-engineering on line so I have something to point to after the past year and a half. Perfect job opened at UCSM but I’ve got nothing publicly accessible that I can point to.

One the one, you’ve got the most awesomest new hire in recent memory.  On the two you’ve got a history of bad blood and seeming personal vendetta.  Two staff members, one quasi-boss, two wildly divergent reviews.  So what do you do?

Well, what can you do?  You don’t hear anything about the one so you assume everything is hunky dory.  You didn’t get all panty-wadded when the one didn’t show up for work because (a) the one called you to say the icy weather made travel from the one’s neighborhood unsafe and (b) no one else in their right friggin’ mind would be traveling to a library or otherwise unless they were under some sort of professional responsibility to do so.  That the quasi-boss hadn’t had one of my staff on hand three times this semester might be somewhat revelatory given sufficient introspection.  While the other two might brook some level of consternation, with every other institution in the area closed or running on an afternoon-only schedule, I feel this latest episode was completely justified.  After all, upon learning of my staff’s impending non-arrival I made the attempt myself.  Living on the edge of the edge of town means that I don’t get ice/gravel applied until well after the rest of the city is sufficiently cared for however.  With half an inch of ice on the pavement I elected to not sally forth myself…

What really grinds my gears though is that this is then rolled into any number of other complaints that are never voiced to me but for which I am crucified nonetheless.  I especially savor the “if we can’t keep one desk staffed before the renovation, what makes us think that we’ll be able to staff two desks?”  Because, you know, if you don’t hire unqualified help you have to wait for the qualified ones to show up.  But if you wait for the qualified help to show up you take flack for not staffing the desk.  This, despite the fact that the desk was staffed whenever there wasn’t someone of my quasi-boss’s ilk around to staff the desk.  Not to mention that these hours are before 8 am or after 9 pm.  Students just queuing up around the block to take these wonderful hours…

Anyway, the rant is getting progressively more scattershot which is unsurprising given the way in which all this information was more or less dumped on me this morning.  I’d love to just collect all the imagined slights over the past four months and dump them on my co-workers without fear of retribution given my position in the institution.  Seriously, though, the crap isn’t worth it.  The pay is suck ass.  The only benefit to the position being the theoretical lack of product release deadlines and reasonable hours.  Take one of those away and add in the political crap and I think I’ll go back to programming for cash.

So how was your Monday?