Tuesday, August 30, 2005

'the lost city of atlantis'


One of the meteorologists with the National Hurricane center said if New Orleans flooded, it would look like "the lost city of atlantis." Unfortunately, that's looking true now. The governor, Kathleen Blanco, wants everyone out of New Orleans. Put them on a cruise ship, or a floating dorm...just get them out. That's an excellent idea. With the residents gone, the real work can begin. New Orleans will never be the same. Mardi Gras, Saints football, Tulane and Loyola...all never the same. There have been really heroic stories, and the emergency workers seem to be doing all they can. There are so many deaths and so much damage. And then...there are looters, and ungrateful people. The best and the worst of people come out during disasters. The looters can easily be taken care of. If people are so unhappy inside the Superdome, let them leave. They don't have anywhere to go. There are swamp critters everywhere, and mosquitoes. It's a dangerous, nasty, deadly situation. I've now seen three major disasters in my 24 years on this earth. I hope there isn't another for a while.

Monday, August 29, 2005

more hurricane pictures

























Three hurricane pictures: flooded Gulf Shores, Alabama...a boat on highway 90 in beautiful Gulfport, Mississippi...and windows blown out of a hotel in New Orleans. From CNN's photo galleries. These are why people shouldn't mess with hurricanes.

top 10 things not to do on tv, part 3: no f-bombs


This, ladies and gentlemen, is why you don't stay when a gigantic hurricane is coming toward you. This picture, from WFOR in New Orleans, is a collapsed apartment building. Inside those doors on the first floor is a person who rode out the storm. There are tons of buildings just like these. Hotels with windows blown out. Massive flooding. Cars floating through the streets. I've never understood why, when given two days to pack up and get out, people choose to stay. It's not like a tornado, where you have 10 minutes to grab a flashlight and your dog and get to the basement. There have been tons of reports of requested rescues today because people decided to stay in their homes. New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile...all destroyed. Which brings me to my next topic. When reporters ask you why you chose to stay instead of leave, "none of your f---in' business" is NOT an appropriate answer. That's what a partier on the French Quarter Sunday told Fox News' Shepard Smith...on live television, no less. I've got to hand it to the emergency officials, who are doing all they can. This is going to be a slow, painful cleanup for a lot of people, and devastating to Gulf Coast tourism.

Hurricane-related random thoughts for today:

-Since the roof was ripped off the Superdome, what does that mean for the New Orleans Saints? Oh well, they're not that good anyway...

-Why on earth, when a gigantic hurricane is coming, would you choose to sit in a daiquiri bar and get to shelter "sometime later?" That's dangerous.

-To all the people on the roofs of their homes, with hammers and crowbars, waiting to be rescued: take a number. There are going to be bigger priorities first. You could have left, but didn't.

-To the state of Mississippi, who announced that looters would be shot: It's about time someone got tough on these lowlifes.

-To the people who did leave, and will be coming home to this: I applaud you for leaving, and I hope you're able to rebuild. The Gulf Coast is beautiful.

Those are all my hurricane-related thoughts for now. More later.

-K

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

top 10 things not to do on tv, part 2

ok, so i haven't written in a while. bear with me. but i'm back...with a second edition of top 10 things not to do on tv...

2. don't call for the assassination of venezuela's president on a Christian TV program

in case you haven't heard about this, televangelist Pat Robertson remarked on The 700 Club the other night that the United States should assassinate Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. He said the government has tried to do it before anyway, so they should just follow through with it and kill Chavez. Robertson's nothing if not brave (or incredibly dumb, one of the two) for what he said. It's true that Chavez and Fidel Castro are good friends, and that we get a lot of oil from Venezuela (we actually get more from them than we get from the Middle East). But still, to publicly say, on a popular Christian show nonetheless, that the president of Venezuela should be offed is a pretty brave thing to do. The United States banned assassinations of foreign leaders in the late 1970s, by the way, because we kept shooting and missing.

Random thoughts...

Speaking of Venezuela, have tests been done on that arm that washed ashore there?

Why can't Lawrence Phillips (former St. Louis Rams player) keep himself out of trouble?

How the hell does a car jump a curve at a racetrack and end up in the stands, killing two people?

The Cardinals are going to the World Series. I'm convinced of it. They look good. I think they can make it even with out Grudzielanek and Rolen, both of who are injured.

The president of Turkmenistan banned lip synching today, saying it hurts new development of the country's culture. Hmm, maybe we should ban American Idol for the same reason.

Eli Manning is injured. Hurt his elbow. Poor Eli. I'm being sarcastic, I don't really feel sorry for him, because I think his daddy bought him that first round draft pick. That's just me, though.

That's all from here.

-K

Saturday, August 13, 2005

random thoughts for today

to start, it finally rained. hardly saw a drop all summer and now it's rained buckets for the past three days. over the next week it's predicted we're going to get about four inches of rain. i like the rain. the garden is growing like crazy. unfortunately, it's a little late for the farmers. it might save the soybeans, but it's too late for the corn. after a year of record yields in illinois, this happens.

random thoughts...

-where do the families of these innocent people killed on 9/11 get off saying the new york city fire departments didn't do enough? the audio tapes were released and really give a chilling account of what happened that day. a few families are coming out criticizing the department now for hogging frequencies and not getting information out to people on time. let's see...343 firefighters died running into two buildings burning at 1000 degrees from jet fuel, carried injured people down stairs, gave last rites, and tried to save all the people they humanly could. they died when two buildings collapsed that were attacked by terrorists. But yet, these families are bitching, bitching, bitching because the fire department didn't save their loved ones...after all, who cares about all the other people who died that day? you notice, though, some of these families have book and movie deals, so they're profiting from the awful deaths of their loved ones, and several of the widows moved on pretty quickly from their husbands' deaths. so you know they have a lot of credibility. plus, they filed the lawsuit along with the new york times, and we all know what a pillar of journalistic integrity they are. my impression from hearing the tapes is that the firefighters were frightened, knew the danger, and did their jobs anyway, knowing they had to. they were on the scene within seconds. they called out every available department and got as much help there as they could. The new york city fire department did all they could and lost a lot of brave men and women that day. It's too bad these families didn't get the memo that it's not all about them and their loved ones. In case they forgot, 2,821 other people were killed that day too. i also think it's another reason we in the media shouldn't talk to grieving families.

-will somebody tell this so-called religious group from kansas that's protesting at military funerals to shut the hell up and go away? for those of you who haven't heard, this group of mental ingrates shows up at military funerals and says that God killed American soldiers with Muslim IEDs to retaliate for Americans tolerating homosexuality. I won't even repeat the horrible things I think about these people. First of all, this isn't a free speech/expression deal. this is a hate group, pure and simple. Second, no, God didn't kill American soldiers to get back at Americans tolerating gays and lesbians. I don't see how there's a connection between those two things. Why on earth would they put families through that? Okay, fine. You don't support the war. You don't support the troops. You don't like gays and lesbians. As Americans, you have those rights. But the fact that under the first amendment these groups can go protest at military funerals, saying the men and women killed by terrorists overseas are going to hell to pay for all americans supporting homosexuality, is wrong on every possible level. I wish nothing but bad things on these so-called protestors. Let's see what happens when they show up to picket and the cops are waiting with loaded weapons and fire hoses.

-Why do we get less than an inch of rain over a two month period, then 2 inches of rain in 3 days with 4 more predicted to come? This is crazy. I like the rain. But it doesn't rain for more than a month, and now it's pouring buckets. At least it's cool, though.

-Why isn't there a bigger deal being made out of the fact that the Clinton Administration knew about the 9/11 hijackers a year before the attacks and ordered nothing to be said because it was "too politically sensitive?" So, let's see, you knew there were 19 people in this country, using their own names, taking flying classes, getting illegal drivers' licenses and meeting with other known terrorists, and 9/11 is the Bush administration's fault?! People should be outraged that Able Danger identified these people a year before the attacks and there might have been a cover up because of political sensitivity. I'm outraged by it.

-Cardinals beat the Cubs today. Chris Carpenter pitched his sixth complete game of the year. Cardinals are doing awesome. It's going to be them and the White Sox in the world series. How awesome would that be?

-Giants pitcher, Washington County native, Nashville high school grad, and all-around good guy Kirk Rueter is back on the disabled list. The Belleville paper had an article last week that he wants to be traded when his contract is up. Wonder if he's thinking St. Louis. That would be awesome. Local boy who made good playing for the major league team everyone but the sporting goods store owner supports. If it happens, I'll be all the more a Cardinals fan.

Well, I got everything off my chest. More coming tomorrow or in a couple of days.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

The Schuberts at the family reunion


Just thought I'd post this picture from Scott's family reunion July 31st. I look like a big dork in my sunglasses. But the weather was nice, it was good to see everyone, and Rosie behaved herself.

"welcome home, friends"


Houston, Discovery has landed...7:12 AM this morning, in California. They were greeted with the reply "welcome home, friends" by Mission Control in Houston. Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief when they passed the point where Columbia exploded and nothing happened. By the way, they were traveling at 14,000 miles per hour. Makes fast cars almost seem insignificant.

Monday, August 08, 2005

come fly with me, come fly, let's fly away....


Blame it on my dad...I think space travel is absolutely awesome. It's the sheer thought of knowing not only can we go into space, but we can get out of the shuttle, take a walk, fix a few things, and see the beautiful earth from a view very few will ever see. What an experience. Tomorrow morning the shuttle is supposed to land, either in Florida or California. Then space travel is being halted indefinitely. I hope it eventually comes back. I think we still have a lot to learn about what's out there in the universe. A 10th planet was just discovered. The space shuttle crew brought us velcro. They can fix the shuttle while floating around in zero gravity as though it's nothing. A couple of years ago, I covered a memorial service for one of the seven Columbia astronauts. William McCool's family was from Washington county and his mom went to school in Nashville. When she spoke at the Nashville high school graduation, she emphasized one important point to the kids: William died doing what he loved, and they should do what they really wanted to do with their lives. It's exciting to see the space shuttle crew not only perfoming small wonders in space, but having so much fun. I hope when they land tomorrow morning, either in Florida or California (or New Mexico), they're welcomed back with open arms, and they have valuable insights. I hope everyone gets to see their landing tomorrow morning.

Godspeed, Mr. Jennings

Late last night Peter Jennings died. The world lost a great journalist. He expected accountability, truth, accuracy. He wanted perfection and worked his hardest to really get to the crux of every story. He's the example of everything I was taught in broadcasting school. Over his long career he won more than 20 awards, was an international correspondent, and the voice of ABC news for so long. He was a real newsman in what's becoming an era of pretty talking heads. I think what amazes people is how fast he went once he was diagnosed. He went the way he should have: quietly, at home, with his family at his side. The broadcasting world has really lost a legend. I don't think there will be another one like Peter Jennings. I echo what President Bush said today--May God Bless his soul.

Friday, August 05, 2005

top 10 things not to do on tv: 1. don't use bad words

What a mess. This deal with Robert Novak and Inside Politics is huge. You don't just get up and walk off the set in the middle of a live taping. And the number one thing not to do, besides lie and be biased: don't swear. The word "bullshit" is not in the live talk show vocabulary. Granted, Novak was mad because James Carville told him to be a man because the Wall Street Journal was watching him. But he totally didn't handle it the right way. Novak should be concerned, not only because he's been "suspended indefinitely" from CNN, but also because this might turn up the heat on the whole CIA leak scandal. Eventually, something has to give.

Let's see, what's big here...Congressman Jerry Weller was in town today. Did a 19 minute long interview for air Monday. First big interview I've done. I think it went well, but I guess that'll be judged Monday at 10:35 AM. Drought...zoning...politics...schools...and people committing all kinds of horrible crimes, I have plenty of stuff to report on. Makes my day go faster, and keeps the adrenaline running.

Not much happening around here otherwise. My Cardinals are doing great. The Cards and White Sox are hands down the two best teams in baseball. No argument. I think my Cubs fans coworkers really hate me because I like the Cardinals. They grew up near Chicago. I was raised 50 miles from Saint Louis. That's just the way it is, folks. Speaking of which, the Cardinals have a new baseball home for the next eight years, and I don't think it's any small thing that they jumped ship from KMOX. The mighty 'MOX doesn't air any sports anymore. KTRS' ratings will go through the roof now.

Think I'm going to enjoy the nice weather this weekend and get out for a little while. No plans, really, but sometimes it's ok to do nothing.

-K