Return of the barn swallows

Last year, on June 11, I wrote about some birds that built a nest on the inside wall of our front porch.

Then, in August, I put up this video about the whole experience of watching barn swallows, complete with narration.

So, why do I bring this up now?

Cause the barn swallows have returned! Or, at the least, some barn swallows returned to the same nest.

I can hear you know. "Oh, shit. Here he goes again with the barn swallows."

And you would be right, sir. You would be right.

In the pictures below, you'll see some photos I took with an Iphone of the nest's contents. Today was the first day I check the inside of the barn swallow abode.

(I couldn't use the "good camera" cause the nest is built so close to the ceiling of the porch. Also,  even with a ladder,  I can't see into the nest, so I've got to stick the camera up in the air and shoot blind, but you can clearly make out the forms of very young, right-outta-the egg birds in these images. That is all...for now)

A Memorial Day Weekend letter on vapid TV political analysis, Dennis Hopper and Art Linkletter

Dennis Hopper

Here is the letter in full. (I choose not to use the regular reader's name, only his initial. Only a select few know who he is.)

I was watching Saturday Night Live recorded on my DVR late last night. After I had "had enough" of it, I deleted it, and the DVR began showing the last channel it was on, namely CNN. At least that's what I thought until I decided to watch the first segment.

It was about "what would happen if a hurricane occurs in the gulf right now". So I thought, that sounds interesting, what would happen to the oil? But here's why I question my sanity, the "analysis" was so lame, I actually kept looking to see if I had not really turned off SNL, and this was one of those "looks real" segments imitating, in this case, CNN. The female analyst, very serious and using a big board, gave these points:

1. The influence on the oil slick will be determined by the path of the hurricane.

2. The oil slick will have "minimal effect" on the intensity and path of the hurricane.

3. It won't cause oil to rain.

No kidding, that's it! Nothing about the normal direction of most hurricanes will cause the oil to move away or towards land, and which state is in most jeopardy, nothing about whether the oil might be dispersed, just three lame points no better than what's contained in a 4th grade science project -- it seemed like it was a joke until I determined it was real.

Then afterward, the male anchor thanked the female analyst, and I wondered, did the guy even listen to her points? Why didn't he just stare at her in disbelief for about 5 seconds, and then shake his head and say "That's it? That's it?".

Or maybe it's me, I've gone insane, and the idiocy that appears prevalent in politics is now infecting journalism and is the "new norm", and I need to either adjust to it, or just go away.

I am sure you can still catch the segment if you watch CNN.

And to top off the insanity, the networks are featuring retrospectives on one of the worst actors and even worse human beings, Dennis Hopper, a guy who lucked into one good movie, and deserves to be forgotten ASAP. His death is getting more air time than that of a true good guy, Art Linkletter. I want this settled with a celebrity death match, Dennis Hopper versus Art Linkletter ... "Dennis comes out yelling, screaming, cursing, but Art mysteriously just continues to stand placidly in his corner, winking and smiling at the crowd. Dennis becomes even more enraged, but Art's plan pays dividends as Dennis decides he needs a quick fix of his latest addictive substance and ends up unconscious and drooling on the mat. Art wins without even breaking a sweat!".

H.

Art Linkletter

Dennis Hopper -- gone

He died of prostate cancer.

Go here for a Washington Post photo retrospective.

"You have to let me play Frank Booth. Because I am Frank Booth!"

Hearst going to the outsourcing card

Your local newspaper, if you live in Houston or San Francisco and take the Hearst-owned daily, has decided to save even more money by outsourcing work that once was produced by local people.

Reports Business Insider:

Demand Media is the robotic online content mill that pays freelancers paltry sums to churn out stories based on "what's hot" search algorithms. Guess who's about to start "creating articles" for your local newspapers?
Erik Sherman got hold of a memo that Demand Media just sent its contributors, telling them that "We have entered into a partnership with Hearst Newspapers to produce articles for two of their premium publications, San Francisco Chronicle and the Houston Chronicle. Specifically, we are creating articles and videos for the Real Estate section of SFGate.com and the Small Business section of Chron.com."
In short, this sounds like the first step down a very slippery slope for newspapers. Outside of the core of hard news, much regional newspaper content is crap, anyhow. Why pay a full time newspaper staffer a living wage to write real estate or small business stories, when you can contract those tasks out to a writing sweatshop whose typical "rate for an article of a few hundred words is $7.50"? You Hearst employees might want to start calling your union reps right about now.

Yeah, get on the horn right now to your union steward, Chronistas. (There is no union.)

While we're on the subject of the Houston daily, we sat upright in our chair and choked on our shredded wheat the other day while reading a Houston Business Journal blog report of a talk Chron Editor Jeff Cohen recently delivered to a public relations group.

Specifically, it was an assertion Cohen made concerning the merging of newspaper sections in the hardcopy version of Houston's Leading Information Source.

The blogger said Cohen averred, "The consolidation of the business section with the city/state section was a good thing so a better product could be put out."

If by "better product" Cohen meant a less costly product, then yes, we can't quibble with that.

But really, less news in the paper thrown on your driveway every morning (if you're lucky) isn't a "better product."

Cohen would be better served by speaking plainly about the decisions being made at 801 Texas Avenue rather than doing that ol' soft shoe shuffle and razzamatazz.

Or maybe he was tailoring his answers to comport with the sort of blather that the public relations professionals in his audience are expected to give on behalf of their clients when the news isn't good.

Oh, yeah, BizJournal blogger Christine Hall also reported that Cohen said, "That free Web site might not be free soon: The Chronicle's parent, Hearst Corp., is working on a strategy that could mean you'll have to pay for some of its online content."

Woopeee!

The annals of Local TV News (Texas Rat Snake edition)

quote/unquote ...

"The life so short, the art so long to learn, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgement difficult."
--- Hippocrates (circa 460-357 B.C.), on medicine

"I'm six foot eleven. My birthday covers three days."
--- Darryl Dawkins

"Let us all be happy, and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with."
--- Artemus Ward aka Charles Farmer Browne (1834-1867)

"You should know that I had problems at the end of my career as a player here and I don't know if you know that someone [put] a rifle at my head and tied me up and tied up my wife in front of the children at our flat in Barcelona. . . .The children were going to school accompanied by the police. The police slept in our house for three or four months. I was going to matches with a bodyguard....All these things change your point of view towards many things. There are moments in life in which there are other values. We wanted to stop this and be a little more sensible. It was the moment to leave football and I couldn't play in the World Cup after this."
-- Johan Cruyff about how a kidnapping attempt made him decide not to play in the 1978 World Cup, when Holland lost the final to Argentina, 3-1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/apr/17/newsstory.sport

(Editor's Note: quote/unquote is compiled assiduously every week by Wilson, a son of St. Louis.)

"Strange" and "kooky" now isn't a negative

Remember how Ron Paul, our congressman, has been labeled a "kooky" guy by some of his critics.

The same tag was put on Son of Ron in his campaign for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky.

He won today.

Thanks, BP

Go here for story on video release.

Go here for an oil spill cleanup Q&A.

quote/unquote ...

"I heard that in the North my nickname is Acorn Head. I know some people call me the North Korean Wayne Rooney, which I like. But I don't know about this Acorn Head."
--- Chong Dae Se, North Korean soccer player for his country's World Cup entry

"This means our society has come to an extremely dangerous edge. Our government must wake up. It is not enough to take temporary measures like upgrading equipment or arranging police patrols around schools. If we only pay attention to these shallow causes, we will not solve the original problem and this kind of thing will happen again."
--- a poster on the Baidu Tieba online discussion board in China, about the murder of seven children and two adults, one of a string of incidents where small children are attacked with knives and cleavers in China

"A Conservative government is an organized hypocrisy."
--- Benjamin Disraeli (1845)

"It looks like a kind of cross between a bulldog and a Chihuahua. They have created a mongrel breed, and like all mongrel breeds I think it will have a great deal of hybrid vigour and strength." ---- Boris Johnson, conservative mayor of London, about the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition formed after the British elections

(Editor's note: quote/unquote is compiled in St. Louis by Wilson, who coaches youth soccer.)

The war on drugs

The raid netted some "paraphernalia." The suspect's dog was shot.

For the story behind the video go here.

A message from US Rep. Ron Paul via his press secretary, Rachel Mills

Paul Disappointed by Senate’s Failure to Support a Full Audit
of the Federal Reserve Bank

Washington, DC – Congressman Ron Paul (TX-14) today expressed disappointment that the Senate failed to pass an amendment offered by Senator Vitter (amending the Senate financial reform bill), which included the express language of Congressman Paul’s landmark “Audit the Fed” legislation. Paul’s legislation passed by a large margin in the House of Representatives last fall as part of the House financial reform bill, and Senator Vitter’s amendment would have paved the way for a full and ongoing audit of all of the Federal Reserve’s lending and monetary policy activity.

However, the Vitter amendment was supported by over 1/3 of the Senate, and the Sanders amendment (calling for disclosure of how approximately $2 trillion of Federal Reserve credit facilities were dispersed) passed unanimously today in the Senate. Therefore Paul remains hopeful that momentum is shifting and the days of Federal Reserve secrecy are coming to an end.

“The 37 votes our measure received in the Senate represent a strong step in our continuing work for full Federal Reserve transparency. In addition, the passage of the Sanders Amendment is a victory for taxpayers, who will finally know who received $2 trillion of their money,” stated Congressman Paul. “The Fed is no longer an untouchable monolith. It can no longer take for granted its absolute power to create and give away public money at will, with no true accountability. With strong support in the Senate, the House, and especially among the public, more victories for full transparency lie ahead.”

quote/unquote ...

"People in Africa are used to doing business in a certain way. They walk into a store with money, put it down on the counter and walk out with an item."
-- Danny Jordan, head of the World Cup organizing committee, on why sales have increased since tickets have started to be sold over the counter and not just online.


"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."
-- Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931)

“But the port shows little interest in lyrical associations. ….. Nevertheless, no quayside can ever appear entirely banal, because people will always be miniscule compared to the great oceans and the mention of faraway ports will hence always bear a confused promise of lives unfolding there which may be more vivid than the ones we know here, a romantic charge clinging to names like Yokohama, Alexandria and Tunis – places which in reality cannot be exempt from tedium and compromise, but which are distant enough to support for a time certain confused daydreams of happiness.”
---- “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work” by Alain de Botton (2009), chapter on “Cargo Ship Spotting.”

"Let me have men around me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights;
Yond' Cassius has a lean and hungry look:
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous."
--- "Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare

(editor's note: quote/unquote is a regular feature of The Brazosport News so long as Wilson in St. Louis keep sending them. That is all.)

Alligators, they'll bite ya