Dawn Dressler's Blog

Through the looking glass of 2010

2010-01-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

This is the time of the year when I like to stick my neck out and predict the future. I figure my guesses are as good as any other see-the-future type, so here goes.

And, please be aware: What you are about to read is worth what you're paying for it. And, as they say in stock trading past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

1) This will be the year when at least one major media outlet, such as Fox, will start to charge readers for its web content. The free ride in online news will come to an end as media organizations come to grips with the realization that relying on advertising to pay the way is an old model that no longer foots the bills.

2) Ninety-five percent of the people who vow to lose weight this year won't.

3) Ninety-nine percent of outraged Texas Tech fans and supporters of Mike Leach will forget their outrage by fall and be sitting in their seats at the season's opening kickoff.

The public's memory, a longtime PR guy once told me, is about six-weeks long.

4) And, with that in mind... Tiger Woods will come back from his self-imposed exile at Augusta National in April.

5) James Cameron will again make some incredibly obnoxious comment during his Oscar acceptance speech.

6) Construction on I-40 westbound will never come to an end.

7) Teen pregnancy in the Texas Panhandle will continue to increase.

8) Amarillo Globe-News Sports Editor Lance Lahnert will cover the Master's this year. (OK, this one I know is likely to happen, so I'm cheating a bit here.)

9) Mayor Debra McCartt will give up her job at Texas Tech in order to begin pursuing a larger political post.

10) Canyon will follow Lubbock's lead and alcohol sales will become a reality in the city.

If you've got some ideas for the future of 2010, post them in the comment area.

Readers' favorite crossword returns

2009-12-03T08:58:00.001-08:00

So far, I've only heard from one reader who sent a thanks for the Globe-News returning Wayne Robert Williams' version of the crossword puzzle to our daily pages.

When we replaced Williams it was only because he retired from a major syndicate and was getting out of the crossword business. I heard from about a zillion readers complaining about his replacement so I expected at least a few readers to comment when Williams decided to come out of retirement late last month.

If you've noticed the daily crossword has changed back to Williams and you're happy about it, do me a favor, will ya?, and hit the comment button and let us know your thoughts.

Thanks.

Gasp! Tiger Woods is human

2009-12-02T12:35:00.000-08:00

I'm part of the media and I'm tired of the media hype about Tiger Woods' car accident. Anyone over the age of 15 instinctively knew the minute the story broke that the cause of the accident was one of two things 1) Tiger fleeing a wifely argument 2) Tiger caught coming home late with the proverbial lipstick on his collar.

And 1) and 2) could both be true at the same time.

I sure didn't believe he was going out for a pack of smokes or a quarter-pounder. And, having heard tales of women who've caught cheating spouses, I guessed the golf club-welding Elin wasn't as much trying to rescue him from a car wreck as pummel him for crashing the marriage.

All that having been said, so what?

The guy plays great golf. He's rich. He's human. And stupid. And embarrassed at getting caught in such a spectacular way. He's one more cheating celebrity to line up beside of David Letterman and thousands of not-a-household-name cheaters everywhere.

Did we really need a 4-day media blitz about it?

I wish we'd covered the weapons of mass destruction issue which led our country into the Iraqi war with equal scrutiny and fervor.

Sir Charles Barkley, still the King of skewer

2009-11-25T09:13:00.000-08:00

I watched Charles Barkley on Jay Leno last night like a million other viewers. The difference in my absorbed viewing and others is that I have a pair of shoes I call my Charles Barkley shoes.

They earned that name about 10 years ago -- and yes, I still have them and I will never get rid of them -- because I remember Barkley grabbing my foot when I was wearing those shoes and saying in the way only Sir Charles can, "Girrrrrl... those are some nice shoes!"

I was sitting beside him in the locker room of the Seattle SuperSonics (they were super then) while he held a more interesting court that night than he had on the hardwood earlier. He was seated on a chair that wasn't big enough to contain him, swilling diet Cokes like there was no tomorrow and wearing a pair of shoes I wanted to grab for myself. Except they were about a size 14 and both of my feet would have fit into one of them with room to spare.

They were cobalt blue alligator shoes in a patent leather finish that probably cost him more than I was paid in an entire month.

Getting praise from a man who so clearly knew shoes is reason enough to keep mine forever, I figure. Plus, hey, they're cute. Still.

So, it was with some dismay I noticed on Leno's show Barkley wore a pair of boring brown loafers that looked like something a man with foot problems would don. He talked about his weight and vowed to lose 50 pounds by January.

The conversation was familiar.

Barkley was talking about his weight -- too much of it -- 10 years ago, too. Last night, he skewered politicians, poked fun at Jay and made fun of himself. Ten years ago, he was saying he would go into politics and run for governor. Back then he poked fun at reporters and told an ESPN guy that ESPN should be ashamed to call themselves a sports channel. The week before, Barkley pointed out, the sports network had aired a tractor pull event. Barkley went off on that.... "You call that (expletive) sports?", along with a few other choice phrases.

The ESPN guy actually blushed.

The newspaper people all laughed.

Except for the guy from USA Today, who also got a Barkley barb because USA Today cost 50 cents then, which Barkley considered .... ummh, shall we say, not a value.

Barkley road the moment like a professional bronc rider and got in several more zings before he left to go eat a steak at McCormick and Schmick's. It was his favorite steak place in Seattle and he never missed a chance to eat there and Seattlites knew it. He always signed autographs and joked with the patrons. Compared to the petulant SuperSonic Gary Payton who never had a nice word to say to any fan, Sir Charles was a prince, a star who never forgot "who brung him to the dance."

For my money, Barkley has always been more entertaining off the court than on it. He's willing to be transparent, self-deprecating and call the world exactly like he sees it.

And in this day of out-of-control political correctness, the world gives him a free pass for doing with flair what most everyone wants to do, but won't.

That, my friends, is true star power.

Please. Save me some real time in the daylight

2009-11-02T11:49:00.000-08:00

Thank God, it's over.
Daylight savings time, that is.
I hate daylight savings time with a passion usually reserved for creepy-crawly things and drunks who misdial at 3 a.m.
I guess at one time it had a purpose.... like back when children had to do chores on the farm and walk to school in their bare feet after doing said chores.
These days the bare feet are on the mother's chauffeuring their kiddies to school in a luxury minivan and the closest thing to a chore a kid does before heading to school is charging a cell phone.
So, yes, I hate the obsoleteness of DS and the insistence in hanging onto something that used to be a good idea but no longer is.
Even the government finally acknowledged that its latest effort -- expanding DS by about a month -- actually cost the country (Read that as you and me) money. We paid for more electricity because we ran our air conditioners longer at night. We turned the lights on sooner in the morning, and generally managed to burn up any supposed energy savings which we were promised by having a longer period of DS.
I think Arizona has the right idea. Arizona, that plucky state, Just Said No to daylight savings time. They've never had it. Don't want it. Know they don't need it.
So, I have to constantly ask myself when calling friends there: Is it one hour difference or two? My friends never have to remember to fall forward or backward. Their biological clocks aren't in a constant state of readjusting like mine. Their dogs don't need to be retrained twice a year on what time their little doggie world is supposed to start.
And my friends NEVER have to adjust their clocks, digital, manual, VCR, oven, microwave, car, computer or other.
Which is what I'd call saving real time in the daylight.

Southwest Airlines: Where has all the fun gone?

2009-10-22T19:48:00.000-07:00

We all know the reputation which helped build Southwest Airlines.

Fun in the skies.

Flight attendants who joked.

And sang.

And made fun of the instructions while telling you things like, "Really. The seat beneath you which barely has enough padding to support your rear quarters, is a flotation device. Trust me."

Their non-corporate ways have gone bye-bye faster than the planes.

Yes,I'd heard of those flight attendants. Like I'd heard of a T-Rex and 10-cent coffee and newspapers which everyone read with more daily commitment then they gave to attending church.

But finally, last Sunday I had the fun of being on a flight with those high flying Southwest Dinosaurs.
And, it was fun. And funny.

And the passengers clapped at the end of their routines.

And we all felt better about flying.

And for no rational reason, I felt like the odds were good I'd make it to my destination.

And my sense of well-being about the world rose.

And I felt really good about picking Southwest, too.

Did I mention passengers clapped?

Granted, the singing wasn't that great and the jokes weren't that funny, but the unexpectedness of it made up for any lack of talent.

And the passengers clapped.

And I went to my destination happier than I would have been if I hadn't been on that flight. For that I am thankful. I suspect others were, too.

On the return flight, sadly, the Southwest Dinasaurs were extinct replaced by flight attendants who thought they worked for .... well, American.

We got home safely -- and my motto is any flight that lands safely is a good one -- but, trust me, it wasn't nearly as much fun.

Ballon Boy: He's six - so what's CNN's excuse?

2009-10-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

In the news business, we're used to reporting bizarre stories. We report about life, which often is, as they say, stranger than fiction. The saga of Balloon Boy falls right in there with the strangest of the strange.
For those of you who missed it, the nation was riveted -- driven in part by CNN non-stop video coverage -- as a weird silver object looking way more like a mushroom than a balloon -- whisked its way across the Colorado landscape for some two hours.
CNN's talking heads narrated non-stop the journey of the dipping and diving device, all the while speculating whether the 6-year-old was A) in the balloon B) still alive C) fallen out of the balloon D) at home E) suffered other fate. Watching, I flashed back to a similar second-by-second video chase of a slow-rolling white bronco driving down a California highway.
OJ Simpson.
Balloon Boy.
Non-stop coverage of every twist and turn.
Talking heads with vacant air to fill, often making comments that sounded as if there was more air between their ears than in either the balloon or their time slot.
As I listened to this news report which was long on speculation and short on facts, I had another flashback of the grainy black-and-white video where Walter Cronkite reports the shooting of President Kennedy.
Cronkite's most memorable line -- at least among journalists -- was: Get it right. Not "Get it fast." Cronkite knew reporting news fast is worthless if whatever you get isn't also right.
No doubt about it, CNN's Balloon Boy report was great entertainment. It was a mixture of truth, human drama and pure bull.
Afterward, the public was outraged at the parents, partly I suspect because we'd been taken on a two-hour emotional roller coaster, courtesy of CNN.
In the old days, we called such stuff a fictionalized account based on actual events.
These days, it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Great entertainment. Great fun. Just not great reporting.
Meanwhile, let's not forget: Balloon Boy is a 6-year-old. They do and say childish things. Cause THEY'RE SIX. They do things which don't make sense. Cause THEY'RE SIX.
Sadly, we all don't have that same excuse.

Gardens and guns for all

2009-04-17T14:24:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't seen the ad in our paper, there's a gun show this weekend at the Civic Center.

Last fall, before the Presidential election, I went to a gun show there. I was in search of a handgun.

Some of my friends were aghast I'd consider buying a gun at all, much less a handgun. I grew up in rural Virginia and guns were as much a part of life as cars and gardens. Every October there were gun safety classes during school -- the yearly course before teenage hunters descended on the backwoods in search of a large buck. Boys routinely came to school with trucks sporting gun racks holding multiple rifles so they could go hunting immediately after school. And, yes, they parked their trucks in the school parking lot.

No one ever stole their guns and no one ever worried about one of them going crazy and shooting up the school. The world was a simpler place.

We were indoctrinated in the principle that the Constitutional right to bear arms had nothing to do with defending yourself against a burglar and everything to do with defending yourself -- and I quote my seventh grade teacher here -- "against a government gone awry".

The last time I visited my sister, who still lives in my hometown, I saw a golf cart painted in camouflage, adorned with a two-gun rack driving into the parking lot at a country store. So you see, Virginians are as serious about their guns as Texans.

I say all this as background to what I encountered at the last Amarillo gun show I attended before Obama was elected president. Several times I was told I shouldn't wait to buy a gun because the next show would be "after the election, and you don't know what will have happened by then". The not-to-veiled implication was that under a Democratic president, gun sales would be immediately eliminated, or drastically curtailed.

Well, it's now after the election and there's been at least two gun shows here since. And, I'm not worried gun sales will end no matter who is president or what party is in control.

I just wonder what my seventh grade teacher would say about the rampant belief that the Constitution could be so easily thwarted by one man. Of course, Miss Driscoll wouldn't have believed a president would have allowed wiretaps on U.S. citizens without warrants, either.

The world was a simpler place.

Looks do matter - just ask Sarah Boyle

2009-04-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

It's the latest Internet sensation.

Britain's Got Talent -- the Limey version of American Idol -- has Sarah Boyle singing.

Jon Mark Beilue writes about it in his blog today. Women everywhere seem struck by the 47-year-old singing sensation.

I sent the YouTube clip (viewed by more than 12 million people) to a girlfriend of mine. She wasn't as appreciative of the acclaim being given Boyle as I was. Not because she doesn't think Boyle is great. She does.

But she thinks the reaction reflects a double-standard no one is acknowledging:

Here's her take on the reaction to Boyle's performance:

"Yeah, I saw this on TV, on You Tube, etc.... It kind of annoyed me. It was like — WOW! a woman who is not beautiful can sing! Stop the presses.
They were so condescending on the show I couldn’t stand it. These people need to get to the opera where they will discover that women who don’t look like models actually have talent.

"That video has been freakin’ me out since I saw it. Then I go to the gym today and the woman at the desk is showing the video to everyone and they’re all exclaiming and crying over it. I can’t believe it. It is so insulting!

The show was unbelievable — judges crying, people cheering like crazy. AN UGLY WOMAN CAN SING. STOP THE PRESSES!!
The blind can see. The lame can walk. The dowdy can sing. It’s a miracle!!!
If she had been young and pretty we wouldn’t have even known about her."

I don't think my friend is completely correct. If a young Boyle had been pretty with a voice like that, I believe she would have been discovered years ago. She wouldn't be unemployed and previously unknown at age 47, languishing on the shelf of life like a remarkable book deemed unworthy on the basis of its cover.

And that's the sad double-standard.

Dave Barry humor moment

2009-04-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

"Lately, when I tell people I work for a newspaper, I've detected subtle signs of disapproval: the dirty looks, the snide remarks, the severed animal heads in my bed."

Hey, President Obama -- that's no pound puppy

2009-04-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

The new presidential pet is a -- drum roll please -- Portuguese water dog.
From a breeder.

After the White House's much ballyhooed 'we want a pound pet' the first family has eschewed all the Hinze 57 varieties awaiting their death sentences in shelters across the country.

I understand the Obama children have allergies to many dog types. But, I just can't believe the most powerful man in the world can trot the globe and not manage to find a single pedigree-free hypoallergenic dog sitting on death row somewhere.

Granted, maybe The Prez has a few other things on his mind currently - like saving the economy from its death knell - but surely he has people he could task with the job of finding a suitable pound puppy that is hypoallergenic.

I don't have anything against pedigreed pets. I own one. I just object to a feel good publicity campaign aimed at promoting a message that apparently wasn't on the White House agenda.

The message I got from all this was: Do as I say, not as I do.

2009-03-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

Today's thought, thanks to Winston Churchill, British prime minister during World War II:

"A free press is the unsleeping guardian of every other right that free men prize."

Looking to the future from the past

2009-03-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

One hundred years of history....

The Amarillo Globe-News has been documenting the region's travails and triumphs since 1909.
An exhibit to celebrate the paper's anniversary is currently showing at the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon and will continue until September.

I am intimately familiar with the newspaper business, but still, walking through the exhibit I was struck at how much has changed -- and how much has stayed the same.

Photos from the 1940s showed a newsroom populated by white men. There was a single woman in the photo, but it wasn't clear what her role was and I'm betting it was either 1) society editor or 2) librarian or 3) secretary. Whatever she was, she definitely wasn't the editor in charge.

A photo of today's newsroom showed a mix of women and men and races. Typewriters were replaced by computer terminals, but the constant was a room of intense looking people parked at messy desks. Really messy desks.

The picture made me laugh because, apparently, despite the radical changes which have occurred in the way we produce news, the personality types making up a newsroom remain the same.... 1) divergent thinkers 2) sloppy housekeepers 3) people who are happy to spend their time writing about the plight of others and keeping watch over the doings of government.

I've heard it said that on personality tests journalists score nearly identical to police, firefighters, and, yes, lawyers. In other words, we're all adrenalin junkies happy to have our days filled with unpredictable events.

However, journalists differ from the police and lawyer profiles in one highly significant way. We are not rule followers and we are not drawn to authority. But we are similar to lawyers in our analytical ability and to firefighters in our desire to aid others.

I like to think we are by nature the people God designed to challenge the system and help keep it honest. As executive editor of today's Amarillo Globe-News, I routinely joke our job is to fight for "truth, justice and the American way." Truthfully, it's not a joke to me.

Looking at snapshots from the past 100 years, I wondered how our democracy may be damaged when journalists who watchdog the system are replaced by bloggers who have an opinion on everything but whose facts are only those supplied by journalists. Daily, the number of journalists are dwindling as news organizations across the country trim jobs, cut salaries and reduce the ranks of those keeping watch over their community. Just this week, the Atlantic Journal Constitution cut 30 percent of its news staff. At the AJC, that means 90 fewer people "covering Dixie like the Dew." I fear what will fall unnoticed between the cracks of those missing 90 reporters and the additional 12,000 who have disappeared from the ranks of journalism in the past year.

Our founding fathers knew the importance of keeping a watchdog in the house when they made journalism the only job protected by the Constitution -- something school students who frequently tour the Globe-News never know when asked.

As we go forward into the next century, I look to the past for inspiration:

"Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

I admit it! I'm a weather weenie

2009-03-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's email alert of a winter weather watch is now updated to a BLIZZARD WARNING.
The all capitol letters parading across my blackberry sends shivers down my spine and that is before even a flake of snow hits the ground. I've never before lived someplace where a blizzard threatens to disrupt normal life. I don't know what to expect and I fear the worst. . . and not unjustly so, apparently, based on stories readers are submitting on this web site.

Walking from rooftop to rooftop because the snow was that high? Sweeping snow out of attics? Thirty foot snow drifts? Walking to school through snow tunnels?

Are you kidding me?

Suddenly, I'm worried about a host of things that were unfathomable last week in record-breaking 80-degree weather. Like starving inside my house because I can't get out of my front door. Or worrying my dog won't be able to get outside to do what dogs need to do. Will my house mirror the present fate of Fargo, North Dakota if the pipes freeze and break? What happens if the power goes out? Can I survive with the benefit of a down comforter and a furry dog and a shot of bourbon?

But, I take heart in the one thing that is certain about Panhandle weather.
Wait 24 hours. It'll all change.

1 Across: Another word for a stupid editor

2009-03-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

During my years in newspapers, I've learned lovers of crossword puzzles are discerning and particular. And very verbal. If you're one of them, I realize you are not unlike the passionate lovers of comics, Jumble, Word Scrimmage, Sudoku, and every other non-news feature we run in the paper.

You've got your morning routine and it includes coffee, the morning paper and time spent playing your favorite game. And, boy, you don't like it changed.

On the occasions when either economic necessity or the retirement or death of the creator has forced us to change one of these features, I always hear from its most ardent lovers in the most colorful of ways.

So when we had to change one of our two daily crosswords this week because the creator retired, I knew I could expect to spend a large portion of Monday responding to aggrieved readers who let me know in no uncertain terms 1) how much they loved the now-gone feature and 2) how stupid they think I am for making the change.

Here's one the nicer comments sent to me:

You underestimate the intellingence (sic) of your readers. The new crossword puzzle is terrible!!!!!! This crossword puzzle is geared for an elementary student, which is fine if that is the age group you are trying to reach. Bring back the old puzzle, it was perfect. I do not want a puzzle that you can write in the answers as fast as you can write. I want to think. My day starts by reading the paper and working the puzzle. The paper is now smaller and doesn't take very long to read but that is okay because I still had my crossword puzzle to start my day. Now you have printed a puzzle that is so simple it requires no thinking. Being a senior citizen it is important to use our brains and this new puzzle uses very little brain power. The only good thing about it was the boldness of the print and the size.

When Wayne Williams, the editor of the puzzle we previously used, retired he sent a letter recommending this new version. Here is a portion of what he said: "The differences between the puzzle I edited and Stan's are rather subtle and should not ruffle your readers. . . In my opinion, this offers your best and simplest transition and will keep your puzzle audience actively involved in hobby."

One point which Williams also made is that the new puzzle gets tougher as the week moves along. So if you were among those who thought Monday's puzzle is too easy, please wait until Friday. Then tell me if you still think the correct answer to 1 Across is: IDIOT

If so, I'll take this as my clue to Mr. Williams' sales pitch:
2 Across: PT Barnum said one is born every minute

Let's go Amtrak

2009-03-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

Looking at Amarillo's beautiful railroad station - the unused rail station - made me wonder why we can't have Amtrak service here. Freight trains run through the Panhandle multiple times a day, yet if you want to catch a passenger train plan to drive to Garden City, Albuquerque or OKC.

Just imagine how great it would be on a Friday evening to jump on a train for a easy weekender to Dallas, Denver, OKC or Albuquerque. Or take a long weekend to Chicago. Leave in the evening. Wake up refreshed in the Windy City. No hassle of driving. No hurry-up-and-wait to get to the airport an hour early. No flying to Denver when you really want to go to Albuquerque. No worries if your shampoo equals more than three ounces in your carry-on or you want to take a bottle of wine to a friend.

We're almost smack dab in the middle of the country, for Pete's sake. Amtrak couldn't find a better gateway to the east or west. This town's history as a regional center of commerce was largely founded on the presence of the railroad. Why can't the future include passenger service to and from?

2009-03-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

Let me join the rant of people complaining about the bonuses of AIG executives.

Here’s the part the defenders of the bloated payouts don’t seem to fathom. YOU DON’T GET A BONUS FOR DRIVING A COMPANY INTO BANKRUPTCY.

In the world most of us live in, you get shown the door for that kind of performance and it’s not with several million dollars as a parting gift.

And if I hear one more time the pitiful justification that they need to retain the executives at AIG to run the place, I’ll scream.

I mean, Hello? Aren’t these the same dolts who got us here in the first place?

Please. Do everyone a favor and acknowledge this pack of plunderers aren’t all that talented -- unless you happen to believe losing billions takes a special gift. And, if it is… look my way. I’m sure I could take over AIG with the same results these ‘executives’ have delivered and I’d be willing to do it for, oh, the bargain basement price of only 10 percent of the $220 million about to be flushed in retention bonuses.

Then, unlike the real AIG executives, I’d be happy to admit what a miserable failure I’d been and go away.