Donald's Blog
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This old house was only a few blocks from the state Capitol in Madison,
Wisconsin. All the neighborhood cats lived in the basement during the
winter. The house has long since been torn down, but in 1972 there were
AR2ax speakers in the front room, and a lot of good music was heard there. |
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In the 21st century I am just as opinionated as ever,
and I now have an outlet. I shall pontificate here about anything
that catches my fancy; I hope I will not make too great a fool
of myself. You may comment yea or nay about anything on the
site; I may quote you here, or I may not. Send brickbats etc.
to: dmclarke78@icloud.com.
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June 28, 2012ReportageIn Cal Thomas's column in the Morning Call today, He writes that "The presidential election in Egypt [was] won by the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi in a race where three-quarters of Egyptians voted for someone else", and a litle further down, "Polling indicates that 60% of Egyptians favor complete adoption of Sharia law [which] does not require that elections be held [...] a religious government, stoning as a form of punishment and limits on women and Christians in office."
Well, which is it, dude? Egypt may very well be a swarming mass of violent, primitive religious nuts, but you can't have it both ways.
I have been a writer and an editor for decades, and my computer and its various programs want to number my lists, enter capital letters, correct my spelling, insert line spaces... It is evident from looking at texts, tweets and Facebook that younger people are losing the ability to write properly. Now BoSacks tells me that there are programs that scan the web and find stories and rewrite them for reader consumption without human intervention. Spot.us, Bird-Dog, and others are among the suspects. Dial Me In will automatically upload and transcribe reporters' phone interviews. On the Record pulls direct quotes out of news articles and lays them out on a timeline, so readers can see who said what when.
And who is in charge of all this stuff?
Big Brother is already here. He is an addle-brained creation of our laziness and stupidity. But to judge from some of the stuff I read in the papers, it won't be any worse than what we've got already.