Have some coffee, like this guy, Lee Gray, in the newsroom of WKLO, which was apparently a groovy Kentucky radio station from the 60’s/70’s. There are more groovy photos where that came from at http://www.1080wklo.com/
Try this. Let’s have a cup of coffee and read the news together. How about the San Jose Mercury? It seems to land reasonably near my doorstep fairly regularly, so it’s easy enough for me to get a hold of. If you can find a copy of today’s news, you can sing along, but more likely by the time this post is up, all this will be at least a day old, so you’ll have to dive to the bottom of the recycle just to find one.
Well, today is the 9th. So. Grab a cup o’ joe, curl up with the computer, and let me tell you about yesterday’s news.
First off, now that Obama is the Dem. nominee, I have to wonder what effect the press had on the result. Supporter or not, the media weren’t quite fair to Clinton, whether it had to do with months of hinting that she should just drop out, an AP article in the Merc early in the race mocking her laugh, or any one of Letterman’s billion cheap shots at her pantsuit. SNL didn’t help, and the early front runner was left in the dust the moment the wind shifted.
With that rant aside, back to yesterday’s news. We could start with the natural disasters. Indianapolis flooded, and the whole Midwest storm badness has already been said to kill eight, one in Indianapolis. Hard to imagine that sort of weather while we sit here in the still heat.
China had a 5.0 aftershock. Peanuts compared to what they’ve been through. As of now, they say the effects aren’t known, although the aftershock did remind everyone about the threat of flooding, considering what’s said to be a rather unstable dam system, which is under surveillance.
Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo saw a rare violent crime, as a man plowed over a crowd of people in a white van, jumped out, and started “indiscriminately stabbing” people with a large hunting knife. The man, Tomohiro Kato, 25, reportedly said he was “tired of life.” So he stabbed a bunch of people, and he seemed to be aiming at rather geekish young’uns standing in line outside a comic book shop or something. What a target. The article said that it’s pretty rare for attacks like this to happen anywhere in Japan, and in fact, this is the second attack of its kind this year, which is alarming.
Is this western influence? Seing Coca Cola over there is one thing, but when our disturbed patterns show up elsewhere in the world, that’s something else. Perhaps it’s narcissistic to think that the heavily eyelinered American troubled youth would hava worldwide impact, but this sort of thing is more common in our society, and to see this sort of violence pop up in a similar form in a place where it isn’t common leaves questions.
Elsewhere on the planet, Laura Bush visited Afghanistan in a gesture meant to prove committment to President Hamid Karzai, and that the U.S. hasn’t forgotten about that side of the world in the midst of all the exciting news about movie stars being spotted on the red carpet sans underwear. There’s a wonderful picture of her propped up against some U.S. troops. She emphasized her commitment to women’s rights, and violence around the country continued as scheduled, with 11 police and one journalist dead.
Finally, in local news, we have some concern that Vientmase Americans might have a hard time getting into San Jose politics after the whole Little Saigon debacle with Councilwoman Nguyen taking all the flack from District Seven. Nguyen was the first Vietnamese-American to break through, and it seemed far from the last, or thats what the articles say. But now everyone sort of wonders.
There. Well, my coffee’s all done. Wasn’t that fun, sipping java and having the news dictated to you from a local paper? We should do it again real soon. Good night and good luck.





