To go,

To or fro,

up or down,

same old run around.

Same old game,

It’s one and the same,

the runaround.

Originally published on Daily Paul 7-3-12: http://www.dailypaul.com/242955/dr-no-donuts

Originally published on Daily Paul 5-30-12: http://www.dailypaul.com/237056/but-others-fell-into-good-ground-and-brought-forth-fruit

1.  Easy to follow plotline and storytelling

Local, national, weather preview, commercial, local interest, sports, weather, smalltalk, credits.

2.  Memorable cast of characters

Goofy weather guy, studly sports guy, on-the-scene gal, and our square-headed newsguy with his lovely co-anchor.

3.  Suspenseful

Teasers run before newscast with a promise of more details at 6.

4.  Action Packed

If there were no high speed chases that day the sports report offers plenty of action.

5.  Funny

There’s plenty of time between the various plot points for the characters presenting them to exchange a witticism or two.

6.  Human Interest

The best stories have an aspect that the viewer can relate to personally.  What’s more personally engaging than a good-old human interest story – especially if it’s someone local you might recognize?

7.  Music

All the best tv news shows have a theme song you can really hum along to.

8.  Special effects

Breaking news alerts and the weather forecast animations offer some of the most cutting edge on screen graphics to be seen anywhere.

9.  Educational

The weather forecast teaches people about things like wind chills and relative humidity, and the fact that some people can be right only half the time and still keep a job.

10.  Information about current events

I was having a hard time coming up with a way that tv news provides any sort of relevant and timely information on current events of importance to the viewer.  I almost had to skip this one, but to be honest I knew I couldn’t – so I forced myself to watch an actual tv newscast.  Luckily I found an example:

TV news shows inform their viewers about the lucky word of the day that may help them win a $1000 furniture shopping spree.

There you have them – 10 reasons why TV news is just another entertainment show.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/slain-former-navy-seal-sniper-chris-kyle-talks-gun-violence-in-recent-interview/

The late Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL and author of American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History who was shot to death Saturday at a shooting range in Texas, is probably destined to be seized as a symbol, by one side or the other, in the current debate over gun violence that was sparked by the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Mr. Kyle, however, had his own strong views about that very debate, and before anyone tries to decide what his tragic death means, or does not mean, they should listen to what he actually had to say.

In an interview, just two weeks ago, Chris Kyle spoke with the website Guns.com about a variety of issues, including President Obama‘s 23 executive Actions on gun violence, the arming of teachers in schools, and the gun control dustup between Piers Morgan and Alex Jones.

Here is the video of that interview:

In what some are calling a desperate maneuver to draw attention away from the still-unfolding sex-for-hire scandal involving both secret service and military members, the White House today announced that it is going to begin work on fixing actual real problems in the nation including monetary policy, immigration, free-trade agreements, the war on drugs, property rights, the erosion of civil liberties, and the complete de-industrialization of the country.

Advocates of the plans are saying that it is about time that a president start doing something about these problems, many of which have been plaguing the nation for longer than the president himself has been alive.  But critics are quick to counter that this isn’t the first time an administration has used such ploys.

“When Bill Clinton was nearly impeached over fibbing about having a consenting, however distasteful relationship with another person, then press secretary Ari Fleischer was on television continuously talking about how Mr. Clinton had ordered bombs dropped on more nations than any previous president.”  says Michael Hanson, Dean of Political Affairs at Rotgutt University “Republicans use the same trick.  George W. Bush drew attention away from his inability to read a book written for children by passing the PATRIOT Act and then declaring war on 2 nations most people had never heard of.  His father George H.W. Bush went even further than this in 1992, when rumors that the president wasn’t nearly as fond of the family dogs as he had let on led to his decision to not win re-election.  This lone event was enough to nearly erase all memory of the family dog scandal from the memories of the people, as he was no longer the president and nobody cared anymore.”

Meanwhile, the White House is maintaining  that “the administration really was going to start looking at issues such as rampant corporate crime and the disintegration of Social Security this week anyway.  Seriously, we aren’t going to start talking about the future role of the petro-dollar just to distract from a hotel hooker party. That would be really irresponsible.”