Pick your cliche, tonight's the night

Pick your cliche:

It's for all the marbles.

One and done.
Sudden death.
End of the line.
No place to go.
Something's gotta give.
This is it.
Do or die.
The final curtain/showdown/countdown.
On the brink.

Or feel free to leave your favorite cliche.

Tonight is the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals. Will it be the the Red Wings or Penguins who raise the cup in victory tonight? Whatever happens, this has been a great run for the Red Wings. I attended 7 games this season and only saw one loss.

Also whatever happens, I want the Osgood doubters to leave the building once and for all. The young man should get the credit he deserves. The Red Wings wouldn't even be in the position for a seventh game were it not for Osgood and his rock steady goaltending.

GO WINGS!

Game time 8 p.m., NBC, be there or be square. I'll be watching in Buffalo.

Late add: This joke from a former colleague by way of e-mail:

It's Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, and a man makes his way to his seat right at center ice. He sits down, noticing that the seat next to him is empty.

He leans over and asks his neighbor if someone will be sitting there.

"No," says the neighbor. "The seat is empty."

"This is incredible", said the man. "Who in their right mind would have a seat like this for the final game of the Stanley Cup play-offs and not use it?"

The neighbor says, "Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. I was supposed to come with my wife, but she passed away. This is the first Stanley Cup we haven't been to together since we got married in 1967."

"Oh ... I'm sorry to hear that. That's terrible. But couldn't you find someone else, a friend or a relative, or even a neighbor to take the seat?"

The man shakes his head. "No. They're all at the funeral."

A new Audi for a newspaper exec? A gag order for FJ employees?

Early today someone posted a comment (which I can't find because it was left on a much earlier post) that a current Booth executive has recently traded in an American mid-range car and purchased a very expensive "$80,000" Audi sports car which employees, all who have taken huge pay cuts, now see parked in a newspaper parking lot.

The commenter mentioned that the sight of the car has caused at least some employees extreme disgust as they ponder their new lives under tightened budgets and friends who are now gone through layoffs.

I'm not going to get any more specific that that until I get more information - or hopefully a photo of the vehicle - and at this point will assume that the report may be false. Do they make Audis in Michigan now? The foreign car aspect of this story is as troubling to me as the obvious tone deafness such a purchase would signal, again, if true.

Making things more difficult to get news about the newspaper is the new "Free From Editor" clause in the buyouts and severance papers of recently severed employees.

This is rich. A newspaper, a business that makes a living (although not much of one anymore) demanding transparency and frankness from everyone else, has inserted a "gag" (my word) order for employees leaving the paper saying they are prohibited from speaking ill of their former employer. If they do, they risk financial sanctions from the company.

The irony of that needs no further discussion from me.

Again, employees - past or present - are free to post here, anonymously if need be, as long as their comments are within loose civil bounds, don't contain obscenities, don't mention full names of people (with some rare exceptions) and that don't involve the families of employees or other personal, non-newspaper issues.

If you post anonymously (or make up a fake name) rest assured I do not see any e-mail address or direct link to you. I'm still trying to figure out who "inky" is and they have been commenting here since the beginning. I do get a Google Analytics report that tells me generally, by city, where posts are coming from. So far people from 275 Michigan cities, all 50 states, the District of Columbia and 75 other countries have stopped by.

Do NOT post from work and if you see the Audi parked anywhere, let a friend or non-Journal employee snap the photo for me.

Props where they are due

The beat writer from Grand Rapids has continued to include J.R. "Jeff" Roth, of Flushing, in his coverage of the Michigan Open in Orchard Lake since I brought it up a couple days ago. So props to him for that.

On the other hand, I received my home delivered copy of the Flint Journal today, and the brief coverage of the Michigan Open doesn't even include a line that Roth is currently in fourth place at the Open.

The leader of the Michigan Open is Ryan Brehm, of Mt. Pleasant, and that location is obviously closer to Saginaw than Flushing, so he received 100 percent of the golf coverage in the Flint Journal. Note to Saginaw copy desk: Flushing is just about 5 miles from Flint and Roth is worth a mention in the Flint paper even if he is only in fourth place, nine shots off the lead.

(Late add: I just checked MapQuest and actually Mt. Pleasant (52) is 18 miles further/farther away from Saginaw than Flushing is (34) .)

A full-time daily to hit the streets in Detroit again

Someone apparently believes that a full time daily can work in Detroit.

Local golf angle completely lost in new Journal golf coverage

As a golfer I'm a bust, but I do like to follow the sport. So it was interesting to notice on the Flint Journal coverage of the Michigan Open in Orchard Lake that a Flushing golfer, who was always covered like a blanket, doesn't even rate a mention in the MLive coverage on the Flint site.

(Update Wednesday morning: An hour after I posted this last night a new story was up on the MLive golf site that included a mention of Jeff Roth down a few paragraphs. That story is still not up on the Flint Journal site on MLive. If the late add was a result of this post, I'm glad to be of assistance. No charge.)

J.R. Roth has always had first rate coverage in the Journal. If memory serves he has won a championship or four and is in the hunt for the Michigan Open this year at -2 in fifth place at the close of the tournament today.

But apparently the beat writer from Grand Rapids doesn't know this, nor does the copy desk who is editing the wire and Booth copy from the tournament that is being posted on the Flint MLive site.

The Michigan Open is the biggest pro tournament in the state next to the Buick Open and J.R. Roth is a perennial high finisher and one of the very best Michigan golfers. But despite the protestations that the new online coverage would be as good, or superior, to what we are used to has slipped on a banana peel with this coverage.

In fact, it appears that Saginaw merely used a PGA press release, one that didn't even mention Roth's name. Very disappointing.

AnnArbor.com content czar: Blogs are good and bad

The content czar from AnnArbor.com is doing the 'on the other hand' dance about the future of blogs on the new AnnArbor.com site. In a nutshell, he believes that blogs are both good and bad and that AnnArbor.com will link to the good ones.

One of the sources he cites is Jeff Jarvis, best known around here for his influence in the MLive site. Nuf' said.

Wonder if they'll link to my blog?

Also, the more I look at the acorn the more it looks like a Frenchman in shadow with a really cool beret.

An 'old timer's' lament

This is a great read by a reporter who I remember reading. She has captured perfectly the demise of newspapers. It's a long tome (well worth the time), but here are three of my favorite parts:

"Page redesign – that harbinger of newspaper death -- had already hit The Record. Seeking answers elsewhere, the business managers bought in to another notion of what could save the day: "CI," short for "Continuous Improvement." Some called it "Constant Insanity." It was a business improvement model, inspired by the Japanese, meant to impose greater order and efficiency on the daily newspaper."

And then this that could have been written about the ninnies who prowled the Flint Journal newsroom during the last several years:

"Our percentage of days meeting deadlines was supposed to improve, our general wastefulness decline. Signs went up around the newsroom, with the word "Muda," or mess, in Japanese and the international interdiction sign across it. We received threats and reprimands about the pileup of papers on our desks. Had my fourth-grade teacher, Miss Dade, been reincarnated as a Twenty-first Century newspaper editor? It was hard to know whether this was a misguided business department mandate or one person's obsessive-compulsive disorder. Either way, it was an unconscious metaphor. By definition, journalism was creative and untidy and all of the efforts to treat it like banking or insurance or accounting misunderstood its essential nature – and would be sure to fail.

Panic seemed to intensify at the Record, in the form of quantification. How large is the mess on your desk? How many minutes late is your copy? How many words are in your lead? There should be no more than 26, it was rumored. There were edicts against anecdotal leads, and leads with dependent clauses. Annual reviews included byline counts – how many stories could you write in how short a time?"

And this is rich also:

"Still, many editors were driven by an opposing motive to win journalism prizes. Bad ideas floated downward from sterile news meetings where editors tried to second-guess an imagined Pulitzer board. Or they recycled old ideas that had already won prizes. Police brutality was a favorite. Nursing home abuses. Kids who kill. These were often more topics than stories. Let's write a 10-part series on PCP – so we did. But the winning-prizes motive could occasionally leave room for serendipity, for real, original creations to emerge from the notebooks of reporters who were out in the world. There was still hope for the languid."

Candy Cooper nailed it. Wish I'd written it.

Northwestern computer nerds to the rescue?

A hybrid journalist/computer nerd is the newest graduate type out of Northwestern University. A great journalism school, by the way. Not quite as good as Michigan State University, but close. This came from Fading to Black.

Daily Derelict reports new paper coming to Ann Arbor

In the wake of the departure of the Ann Arbor News, another company is planning to move in and publish a new paper. Not sure I get the economics, considering it is a JRC project and everyone knows all their problems.

A look at the disappointing Chicago meeting of newspaper types

Another Facebook find. A story by John Temple, former Rocky Mountain News guy.

Forbes.com: The future of journalism

Found this article about the "shoot-out" over news gathering in San Diego. Thanks to a Facebook friend who posted this there this morning.

Acorn has many meanings, but so far none about the news business

Offline I was contacted with the suggestion to check the term "acorn" in one of my favorite sources - urbandictionary.com.

Obviously, this is in relation to the new logo for AnnArbor.com and not one of the definitions on the Urban Dictionary relates to the news business. But if you go there, be warned that some of the acorn definitions of acorn are adult oriented.

But when young people dump a new term on me, urbandictionary.com, is where I go to find out what it means. That way I don't have to look stupid, or unhip, by asking the person what the terms mean.

A little bit of optimism for those left behind

For the folks still laboring in the trenches at newspapers comes this bit of optimism from Fading to Black.

And I will admit, that for me, there is no excitement and satisfaction as fulfilling as that when I found a juicy or unusual story that I could not wait to investigate and tell.

I get the attraction.

MLive moves Red Wings up front

OK, I ripped MLive previously for not prominently displaying the Detroit Red Wings news up front on the various newspaper web pages. This morning on the Flint page, the Red Wings were front and center. So props from here.

An idea for young families

My stepdaughter sent this along from ABC News and if you are just starting out with a family, kind of a cool idea. (Click on the link near the top of the page for the ABC News report.

A little 'cool' for a Saturday

One of my favorite songs, from my favorite play - "Phantom of the Opera" - done as I haven't seen it done before.

Help me on the comments

1.) No comments will be posted here on personal issues related to family leaves or employee's children. That is out of bounds. So please refrain from leaving any more of those.

2.) When you leave a comment on a post that is more than 4-5 days old, please put a note in the comment about what post you are commenting on. Today someone posted about the Flint Journal pulling Doonesbury back in 1995 or 1996. They wanted to know the reason. I posted the comment, but it had to be from a post two or three weeks or more old because I couldn't find it.

I remember some controversy back in the 1990s over Doonesbury's rather tough treatment of Bob Dole and his war record during the 96 campaign and also the use of a sexually explicit term in relation to a situation about then President Bill Clinton. If the cartoon was pulled in 95 or 96 it could not have been related to Bill Clinton's situation.

If anyone remembers why the Flint Journal pulled Doonesbury, please feel free to respond.

A couple more new hires at AnnArbor.com

One of the new hires at AnnArbor.com can't be all bad, she's a graduate of Michigan State University.

Not quite sure what they will be doing, but it looks like part-time blogging, plus more.

One more acorn video

Offline I received a link to this because someone thought they saw something that resembled the new AnnArbor.com logo.

Some Flint Journal notes

Came home from the gym this morning (I ride a bike for 40 minutes and do some light weight work) and there was my Flint Journal in the box. Again, a decent design effort, but it is really light on breaking news. Nothing from the overnight cop or fire beat and nothing from the day before either.

Some good local court coverage, but my wife was complaining last night (she's the Journal dead tree reader in the house) about the lack of any "new" news. The deadlines must be horrendously early not to allow for some overnight (or at least late night sports and cops news).

No Red Wings game news either, which in this case was a welcome thing. (They lost 4-2).

In another unrelated item, a former Flint Journal advertising employee will now work for the new chain of weekly newspapers in the Thumb and Genesee County. I believe Tom, a nice person, may have taken the same buyout that I did, but I could be wrong about that.

His connections in Genesee County will not bode well for the "new" Flint Journal and its competition with the View newspapers in Genesee County.

I wrote about the View purchase of The County Press in Lapeer and other Thumb newspapers on Wednesday.

A new defense tactic: The spray tan did it

A man in Florida is pleading his innocence by claiming that his wife died from an overdose of "spray tan" and not by asphyxiation.

Thanks to my sister, Pam, the newest, biggest Free From Editors fan. Not all are fans, however, a former editor (a really good one, by the way) has decided she is going to start a blog called: Freefromthatd***JimSmith.com. blog.

Here's some local news coverage on the case. He seems to be eyeing the television camera and maybe even blowing the reporter a kiss.

Leopard versus rat: A peaceful coexistence

My stepdaughter sent me an article that has some incredible pictures with it. In the Bible there is the story of the lion being friends with the lamb. Here's a leopard that, at least for a time, is living in peace with a rat.

This one is going to leave a mark

Someone named William Fagan is not happy that his company was evicted from their downtown office space by AnnArbor.com. Here is the comment he left on the following AnnArbor.com post.

William Fagan in June 4, 2009 8:17 PM
Hi Stephanie,
I have 7 "local professionals" who would be interested in being on the advisory panel that you mentioned. All seven are staff members of my company- Fuji Arts. We're being displaced by AnnArbor.com's take over of our downtown office. We were told that AA.com refused to share the floor and made an "all or nothing deal" that forced us out. So, my first bit of advice would be- if you want to be a part of the "community" don't start by forcing successful companies out of their spaces.
William Fagan
Fuji Arts Inc.
301 E. Liberty Suite 725

Not that I like acorns, but here's my idea

If you are going to use an acorn as a logo why not incorporate it into your name, like this.

Acorn logos that are better than AnnArbor.com's

Just a quick check of companies and businesses with cooler Acorn logos than AnnArbor.com.

Acorn Landscaping.
Acorn Recycling.
Vanderbilt coffee mug logo. (Click on picture for larger version)
Acorn Partnership.
Acorn Award.
Acorn Interactive.
Acorn Electron Computer. (This looks like an upside down AnnArbor.com acorn)
MWS League Logo (acorn).
Acorn Media.
Acorn CS.
Acorn Alternative Strategies.
Stone Acorn Logo.
Squirrely's Nuthouse.
Acorns Children's Hospital.
Acorn CRO.

Acorn vs. Buckeye, a logo too far

Someone pointed out offline that an acorn is not much different than an Ohio buckeye, which may explain why the new logo may not be getting rave reviews on the AnnArbor.com site. Not much love for the old Buckeye in Ann Arbor.

Top photo: Buckeye, Bottom photo, acorn (squirrel at left)

Flint Journal arrives early, an improvement

OK, I was critical last week of the new Flint Journal design and some obvious copy editing problems and spelling errors, but I have to give them a little credit for today's paper.

Not as many problems, and although I still don't like the font styles, the paper looked a lot better today than the first attempts last weekend.

No breaking news to speak of, but some decent features in the front section of the paper. Still, I don't understand why Midland, Bay City and Saginaw news are included in my Flint area paper, but it must be a function of a central copy desk.

The Sports section continues to carry the motto: "MORE THAN JUST THE SCORE AND WE MEAN IT." As one of the posters here said, it is sophomoric. If you must have a motto, how about "More than just the scores." Says the same thing without the snarky add on. Or maybe they had the same design company that came up with the Acorn logo for AnnArbor.com come up with the motto.

It will be interesting to see if people arranging funerals delay the services until days when the paper is publishing. I only saw a couple of instances in the obituaries where people who died last weekend or Monday had funerals that had already occurred. It might be that people will delay services a day or two to make sure people see the notices in the paper. I could very well be wrong, but we'll watch it.

Some times you feel like a nut, sometimes you pick it for your logo

I don't know whether to laugh or cry with the selection of an acorn as the new logo for the new AnnArbor.com.

Most of the people responding - and this has by far been the most commented on post yet - are flabbergasted that the new company ("by and for the residents of Ann Arbor") picked a New York firm to come up with a logo so colorless and uninteresting as to be a joke.

Once again, the poor quality, the inside-the-box thinking, does not bode well for the future of this enterprise. This is so bad you have to believe it is a joke meant to garner a lot of comments and then create a change.

Can I get a witness?

Where have all the magazines gone?

At the time I left the FJ there was much excitement and talk about a new era of "niche" publications that would help rescue Booth/Advance.

In recent weeks it appears that the new era is over. After spending a lot of money to remodel and furnish a new office in the Journal building for the magazine operations, I'm told that the experiment has ended.

I only saw a couple copies of the slick magazine called YOUR Magazine and it looked good, but obviously must not have fed the Advance coffers enough to continue its publication although the website is still up.

The fare in the magazine was light, and much of it written by former colleagues which was very good for them. Sorry that another venue for colleagues to keep writing for money has ended.

This is who I wanted to be when I was in high school

For some reason Ricky Nelson popped into my head today. When I was in high school in the early 1960s more than anything else I wanted to be like Ricky Nelson. All the girls I knew loved his "dreamy" eyes and I just knew if I could just be like him, I might have a chance to get a date. Of course, he died way too young in 1985 in a plane crash. One of my favorite songs of all time is "Garden Party" because it so perfectly expresses what I believe that "you've got to please yourself." Which means to me you do what is right no matter what others think about you or expect.

The embedded song is probably half the reason I ended up joining the Navy. You can figure it out.

JRC sells off my hometown weekly and several others

Not everyone has given up on newspapers. A relative newcomer to the newspaper business in Lapeer County has purchased the venerable longtime Lapeer weekly - The Lapeer County Press.

Bob Myers, whose family owned and operated The County Press for 60 years, sold the paper to Capital Cities/ABC in 1990 (which also owned my former employer The Oakland Press). Bob and I became friends during my time as a beat reporter for The Flint Journal here in Lapeer.

Bob once told me the biggest mistake he ever made was selling the love of his life, The County Press, to Capital Cities. I think Bob would be somewhat happy that the newspaper was back in the hands of local folks and not some corporate entity.

The View Newspapers group, which began just a few years ago, has swallowed up more than a dozen of the Thumb area newspapers owned by Journal Register Co., which is currently in bankruptcy.

The purchase was announced tonight on the View website.

This will be huge news here tomorrow when the LA View comes out. Looks like the sale won't officially occur until July and it's hard to say what the new publishing schedule will be.

I'm sure the View Newspapers got a good price for the papers, considering that JRC is holding a fire sale for many of its assets.

I'd love to see this work and prove all the naysayers wrong who say newspapers no longer work.

Apocalypse hits MLive site, unknown origin

Some of us thought that maybe MLive was running a test of a new site when it posted a strange message a little before noon today.

When you logged onto MLive there was a message "Apocalypse begins. Four Horsemen spotted in Otsego."

Don't know what happened after that, but obviously the gurus of the site got it fixed. If anyone knows what happened (the site doesn't acknowledge the message) drop a note here (anonymous, if you want).

Detroit Free Press reporter tries to buy octupus in Pittsburgh

I don't usually like gimmicky news stories, but this video on the Detroit Free Press site was kind of cool. For those not familiar with the Detroit hockey tradition, fans throw octupus on the ice before (during and after, sometimes) playoff hockey games. The story is that the eight tentacles of an octupus signified the eight games it used to take to win the Stanley Cup. Now it takes 16 wins, but haven't seen anyone throw two octupi yet. Red Wings play the Penguins tonight at 8 p.m.

I'm taking this video down because it launches automatically and that is annoying many folks.

Conan hits it out of the park with this one

Gotta love this funny compilation from the new Tonight Show.

One more newspaper article for today

This from Fading to Black about newspapers which are still making money.

Forwards: The fastest rumor mill in the history of the world

I get lots of forwards. Many of them are interesting and a few contain interesting information, but most are simply what the cow leaves behind in the pasture.

When I get an outrageous forward I always check it with Snopes.com. When I find one that is simply not true, I usually send a polite message back to the person who sent it to me with a link to the Snopes.com post that debunks it.

Last night I received a forward about a "Hotelicopter" which included photos of the alleged flying hotel. A quick check with Snopes yielded this information.

I imagine most people are familiar with Snopes.com, a site I used frequently when I was a working reporter. E-mail forwards may be contributing to a dumbed down America, one that believes anything it receives in the mail.

By the way, I never forward, even when it has one of those "please send this back to me to show me that you like me too" things. Nothing personal meant. I wish all of us would check out these ridiculous forwards and do our part to stop the spread of false information.

A profile of S. I. Newhouse Jr.

Lots of interesting insights into the head man in the Newhouse empire are found in this article. It's long, but worth the read, especially if you are a Booth/Advance person. Not much on the newspaper side of the business, but a good look at the Newhouse empire, both present and future.

Two articles worth the read

Thankfully, this blog, which gets an average of 480 hits per day (about 20 percent of them new visitors) has very informed readers who often send along links to really good stories about journalism and newspapers.

Here is one of the best summaries I have read so far.

Just a small excerpt, but the rest is worth reading as well:

"When you hear a newspaper executive claiming that his industry is an essential bulwark of society and that it stands threatened by a new technology that is, as of yet, unready to shoulder the same responsibility, you may be inclined to empathize. And indeed, that much is true enough as it goes.

But when that same newspaper executive then goes on to claim that this predicament has occurred through no fault on the industry's part, that they have merely been undone by new technologies, feel free to kick out his teeth. At that point, he's as fraudulent as the most self-aggrandized blogger."

Here's another from the Huffington Post.

Thanks to the two readers who supplied the links.

Home again, home again jiggety jig, the end of a FJ era

Made it home from Buffalo in almost record time. Thanks to our Nexus passes at the border we do not have to wait in long lines at the customs stations there.

Settled in, got ready to catch up on the Detroit Red Wings game last night in my Sunday Flint Journal and, voila!, no game coverage at all. And with no Monday paper, no coverage of either Saturday's game or tonight's game until Thursday. (Go to MLive.com and see how poorly displayed - read not displayed - game coverage is there). Go to Freep.com and Detnews.com and see the difference between online game coverage.

Update: Here's the deal. If you have set your MLive.com to the Flint Journal page as a favorite you won't see any of the Red Wings coverage. But if you go to the overall site - MLive.com - You'll see some coverage. It only took me 20 minutes to figure this out. Why wouldn't you put a link at the top of the Flint Journal page for Red Wings coverage for folks who are going directly to your site. This is why the MLive format may just be the worst newspaper website design in the country.

Also whoever designed Page (Sports) B6 may have put together the ugliest newspaper page I have seen in a long time. No photos, no graphics and a major league bumping headline at the top of the page. Get a clue.

The new Executive Editor who wrote a glowing column about "A new era for your paper" didn't bother to mention new deadlines that didn't allow a Stanley Cup Finals game that ended before 11 p.m. on Saturday to be in Sunday's paper. Looked for a link to his column on MLive.com and couldn't find one.

What are the new deadlines anyway? I could find no breaking news (maybe the GM bankruptcy story qualifies, but it stands alone) in Sunday's paper, lots of features, including a Page 2 story out of Duluth, Minnesota about a voyage to discover if lake temperatures in Lake Superior are changing.

The new executive editor suggests going to MLive.com to keep up-to-date. Apparently, the new executive editor hasn't been to MLive.com to realize how impossible it is to find anything there. I like reading my old column, now Bryn's column "Off Beat." Try and find that anywhere on MLive.com. Oh, I'm sure it's there, but finding the most recent one is difficult, too difficult to waste much time doing it.

Look through the list of columnists and check out how old some of those columns on the home Flint Journal page are. One of the columns featured is still talking about how there is still time to research candidates for the early May city elections.

So while it may be a new era in the Flint Journal, I think I'm going to miss the old era, a lot. The old era actually had news and sports. And I mean it.

Newspaper slogans draw attention

The "More than just scores and we mean it!" slogan in the new Flint Journal has garnered a few pointed comments on my post about the new FJ design. Points I agree with, by the way.

The famous New York Times slogan "All the news that's fit to print" was often modified to "All the news that fits we print." But there were some bad slogans for real.

But it got me thinking about the old (don't know if it is still in place) Oakland Press motto that was at one time plastered on the building in downtown Pontiac.

"Delivered to a door step near you."

Of course, the jokes were that you would have to walk over and take it from a doorstep "near you" and brought a lot of pointed jabs at such a stupid slogan.

So if you have any more silly newspaper slogans, put them right here. Here's a funny site to get you started.

AnnArbor.com announces sports leaders

A Booth retread and an Oakland Press (Journal Register Co.) refugee will head the new sports coverage at AnnArbor.com.

I know nothing about either man so don't know if this is good or bad. Both will undoubtedly be glad to land on their feet (at least for a little while) as they dive off the deck of the two Titanics they are currently sailing on.

Buffalo gas, cheaper than Michigan gas

For the first time ever, I paid less for gas in Buffalo, New York than I did in Michigan. Like 25 cents a gallon cheaper, which really makes me wonder (again) what is going on with gasoline prices.

Usually the gas here (because of much higher taxes) is 25-35 cents a gallon more expensive than Michigan, but not on this trip.

Time to punch some holes in U.S. territory and bring up some black gold, Texas tea and drive those prices down again. We can work on the green technology, but we are never going to be completely free of oil. Might as well dig up our own.

My thought for the day. Home tomorrow.

Back to Buffalo and FJ party notes

Time to head back to Buffalo and collect my wife and bring her home for a couple of weeks. Things are going as good as can be expected there and we appreciate the concern and prayers of our friends.

Blogging will be light this weekend, but I will be thinking of my friends at the Flint Journal both those leaving and those staying. All good people. Wish I could be at the party tonight at PDs, but alas, I'll be in the land of Beef-on-weck and chicken wings.

Also, I earlier posted a note (sent to me by a Journal friend) that indicated that there might be a gathering on Saturday at 9 p.m. at the White Horse in Flint. In the interim, a lot of people who should know said they didn't know anything about that gathering. So you might check with someone before burning the gas to go to the White Horse in Flint on Saturday night.

The big party is at PDs and it is tonight, so enjoy. Let me know who shows up.

An interesting 'outsourcing' article

A loyal reader sent along this link about the effects of "outsourcing" news coverage.

Newspaper executives 'plotting' new course

Slate.com has an article about a Chicago meeting involving a number of newspaper company executives, including Advance Publications.

The article seems to imply that the executives are in collusion (actually the headline says that) about a common agreement to charge for Internet content.

Some are alleging that would be an anti-trust situation, if true. An embedded link is a really detailed summary of the meeting.

One of my favorite paragraphs:

"There are various ways to go about it, and one size won't fit all. During their days of print advertising plenty, the people in this room, or their predecessors, made the catastrophic, myopic decision to not charge. They gave away their expensive efforts for free. They by and large misjudged the significance of the internet."

Yes they did, and they ignored those of us who questioned the wisdom of such a move. Yet, we are gone and they are still there. Go figure.

A short history of newspaper despair

Although it only covers about 50 of the top newspapers a Wall Street Journal map and chart does a pretty good summary on the travails of newspapers in the last couple years. For the record, I found this item on Newspaper Death Watch.

Flint Journal test fires its new design

Just plucked my Flint Journal out of the box and immediately noticed the redesign.

Apparently ahead of next week's three-day-a-week launch the paper decided to test fire its new design. Design is a matter of personal taste, so take this criticism as such. Yuck.

First of all, this is about the 18,123rd (only a slight exaggeration) redesign of the paper since I've been involved with it since 1989. Management somehow believes that by changing type fonts and rearranging sections readers will come flocking back to the paper.

Change the name of the Entertainment Section from "Entertainer" to "Let's Go" and you're off to the races in their mind.

Hint: It's about news and content. It has always been about news and content. Even on the Internet, it was always be about news and content. Good, clean layouts help, but if there's nothing to read, it won't matter if it's a masterpiece design.

Maybe it's just me, but I didn't see one crime or breaking news story in the paper today. Hopefully that means that crime has stopped in Flint.

I'll digest more of the changes and come back later, but (again this is personal choice) I have never like all-capitals anything and from a first glance it appears that all bylines will be all caps, jump headlines will be all caps and some of the light font headline versions disappear off the page.

They did leave the flag (masthead) pretty much untouched, but give them time.

Brittany Hart Smith - Graduate

While I'm bragging about granddaughters let me just say how very, very proud I am of my oldest granddaughter, Brittany, 17, who is graduating from high school this June.

Too bright for a regular high school, Brittany finished many of her required classes at the local community college - Cabrillo, in Capitola, California.

I love our political discussions and love how she holds her own with her own beliefs. Oh, and for teaching me that hair extensions are not permanent like a tattoo.

Yeaaah Red Wings! Noooo Penguins!

I already bragged about this over on Facebook, but last year I taught my then 2-year-old granddaughter to say "Yeaaaah Red Wings! Nooooo Penguins!" during last year's Stanley Cup Finals between the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins.

So let me just say how proud I am that at 3-years-old she is already up-to-speed on this year's Cup Finals and has never forgotten the "Yeaaaah Red Wings! Nooooo Penguins" chant. Of course, it does cause some minor problems when she sees the cute little creature that is a penguin.

It's not like she would club a real baby penguin, or anything.

Showing the love here to my favorite team - The Detroit Red Wings.

And to all my California friends who root for the Anaheim Ducks (bad name for a sports team) and the San Jose Sharks (which is a great name for a team that provides really good practice for the Red Wings annual playoff run), just wait'll next year.

A tough week for Flint Journal employees

Just wanted to note that with the looming layoffs/buyout departures tomorrow, Friday, May 29, that many of my former colleagues are struggling through a tough week. I've seen their countdowns on Facebook and their poignant comments.

Some of them were actually asked to stay, but at such a reduced rate of pay that they made the decision to leave. Good for them. Until management announces what pay cuts they took, there will always be a high level of suspicion over whether the pain is being equally shared. Not saying it isn't, but it should be shared with the staff.

Some familiar columnists bylines will stay on, but on a freelance basis. There has been much talk about freelance pay here in recent days, but I'll bet some freelancers will make a lot more than others.

The paper will pay only as much as they have to and as little as people will accept. Nothing wrong with that from a purely business sense, but the paper will limit the quality of its product by hiring on the cheap. Not because the people left aren't good people, some are great people, but low pay and long hours will hurt morale and that will translant into quality issues.

This is not a business plan for survival, it is death by a thousand cuts. The only constant is that the people who led the company through this decline, continue to lead it. There's an old saying about continuing to do the same thing, but expecting a different result.

Someone from Bay City or Saginaw has been posting this stupidity: (I'll paraphrase) With the departure of so many people and with pay cuts "now we'll see who is just working for a paycheck."

That may be the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Who doesn't work for a paycheck? Has the guy who is posting that nonsense agreed to work for free now? Unless he has volunteered to do his job for nothing, I guess he has put himself in that same category.

Most people at the Flint Journal worked for many more hours than they were paid and worked odd strange schedules that no union organization would ever tolerate. They have done that because they love what they do and want to do it well. They also did it for a paycheck.

I once argued with a Board of Directors member (a publisher of a string of Michigan weeklies) at The State News over his comment that "reporters aren't motivated by higher pay." That's when the maximum pay for student journalists at The State News was $25-$35 a week for about 25-35 hours of work.

I vehemently objected to his premise. I may have even referred to it as solid cow exhaust. While many of us loved our work, we like everyone else, have bills to pay and children to raise. That doesn't happen without a paycheck.

Back to my colleagues. Keep your heads up, the demise of the Flint Journal is the result of a number of factors, the economy, the general decline of newspaper advertising and the incompetence of the Booth/Advance leadership, but you have done your jobs and done them well.

Good luck to you all.

Daily Derelict chimes in with customer subscription story

Over on Daily Derelict there is more about the new subscriptions at the Flint Journal.

Cavs Win!

Cavs Win! Somebody lost all objectivity in covering the news and sports.

Happy Birthday William!

My oldest, William, is 39 years old today. Now I officially feel old. William has had to overcome several challenges in his life, for which I am very proud of him. Enjoy your day and your Michigan State jersey is on its way!

That's him giving me the hand at an outdoor, beachfront restaurant in beautiful Capitola, California. And him again sitting in my late brother's chair (his Uncle Mike). That's my sister-in-law Barbara next to him.

Callen Courtemanche a life to remember today

For those who have not been touched directly by the losses in war, I'd like to give you a name to think about today. When I put my flag out this morning, it will be in honor of Callen Courtemanche, a high school classmate and friend, who lost his life in Vietnam on January 31, 1968. (For newspaper editors who love birthday connections, it was five days after his 21st birthday).

The several times I have visited the Wall in Washington, D.C., or the traveling wall when it comes locally, I always look for and pray over Cal's name.

I'll also give a salute to my brother, a Vietnam vet, who died of an infection on New Year's Day. A lot of my brother's medical problems were believed related to his service and he was just days and weeks short of getting his disability payments for them when he died.

My grandfather served in World War I, my uncle, father and stepfather all served in World War II, so service comes naturally to our family.

At the same time Cal was shot and killed, I was aboard the relative safety of a Navy destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin rescuing Navy fighter pilots and providing shore bombardment support for Marines like Cal. Cal and I were not close friends in school, just the kind of friends who had known each other through elementary, junior high and high school. We would stop and talk or each lunch together if our best friends were not available.

My mother and stepfather knew the Courtemanches and I heard the name in our house frequently. So it came as a bit of a shock when I received a letter from my mother, about a month after Cal died (remember no e-mail and only snail military mail - which had to be where snail mail got its name) telling me of Cal's death. He was one of two men (William James Burke was the other) that I knew personally who were killed in Vietnam, but Cal was the one I was closest too. I left a message on a Virtual Wall message board a couple years ago.

Sometimes I think how much Cal missed. He and I were the same age, graduated from high school in 1965. I've enjoyed a short police career and a long newspaper career and have seen two of my boys raised and my two stepchildren grow in to maturity. I have the joy of two grandchildren with another on the way, and a wife to love and grow old with. Cal had none of that. His life ended in an inhospitable jungle in a war that probably should never have been fought, could have been won, but that people and politicians simply tired of.

My fellow Vietnam veterans are universally adamant that our current military will never suffer the disgust and hate we did when we arrived home. But to put things in perspective, I may not have had a big parade or welcome home, but at least I had a life, that's something Cal and 55,000-plus did not have. Give that a thought today.

So when I don my American Legion outfit today and salute, I'll have the names of two men firmly in my mind. If you have someone in your life who was lost due to war, please post them in the comments and let us all remember them today.

The top picture is Cal after his graduation from boot camp. The second picture is his Crescenta Valley High School senior picture and the third image is a tracing down of his name at The Wall.

This will be the only post today.

FJ Adios Party at Pds on Friday, White Horse on Saturday

I have been asked to spread the word that current and former Flint Journal employees are invited to two good-bye parties for current Journal employees who will work their last day on Friday, May 29.

The first party is at Pds (PDs) Pub, 5153 Fenton Road in Flint starting at 5 p.m. until the last dog has died.

The second party is going old school at the White Horse Tavern in Flint starting about 9 p.m. until the cops (the ones who aren't there already) shut it down. (That was a joke).

Unfortunately, I have to return to Buffalo Friday afternoon so I won't be able to attend either party, but I'll tip a root beer in Buffalo to so many fine journalists now back on the shelf. All of them will be better off in the end, and the Journal will be worse off for their loss.

Just in case you thought you were having a bad day

Probably staged, but still should make you feel like your day is better than the guy in the convertible.

Thanks to my cousin Cynthia for this photo.

Philadelphia a town rapidly heading toward the newspaper abyss

Fading to Black has an interesting read about the dire situation for print newspapers in Philadelphia.

In it there is a success story about a group of downsized staffers at a newspaper in Liberal, Kansas who after being shown the door, opened their own and installed a printing press and are making money again with good news stories.

But my favorite paragraphs were right at the end, describing the consequences of eventually losing the large majority of professional journalists with a recounting of this episode from the 2008 elections:

"You can already see some of the risks of a country reliant on the Internet without the traditional checks and balances provided by the professional standards of established journalism. During last year's US election, several stories whirled through the media sourced to one political pundit, Martin Eisenstadt. You may even have heard of some of them: a casino planned for Iraq's Green Zone; the shock of Paris Hilton's family at being used in a John McCain TV ad; the failure of Sarah Palin to understand Africa was a continent, not a country. But Eisenstadt was a fraud, created by an Israeli prankster, Eitan Gorlin, via a fake think-tank website. Yet his tales had a life of their own, permeating the net, eventually appearing on television and in magazines, creating reaction until they became part of the debate.

When the truth came out, Gorlin said something that revealed much about the perils of a media world dominated by the Internet - anyone can believe anything they want to, simply because they read it online. "We're real because we have 50,000 Google searches," said Gorlin. "What could be more real than that?"

Newspaper cancels subscriber's paper

On Thursday, I happened to run into a lady who was a pretty faithful reader of my column and Lapeer stories during my Flint Journal career. She asked me what was going on at the Journal (obviously not a reader of the blog, but she's 78 and not a computer user).

Kind of filled her in on what I knew. Then she told me that the Journal had basically cancelled her subscription. A subscription that she had carried for about 50 years. She 'loved' her Journal.

What happened, she told me, is that her Journal carrier, faced with the three-day-a-week scheduled and apparently a contract she didn't like, up and quit ahead of the June 1 changeover.

When she called to complain she had not gotten her paper, she was told of her carrier's departure. What happend next really upset her. Instead of offering her a new carrier, they simply told her they were refunding her unused subscription and that she would no longer receive her paper.

During the years I covered Lapeer I had many, many stories of people who wanted the paper, but were told it could not be delivered to their home. In a business sense I understand that some routes are not economical and the Journal did try several times to make advertising inroads to Lapeer without much success, but it is hard to explain to people who want the product that they can't get it. Especially in an area where the paper offered news coverage.

A plea for information on freelancers

In the past two days I have received a plea (actually two pleas) for information on freelancers.

The truth is, I have no information on what freelancers make at the Flint Journal or elsewhere for that matter. I have never freelanced, unless you call what I do now freelancing. Don't know about the lancing, but it certainly is free.

Late add here's a chance to 'pay' for an internship. (From Fading to Black blog).

From what I know about the Flint Journal in recent years, is that the rate is likely to vary from freelancer to freelancer. The new business model is to pay as little as the market will bear and some folks come cheaper than others.

I would be surprised if freelance work paid more than $50 to $100 an assignment, with the $100 probably being overly optimistic. As far as having any "negotiation room" I hate to sound cruel, but that's one of the funnier things ever posted here. From what I see over the past 18 months is that there isn't much negotiating going on. It's pretty much a one way conversation.

If you are assigned a story and complete it I assume you would get paid. If you are a freelancer, in the true sense of the word, you can submit work, but if they don't use it, you probably get bupkis.

Someone told me (and this is total rumor) that some folks were being offered $35 to cover township meetings and writing a story. That's an absurd amount, if true, and unless you are truly desperate for work no one should accept such an insult for payment.

So instead of running on with speculation and rumor I'll leave this thread open for some inside information on what freelancers are being offered and paid.

Blackstone's: A great new restaurant in downtown Flint

With my career at the Flint Journal over I haven't been downtown much in the last 18 months. We have a geezer lunch every couple of weeks, but I haven't been down near the Mott Building for some time.

Tonight, with my wife out of town, some friends invited me to go to the new Blackstone's Pub & Grill next to the Mott Foundation Building.

For more than a decade the abandoned building where the new Blackstone's is had a fake name on the front, a decoy designed to fool no one that the building was empty.

It's nice to see good things happening downtown (although the Rowe Building is still not done across the street from the new restaurant).

Food was good too. I had the New York strip (rare) with really good mashed potatoes and salad. Corn bread and french bread (could have been Italian I can never tell) came with the meal. My companions seemed to enjoy their food too.

At the restaurant I saw attorney Mike Manley, simply one of the best defense attorneys I ever watched at trial. Not only that, but Mike is just a very nice guy. He and I spent many hours together in courtroom hallways discussing cases, other attorneys, legal strategy and just shooting the bull during court recesses and jury deliberations.

I've told my wife that should I ever find myself in serious legal trouble, I want her to hock everything and hire Mike Manley.

One example: Several years ago, Mike was hired to defend a man who shot an unarmed man, through a locked door on the defendant's porch. Now there was a little more to it than that - a history of trouble between the two neighbors - but I don't think anyone gave Mike much of a chance of getting this guy off.

Consider that the man had loaded guns stashed by two doors, waiting for the neighbor to come.

Mike skillfully turned the case into a trial about a demented neighbor who was terrifying another and before you could say "Not Guilty" the jury said it.

When he walked into court he was always prepared, always polite and had a presence that resonated with judges, juries and even prosecutors. Plus he was good with a quote and always returned phone calls.

Anyway, good to see Mike. He asked about the blog and I gave him the address for the blog and hopefully he will stop by. There's a guy who could write a book.

Not long after that, Joel Feick, a Channel 12 reporter and anchor who I have known for many years also came into the restaurant and we talked for a few minutes.

All that to say, that Blackstone's looks like it's going to be a happening place. Check out the link above to see the menu.

AnnArbor.com posts video of recent forum

Up over at AnnArbor.com is the new content leader's comments about comments. Again, I am surprised at the lack of visual quality of the video and sound for a site that promises so much technical expertise and innovation.

I would point out that effective "aggressive" moderation requires 24-hour coverage, unless you put every comment into moderation (as I do here). It will be interesting to see if they are willing to make that kind of financial commitment.

Found on Facebook: Journalism yesterday and today

Who knew this attitude would eventually take over newspapers?



Thanks to a friend on Facebook for finding this gem.

Inside Out has your back on the news about news today

Not much time for posting this morning, but Inside Out has a couple interesting posts over there this morning.

Lots of good links in this story in particular.

Togz4Dogz: A post journalism career for a good friend

Rosemary, a good friend and a longtime news competitor and sometime freelance/part-time colleague at the Flint Journal has turned in her computer mouse at a local weekly here in Lapeer and is going to put more time into her Togz4Dogz business in North Branch.

Rosemary has covered many of the same stories that I did while my beat was in Lapeer and I guess the best praise I can give her is that there were many times I compared her writing to mine and wish I had written what she had.

Not one to pull punches, Rosemary would call you on something bad and praise you on something good and for that I will also be appreciative.

But now, she is going to put more time into a really cool business she has been working at for some time and I told her I would give her a shameless plug here. She has designed specialty coats for police dogs (complete with patches) and some frilly numbers for poodles and everything in between. She also plans to spend a lot more time with her grandchildren and no longer miss opportunities to see them when the kids' activities conflict with an assignment.

If you have a four-legged friend at home that barks, then you should check out her website (link above) and see if there isn't something you and your pooch can't live without.

No free papers for newsroom employees

Found this item over on Gannett blog about a paper in Monroe that reportedly (I say that because it was a leak from an anonymous poster) does not allow newspaper employees to leave the building with a free newspaper.

Like the Flint Journal, employees can subscribe for half price and the manager reminded his employees that there was no such thing as a free paper.

It did remind me of the Oakland Press newsroom (which, like the Journal, let us take as many free papers as we needed) back in the 1980s. As a convenience to reporters and to keep the newsroom a little neater, the first run papers were dropped off in a newspaper box that had been rigged to stay open.

It looked like a regular street sale box, but all you had to do was pull on the door and it would open.

A new business reporter was hired in 1985 and in the middle morning, after deadline, the newsroom could be a pretty quiet place. Many of us were rapidly reading the pages of the first edition trying to catch any glaring errors that could be fixed on the fly for the later editions.

Others had escaped to begin working on stories for the next day, or perhaps just gone to pick up their dry cleaning or do their shopping, could have been just about anything that cleared out a newsroom.

So I was sitting at my desk, which was only a short distance from the paper box, when I was startled to hear two coins (I think the paper was 35 cents at the time, could have been 50 cents, I just don't remember) drop into the empty metal coin box on the paper machine.

I looked up to see the new business reporter pulling open the door and taking out a paper.

With a twinge of a sarcastic tone, I said the the new reporter: "Unless you really screw up, they don't make you pay for those."

Maybe you had to be there.

Newspapers vs. Internet: A great cartoon battle

Found this on Slate.com

AnnArbor.com uses power point to make its point

AnnArbor.com has put up a power point that it will present to explain to folks what it is going to do.

Most interesting is the information that the company will have 30-35 'news' employees. Hopefully they will flesh out some of these details in the question and answer period.

Again I am surprised at the lack of graphics or dramatic presentation in the power point. Honestly, I detest power points. Haven't seen this one presented, but in general power points usually end up being the speaker's speech notes put up for everyone to see.

In my humble opinion, power points work best when they are not the talking points (or speech notes) read by the speaker. My favorite power points are the ones where the speaker uses the "point" to show me pictures of what they are talking about.

For the AnnArbor.com power point I might have suggested instead of a listing of "Topics" that a mock up of a printed page would have been more interesting and could have been presented in machine gun style so people could 'see' what the speaker is talking about.

As a reporter I had to live through countless power points where the speaker put up a 'point' and then read each one like I was too stupid to read it myself. Hopefully, this is not the case here.

Comerica Park: Church our way

A young man (younger than me) has been attending our Wednesday night Bible study since September and I haven't had a chance to be one-on-one with him to get to know him better.

So with my wife in Buffalo for two weeks, I took the opportunity to get tickets to last night's Detroit Tigers game against the Texas Rangers and invited him. Our new church (New Wine Anglican Mission) believes that church is not a building.

Jesus was not confined to a 'building' and his ministry was pretty much where ever he was. Church is a state of mind and it is all about relationships and looking after one another and helping others. Our mission statement is simple: Love God, Love People.

Some of us meet on Monday and Wednesday nights and many of us meet on Sunday and most of us meet on both days. There's no 'rule' about what day 'church' is. We rent an inexpensive space in the City of Flint and 95 percent of all our financial support goes to ministry and not keeping up a building.

It's come-as-you-are and our pastor is awesome. We look for ways to be together for fun (like baseball games, barbecues and game nights) and we take care of each other.

We pray for folks we've never met and look for opportunities to meet people where they are.

All that to say, that you can 'do' church at a baseball game. Scott and I had a great time and I think we got to know each other a lot better. Dare I say I have made a new friend and one can never have too many of those. It was also my first ever visit to the new park. I went to several games a year at the old Tiger Stadium, but lost my zeal for baseball many years ago. I may have gotten some of that back last night.

Oh, and the Tigers won 4-0 on a night that began with cloudless skies and 74 degrees at first pitch. It ended with a cloudless sky and 71 degrees. On the way home we talked and listened to the Detroit Red Wings win their playoff game against the Chicago Blackhawks in overtime.

I'm on a real high today for a lot of reasons.

Peace.

Hallelujah Chorus in such a unique way

The Hallelujah chorus as you've "never" heard it.



Thanks Doc Loomis for posting this on Facebook.

Where have all the journalism students gone?

A poster on Jim Carty's blog posted a link to an interesting story about where journalism students are going now that the newspaper business has posted the No Vacancy sign.

My friend Kim will be most interested in this story because he said I ruined his life by hiring him for his first newspaper job. His original career goal was the one the former journalism students are seeking now.

"Do not call" legislation hurt newspapers: Publisher

A long, but good read from a publisher who is still bullish on print.

About page 6, the publisher blames a lot of the circulation drop on federal legislation that allowed people to opt out of telemarketer calls, which were a major source of new newspaper subscription starts.

The sad countdown has begun

On Facebook I've noticed that a number of current Flint Journal employees are counting down their days to May 29, which is the last day for many there.

For many it is the end to the only real job they have ever known and you can feel the angst and sadness in their posts.

All of them deserved better. Frankly, most of them don't realize it yet, but better is on the way. Newspaper work will never be what it once was. The goofy characters, the ones who finished work in the newsroom only to continue it with colleagues at a local gin mill into the wee hours, are all gone.

We loved our work so much that we were willing to duel daily with our editors over assignments and sometimes incomprehensible editing. We fought for what we believed was right, we fought for the integrity of our stories and we fought for our readers. We were not always right, but we always cared.

For most of us the Flint Journal was more than a job, it was a family, it was friends and it was an opportunity to live out our passion for writing and journalism. We gladly took less pay than what we could make in other fields, although the pay was never too bad at the Journal (then, not now) for the chance to come to work everyday and work our craft.

We didn't punch a clock and most of us didn't watch it either. If I could go back and get paid for every hour I worked, I'd be a much wealthier man than I am today. It was never about the money. Until the last few months, there were very few days that I didn't wake up and look forward to going to work (work was not necessarily going to the office, but chasing my beat).

It was exciting, it was different everyday and it felt like it mattered.

That's why leaving it is so hard. It's like a root canal with no pain killers.

Many good reporters and writers remain, but they will be stretched even thinner than they are now. The bosses who remain won't help much, won't tap out a story or two to fill a hole, but will continue to demand more work for less pay.

Newspapers have become word factories where the assembly line has been sped up to the point that a bolt or two will be missing at the end of the line. The readers will blame the workers for the quality problem, but the real blame lies elsewhere. It lies with the folks that are speeding up the line.

I tip my hat to the friends who are leaving, I may even raise a Diet 7-Up to their departure. For those that remain, my best wishes as well and just a little note, one that used to grace the desk of my best friend in the business, to keep you going:

"ILLEGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM"

The tractor as percussion

OK, I spend way too much time surfing You Tube, but I saw this first on Facebook and then went hunting for it over on YouTube. There's something really cool about using a tractor as your percussion section. Please notice the tractor has its own microphone.



I have no idea what country this takes place in, but I want to go there.

I don't know who's lying, but it is a little Alice in Wonderland

The recent controversy over who is lying about what Nancy Pelosi knew about waterboarding and when did she know it leaves me a little cold.

But it did make me wonder why everytime I saw Ms. Pelosi smile I was reminded of something else.

Don't know who to believe, Ms. Pelosi or Mr. Panetta, both because she is a current representative and Panetta is a former representative it makes it hard to believe than a member of congress would ever lie.

Do you know how to tell if a member of congress is lying? They are lying if you notice that they are breathing.

And then there's this conversation between Alice and the Cheshire Cat in Alice In Wonderland that is a pretty good description of Congress:

"`Cheshire Puss,' [Alice] began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider.

`Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

`I don't much care where--' said Alice.

`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

`--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'"

"`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on `And how do you know that you're mad?'

`To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad. You grant that?'

`I suppose so,' said Alice.

`Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'"

Welcome home, the best gift you can give our troops

Probably motivated by my service in Vietnam, I have a strong affection for the men and women who serve our country in the armed services. The experience of many veterans of the Vietnam War were negative when they returned home.

Many of us simply went back to our lives and because I was going to a small community college on the San Francisco peninsula, service in Vietnam was not something you boasted or talked about in the liberal, protest roiled campuses of northern California.

I'm a sucker for our troops. When I am traveling and see soldiers, airmen, marines, coasties, and sailors (especially sailors) in airports, I always walk up and thank them for their service. Much to my wife's chagrin, I have sometimes anonymously purchased meals for a table of 4 or 5 veterans sitting in an airport restaurant. It's a gift I give to myself because it feels good to do it.

No matter how you feel about the war do these folks the honor of thanking them for doing what so many others avoid. I was reminded of this by an e-mail attachment I received from a member of my church.

This was a 2007 "Person of the Week" segment on ABC's evening news.

Military service made me a better person, but it is a sacrifice, so let them know you appreciate it when you see them. It just takes a second to say "Welcome home, thanks for serving." It'll make their day, and I'll bet it'll make you feel good too.

Doesn't hurt to thank those like my own father, my father-in-law and others who fought in World War II, the Korean War or Vietnam either.

Louis Armstrong and Danny Kaye together, forever

OK, I'm old and I really enjoy old stuff. So if you're old, or you enjoy old stuff, enjoy.

Back to Buffalo

Back to Buffalo to deal with some family issues there. I'll be back Saturday night, but there likely won't be any further posts until Sunday.

Now I can be disgusted with two Presidential administrations

After months of stonewalling, the Obama Treasury Department has finally responded to a Judicial Watch FOIA and released documents it once said did not exist. So much for transparency.

In the documents is the evidence of the ham-handed manipulation by the Bush Administration back in the fall that banks didn't have a choice about taking the TARP money, but that the government would not let them leave the room without their forced agreement to take our money, even when many said they didn't want it or need it.

It was outrageous then and it is even more outrageous now because as I predicted back then, the billions of dollars the government forced these banks to take has vanished into the ether.

And who was involved in both actions - the tax cheat Timothy Geithner.

"Change" - not so much in this area.

Paper Tiger No More on the Ann Arbor News last day

Jim Carty over on his blog has the news about the Ann Arbor News last day.

New from AnnArbor.com: More future of newspapers...yawn

AnnArbor.com has put up a story about a new study (these studies are where the money in journalism is today) of the fate of print journalism versus the online product.

The comments are good and blunt as well. The content czar's answer to one poster about the hiring of new AnnArbor journalists is one that any politician would love. Vague and non-committal.

When my friends from the Journal read the study conclusions they, like me, will recognize that the very people who are now embracing the study are the same ones who did exactly the opposite of what they should have when the opportunity was right to change things.

The biggest contradiction in all of this is the notion that AnnArbor.com is going to survive online only. Not true, the reason why they are printing a newspaper on a regular basis is to make money. The dirty little secret is that even the AnnArbor.com folks know the only way to still make money is to print a newspaper with ads to pay for the online operation.

Newspapers dead, not hardly.

Advance, Conde Nast face age discrimination suit

A salesman for Parade magazine is successful in his bid for the chance to sue Conde Nast, Advance.

Newhouses get kudos for pay cut plan

Inside Out has posted an interesting Poynter column about the progressive pay cuts at the Star-Ledger.

The danger of watching too much television

Watching the Channel 2 news in Detroit I was excited to see that someone has finally combined the two things they believe men like the most - football and lingerie - into a new "competitive" sport.

I predict a very short life to this, but it will receive a lot more publicity than it deserves. If you want a link to look at this, you'll have to search for it yourself.

Secondly, I was struck by a Viagra commercial that shows a couple taking a small speed boat named "Viagra.com" to a desert island where they wink at each other and head into a small native shack to, well, whatever. Just as the man enters the building, he looks back outside and closes a door curtain.

Besides the obvious innuendos in the commercial, why would you need to close a curtain on a desert island?

That's just the way my mind works.

A great post

Sometimes I read things that I wish that I had written. Such is the case with this post at Inside Out.

Don't I know you, officer?

Last week I received a "Friends" request on Facebook from a man who was on the Flint Police Department special operations unit during my many years as the night police reporter. Of course, I added this man as a friend and immediately recalled one of the oddest nights of my police reporting career.

Before the Journal got all nervous and antsy (thank you, lawyers) about reporters riding along with police officers on duty, I spent many shifts, and parts of shifts, riding with both uniformed and plainclothes police officers.

Prostitution stings, drug stings, street corner drug enforcement and raids were a steady diet for me during those days. It worked to help me develop long lasting and deep sources within the department and was great fodder for stories in the paper.

This particular story that I recalled last week was a night that this officer, who happens to be African-American, another female officer, who happens to be white, invited me along to ride in the backseat of an unmarked police car while they played the decoy in an undercover drug operation.

In the early 1990s, street corner drug sales were common. Dope dealers hung around on corners waiting for customers to pull up and arrange a buy. The dope sellers were not so stupid to have the drugs on them, but would size up the customers (making sure they were not police) and then with a $20 bill in hand from the drive-up customers would head to a nearby house, purchase the crack and return to the car with the dope.

So that night, I showed up with my slacks, white shirt and tie, and took up the offer to sit in the back seat of a two-door Camaro (which had been seized from a drug dealer) and ride along to observe. First, the officers told me to lose the tie, which I did.

We drove around some of the worst neighborhoods of Flint and would drive up to the dealers. Once the transaction was made, other officers would swoop in, bust the street corner dealer and then get a warrant for the house that the drugs came from.

It was a summer night, it was still light (about 8 p.m.) when we pulled up to a gaunt young man standing on a corner. The male officer opened a conversation about purchasing some 'rock' and the verbal dance began. Most street corner dealers were hinky and knew the police were out there looking for them.

The dope dealer suddenly took a couple steps back and said, "I know you, you're a cop."

My life flashed before my eyes thinking we might all got shot. But the male officer kept as cool as my basement in winter and began arguing with the man that he was mistaken. He even got angry with the dealer for accusing him of being a police officer.

"I'm sure you are the guy who arrested me," the man protested. Again the officer argued, but came up with a slightly different explanation for the confusion.

"You may be thinking of my cousin, he's an officer and he looks a lot like me," the officer told the dealer. Slowly the argument turned in the officer's favor and the man changed his mind and agreed to purchase "our" crack cocaine.

As he left to purchase our drugs, the officer turned to me with a big smile and told me that the dealer was right, that the officer had arrested him just months earlier for the same thing.

"Why would he go ahead and buy drugs for you then?," I asked.

Because, the officer said, that his story about the cousin had confused the guy, he was a little high, and probably desperate to make a sale and get more drugs for himself.

Of course when he returned with the 'crack' we took off and the other officers moved in and arrested him. We returned as he was being handcuffed and he looked at the officer and with a small smile, said, "I knew you were a cop."

There are many memories like that and as they come to me, I'll put them here.

Next up: The drug raid where a man, in trying to hide in the attic, accidentally fell through the ceiling drywall as he tried to balance on the studs in the ceiling. His legs were hanging down in the living room the drug team (with me in tow) entered it. A Journal photographer was also with me for that one.

Frank Rich checks in on the future of journalism

If you're not a member of the New York Times, you may have to take a minute to register to get this article about the current state of journalism.

Obituaries by phone after June 1

The new editor of the Flint Journal has written (on the front page today, Sunday, May 10 - Happy Mother's Day, by the way) about how the paper will deal with the problem of getting obituary information to its readers on the four days it doesn't publish.

A lot of folks are concerned that if you die on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, no one will know you are dead, or know when the funeral and visitation is until you are buried. For people without Internet, this is a large concern.

The solution the three papers have come up with is to set up a phone line for people to call in and get the information on the non-print days. I guess you have to get on the phone and listen through a list of recently deceased people (Some days there are two dozen or more) to see if you know someone who has died. It sounds like they will give you some basic funeral or visitation info, but nothing else until the printed version.

I'm thinking this is a huge opportunity for some local weekly publisher who has access to a small press to work with local funeral homes to set up a small printed daily sheet that people could get by mail for a small fee. This would be just a three- or four-page newspaper related to deaths and memorials. Could be longer if you sold advertising in it (florists, churches, non-profits, etc.) and I'll bet it could make some money as well as perform a great service.

You could sell advertising for it, charge for the obituaries (less than the papers do now), get yourself a bulk mail permit and do it six days a week. Maybe you could even put some non-death related news in it if you had room (announcements, calendar, etc.). Hey, before you know it you'll have a six-day-a-week newspaper again.

The obituary paper would be printed each evening and mailed each morning to subscribers' homes. I know a lot of unemployed writers who would love a chance to get back to writing, even if it was full-time obituary work. (I loved writing obituaries, but I'm done with that business now).

And as long as they are at this, the funeral homes and a publisher could set up a companion website and folks would have two options in one place to easily find obituary and funeral information.

Someone should at least take a look at this. I don't think people want to get on a phone each day, four days a week, and listen through a long list of names on the slight chance they might hear a name they know.

Let's do a little brainstorming here and see if we can work something up.