As you know, Earth Day was Tuesday of this week. I’m doing my part, reading the news online and saving a tree. By the way, have you noticed that newspapers never promote themselves as being green, because the best green thing to do for a newspaper is not to print it, which saves energy (the presses), fuel (the delivery), and paper. So, to save you the energy of reading things yourself, here are some articles of interest:
- From the “…and that little minx Wendy” Department: The owner of Arby’s is buying Wendy’s for $2.34 Billion Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers. This does not please the families of Dave Thomas, who have a beef with the buyer. The new owner will change their name to include “Wendy’s”. Also, remember that the little minx still won’t care about you. In related merger-mania, Rupert Murdoch wants to buy NY Newsday.
- From the “What Will They Outsource Next?” Department: We’ve all heard of things being outsourced, from customer service to take-out orders. Even legal research is being outsourced. The new frontier? Debt Collection is being outsourced to India.
- From the “I-24 G-(cough cough)” Department: It appears that banning smoking has one bad side effect: The income at bingo games supporting charities has gone down. It appears that those that like bingo would rather do it at Indian Gaming where Native American Tobacco can be used, as opposed to forgoing it for a good cause. Remember: People don’t play Bingo to support your charity.
- From the “If They Don’t See It, It Doesn’t Exist” Department: The Washington Post has an interesting piece regarding the Iraq War. It appears that even when the family invited the media to the funeral, Arlington Cemetary Keeps Them Away. It appears a significant lesson has been learned from Vietnam, and it wasn’t regarding getting out of unpopular wars where victory wasn’t possible. No, the lesson was that media coverage of the horrors of war makes people hate war. The daily reports from Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather made people grow to hate the death and destruction of young lives. So, in this war, we don’t show them. No flag draped coffins, no parents mourning the loss of a child, no coverage of the damage to vets. We don’t report it, it didn’t happen. Sad.
