Workin' and bloggin'

I'm sitting here at the Women's Health and Wellness fair just out of West Bend, waiting for the keynote speaker, Diana Jordan, to start her routine/speech. I've already walked about, took photos, gotten a couple quotes, and collected statistics. I sat down and turned the computer on. Lo and behold there is a wireless connection in here. What a great way to kill a little time.

Well, I better go before she begins. Don't want to get caught with my pants down- especially in a room full of 600 women, one or two of which are hot.

Bo!

Just stuff

Well, I slept in today because I don’t have to go into work until 3pm. That also means, however, that I must work late, until 11pm. Then early tomorrow morning I have more assignments.

At least right now I have a little time to write some shit down, since I’ve been a bit derelict in my blogging duties. For that, dear readers, I most profusely apologize.

Hmmm… I guess I don’t have anything really important to say, but hey, that never shut me up before.

So, I’ll start by saying that so far I really love my new job. Sure, the drive is guzzling gas, but other than that I don’t mind it too much. I’m happy with the types of assignments I’m given, and my coworkers all seem nice. The guy who was behind my hiring, Dan, seems to be very satisfied with my work thus far, and we get along very well—he’s a very nice guy. I’m learning a lot every day and my skillz be improving rapidly, me fink.

Dan already mentioned that soon I’ll be in charge of setting up a page, and that means learning quark, which is one of my goals in terms of gleaning some new skills from this job. Quark, whether in journalism or PR is an important program to know.

Yes, every day there are deadlines to meet, but I don’t feel under pressure or stressed. There are always stories in the docket for me to work on, and so I’m never bored. The result is that time flies by, and the shifts seem to go by really quickly.

Yesterday was a strange day, story-wise. I had to finish a feature for Saturday’s edition. The story was horribly depressing and tragic: a 25 year old who died from a rare brain tumor. I’m curious as to how this story will be received, since there is no silver lining in it. It’s sad from the start, and is sad at the end. I closed the story with quotes from the mother asking how people get through the loss of a child, that she’s bitter, lost her faith and will never be the same again.

Soon after that I had to rush to finish a story about a potential champion Bur Oak tree growing through the overhang of the Jackson town hall building—so one minute gut-retching sad story; the next fluffy happy cutesy big tree story.

My assignment tonight is to cover a few bars and “get the flavor of St. Patrick’s Day.” Not bad. The hard part will be resist joining in on the fun.

Tomorrow morning, other than a photo-op, I’m covering a women’s health fair. Comedian Diana Jordan will be the keynote speaker. When I spoke with her two days ago I mentioned that I, too, had done a little stand-up and we talked about that. She’s hobnobbed with the best of them and has been doing it for about 20 years. In the context of the conversation I told her one of my jokes, about Badger Health Care. She loved it and asked if she could use it. I said I would be honored. So, it would be a great honor if tomorrow she uses my joke, which of course is very apropos for her routine and audience. In return for the joke I asked that she view my DVD of my debut and give me constructive criticism. She said, “Of course!” in her big southern drawl.

Anyway, time to peruse the headlines, i.e. get the heart level racing!

Found it

I finally located my article in the Israel Campus Beat site.

It's on the bottom right.

The rules have changed

And the Palestinians don’t like it one bit.

Once upon a time a hit squad from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine snuck into an Israeli hotel and assassinated Rahavim Ze’evi, a right wing Israeli member of Knesset.

Arafat’s PA was put under tremendous international pressure to jail the killers. It is one thing to kill Israeli citizens; quite another to kill an elected official. Arafat begrudgingly agreed to jail the PFLP killers, but that wasn’t enough for the suspicious Israelis. Too many times in the past the PA jailed terrorists only to release them quietly after the world’s attention moved on. The Israelis demanded reliable observers insure that the killers did their time. Those observers happened to be American and British, since the Israelis rightly don’t trust the UN.

Time passed. Arafat passed. More time passed and eventually Hamas got elected. Hamas pledged to release the PFLP killers.

Shortly thereafter the American and British observers left their posts at the jail, and shortly after the Israelis raided the prison and captured the wanted PFLP terrorists.

In typical fashion, the Palestinians threw a tantrum, attacking British and American sites and even kidnapping an English teacher.

Even though I find myself repeating the “two states for two people” mantra, I have to admit that, objectively speaking, the Palestinians are not politically mature enough to responsibly govern themselves.