Media bias, but a different kind

If you watch the evening news in the US, it's not hard to figure out that there is a group of people who have an agenda to push forth that there is a direct bias in the media. It's often an argument that uses very selective listening and one-sided talking (meaning they don't listen after they blurt out their claims). Anyway, the argument goes that the media is liberal, and it covers the news in a very liberal, anti-conservative manner. Now, you can believe this, or you can decide not to, and believe it or not, neither belief is going to make much of a difference in one's life. If you're well read and someone who pays attention to lots of different sources of news, you can filter out the crap and find the real news. (Hint: The crap comes from both sides. Whenever you hear "Well, in my opinion..." run far away, very fast.)

So, what is this post about? I did mention media bias, didn't I? Yes, I did. But the kind of media bias that caught my interest was the kind that slips under the radar. It wasn't on the front page of the newspaper, it wasn't part of the headline news broadcast, and it wasn't even on the editorial page. It was in the Datebook Section of the San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday edition today. Let me set the tone:

On page 32, it is the Pop Music section, and there are three circular photos that run the length of the page. The first photo is Mariah Carey, the second is Snoop Dog, and the third is Barbra Streisand. Now, here are the captions under each photo (the bolding is mine):

1. Pop diva Mariah Carey will perform Oct. 2 at the Arena in Oakland.
2. Snoop Dog will play October 29 at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.
3. Barbra Streisand will sing Nov. 13 at HP Pavilion in San Jose.

Now, this could all be very innocent, but let's analyze this for a second. Mariah Carey, a pop diva, performs, Snoop Dog, a rapper, plays, and Barbra Streisand, a musical icon actually sings. All three are actually singing. However, is the indication that a rapper is playing rather than performing or singing? And is the indication that a pop star performs, meaning her performance is more visual than auditory? And does the great Barbra meet the only criteria that indicates that she is capable of truly singing?

Is this bias, or is this a case of the writer who tries to shake up the different ways of explaining how people put on concerts so he or she does not repeat the same wording? I suspect that is the case, or at least I hope it is. But if I was someone looking for bias in the media, and this was the kind of thing I felt passionate about, imagine how much mileage you could get from interpreting something sans explanation from the original source? That's the problem with the whole "media is biased" approach. No one is actually interested in finding out why media does what it does, but they create rationalizations based on their own hatred of the sources being criticized. Then, like "reporters" like O'Reilly, they try to bait the people to their shows in an environment they control completely and then they ramble on for days about how they've continued to offer the person they're criticizing a forum to defend himself. It was the same thing with the New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff. He and O'Reilly went on a rampage against each other, and both acted like school children by trying to bait the other into their own media spotlight to continue the argument. Neither would budge, so both gained massive amounts of publicity about how the other guy was a coward and afraid to back up his words in a hostile environment. That's bias. But it's different than the kind of bias we hear about every day because the loudest voices claiming bias tend to be the ones who are usually most guilty of the process of bias, but because they control the message, they can walk around with prudish pride and claim everyone else is guilty while they are the innocent reporters trying to beat down the evil biased people.

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Potentially bad sign

I sign for my new apartment at 3pm today. I wandered over to where my new apartment is, and there are people IN my new apartment still moving out. There's no bed in the bedroom, as they stated that they had housing remove it. It seems to be missing a bit of stuff. I'm wondering if they're just going to "assign" me to this apartment this afternoon and then hope it all works itself out.

As expected, I showed up at Admissions, and they still had me listed as "In Review", which means the Graduate School still hadn't completed the acceptance process. Not good. But they went to work on it, and when we were done, I was accepted to UOP, which means that a lot of other stuff still needs to be completed at the last minute in order to make everything fall into place. I'm going to talk to Financial Aid later on this afternoon because they have no information on me because the acceptance had not yet been completed. That kind of stuff.

Other than that, I'm making things work as I can. I understand there are going to be complications, but as long as I get through these things and still manage to move forward, it's not that big a deal. Housing is a big deal to me. Financial Aid is another. But I've got to do what I can do with what I have available to me. I'm getting tired of practically living out of my car; I can't afford to keep staying in hotels. That kind of money loss is starting to kill me.

That's pretty much it for the moment. I want to be situated and in place so I can start visiting my California friends. I've been having a lot of fun with the people I've met here, including the staff at the Finance Center at UOP who I have declared my new, close friends. It's one of those joke things where you had to be there to really enjoy the humor of it. Either way, I left there with a bunch of young women laughing and enjoying our brief exchange of conversation.
I got the IT people here at UOP to set up my laptop on the network. It's been kind of iffy so far, but until I'm completely settled, I'll settle for what I can get.

The Communications Department is closed today cause they're all on a retreat. I guess they're French or something. Anyway, I'll wander by there tomorrow during the orientation I have to attend and see what's up. I've already been assigned two of the sections I have to teach. Now, I just need to sign up for my own classes and then start to integrate myself into the academic environment.

Well, that's it for now. I'm having pizza for lunch, although I still haven't had the opportunity to eat at the infamous Round Table Pizza, which is quite possibly the ONLY reason why I came back to California to live. I did, however, use one of their rest rooms yesterday, but I was in move mode, so I didn't really have the time to stop and eat. Besides, RTP is more of a lunch meal, and it was roaming towards dinner time.

Haven't gotten married yet, but lots of possibilities. I figured I'd give it a few days first.

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Finally in Stockton

Well, I emailed Housing early this morning to ask if they could give me access to my new apartment today. As expected, they couldn't accomodate me. That tends to be the norm with a lot of things at UOP so far. I'm hoping this isn't the sign of things to be at this university. If it is, this may be the shortest educational experience of my career. I'm not going to be putting up with a lot of the crap I put up with at Western. Bureaucracy is one thing; rudeness and lack of care is something else.

So I'm having to stay in another hotel while waiting until tomorrow so I can sign into my campus apartment. It's really frustrating sometimes.

The ride went well. I was getting really tired of Nevada. That place is nothing but casinos and attempts to separate you from your money. I was so glad to be out of that area and back in California.

So instead of putting my things into place in my new apartment, I'm watching TV in a hotel room. What a waste. Oh well.

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Don't do ANYTHING suspicious in Elko, NV

Today's journey was a huge one. I made it all the way to Elko, Nevada. Originally, I was hoping to make it to Salt Lake City, Utah, but after I made it there, and it was only about 4pm, I decided to continue on. It may have been late in the evening when I got here, and I'm tired as hell, but I made it further than I ever thought I would this quickly.

Unfortunately, if you're ever traveling across the country and decide you're going to be staying at least one night in Nevada, EVERY town is a gambling town, which means EVERY town is a city that has huge casinos and a desire to separate you from your money. I couldn't even find any small little towns that had motels in them. Every motel is housed in a large casino town, which means you get all the fun that comes with such an environment.

I went to get some water and a diet Dr Pepper from a gas station, and let's just say that the local cops followed me the entire time, convinced that I was going to either drink and drive, go into a casino and do something evil that people do in casinos, pick up a prostitute (couldn't cause I didn't see any) or something nefarious. The cops drove around the convenience store I was in over and over again, just waiting for me to get back on the road so they could pull me over. They followed me real close as I went back to my motel and then drove off all fast like after I pulled into the lot and got out of my car with my water and soda.

The drive went well. Somewhere back in Nebraska, I ran into two girls in a economy car that waved to me at the rest area stop and then proceeded to follow me for about two hundred miles across the country. They were both REALLY hot. Anyway, at one point, I finally had to get off the road to see a man about a horse, so they drove by, waved one more time, and that was the last I saw of them.

The drive itself has just been long and arduous. Strangely enough, I didn't really start feeling the effects of it until I hit Salt Lake City, and then I realized how salty the whole area was. It was actually hard to breathe at one point. I kept getting the sense that I had too much salt in my mouth until long after I made it over the mountains that stretch into Nevada.

Tomorrow, I'm not sure what I'm going to do because I'm almost done with the trip, and I don't need to be at UOP until Wednesday, meaning I can't sign into my housing until then. So I might just hit California, find a spot to hang for the night and then run into Stockton early Wednesday morning.

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Ogallala Dreaming....

I had a choice of a number of places to stop, but when I saw the name "Ogallala", I just had to stop there. The city comes from the Sioux word that means "to scatter one's own", which means, um, honestly, I have no idea. But that's where I am now.

I went pretty far today. I would have gone further but I realized that I was going to miss my favorite TV shows on Sunday: The 4400 and The Dead Zone. So I stopped, got a hotel room and am now watching them.

Life is great.

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The Journey Has Begun....

I was recently working on my Uncle Owen's moisture farm when I ran into old Ben Kenobi, and he told me I needed to travel across the galaxy to save Princess Leia. Supposedly, the princess was located in Stockton, California, and this required us to have to rent out a really fast heap of junk space ship from some guy who looks a lot like the guy who played that Indiana Jones guy. Anyway, we traveled across the galaxy, destroyed something called the Death Star, and then made it past Michigan customs into the uncharted territory of Indiana.

Well, my first day was not a huge trek, but I did manage to get out of Michigan and into Illinios. I'm currently about two hours out from Des Moines, Iowa. Right about there I realized I was too tired to continue driving. So, I checked into a Comfort Inn near Yavin IV (from where we assaulted the Death Star), and I'll be continuing again tomorrow after a night's sleep. Hopefully, I'll get the sleep I need.

Well, that's it for the first day. Fortunately, this Comfort Inn has wireless internet. Kind of cool. Plus, I bought some Laffy Taffy, which means it's nothing but a party now.

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Someone forgot to tell our country the Cold War is over

Years and years ago, when I was in my early twenties, I went through what is called a special background investigation. It's one of those things where they really dig deep into your past to find out if you've ever been a commie before. That was back during the Cold War. There was a reason to fear special agents might be working for the "evil" commies. But back then, I barely had time to live my life yet, so my investigation went pretty quick like.

Well, fast forward a few decades, and oh my goodness....

Well, I'm undergoing the same kind of background investigation, but let's just say that having lived a life, the microscope I find myself under is quite "interesting". First off, my foreign friends who I knew at Western Michigan University were "obviously" only close to me because they were after my knowledge of the secret recipe to New Coca-Cola and the 13th ingredient of Kentucky Fried Chicken's recipe. My summer trip to Prague AFTER THE COLD WAR was definitely of "concern" and we had to see if we could find someone who could verify that I was not running off and seeking out my commie contacts who were taking my secrets that I was pilfering from WMU's secret counterterrorism program. And I think I've discovered that all the foreign women I knew were only getting close to me so they could use their feminine wiles to have me reveal the secret location of where we discovered the radioactive element that makes up yogurt. So, for the record, I just want to know why all the foreign women that were using their feminine wiles on me to get my secrets: WHY DIDN'T YOU USE YOUR FEMININE WILES ON ME? It's just not fair. I would have given you my secrets. Really. As a matter of fact, I still will. Call. Operators are standing by.

I took my car in for servicing today, and it cost me...wait...hold for it...$300. It always costs me $300. I have the ultimate $300 service car. It never costs me $52 or $783. It always costs me an average of $300. Anyway, they tell me the car feels ready to make the trip. That's why I love Saturn service. They put your car through therapy to find out if the car really wants to make the trip. So far, they haven't recommended group therapy for me and my good pal.

I still haven't completely figured out how I'm going to get all my stuff to Stockton. I'm still thinking of doing a mixture of US media mail and Fed Ex ground. The more I think about it, the more I think I may just do everything Fed Ex and pick up the few extra hundred bucks I'll have to shell out to do it. I'm not sure I'm really comfortable lugging tons of boxes to the post office. I guess I'll have to verify that Fed Ex will pick up my boxes first.

Anyway, a few days left. I leave on Saturday. I sold my futon today (sorry, Melanie, you and your evil East German ways will never get to sit on our favorite futon again :) ). Everything else is moving out of the apartment slowly but surely.

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Just plugging along

Today was my first day officially unemployed. My final date at work was yesterday. For some reason, before leaving, I'd been getting very little sleep. Last night, I got almost no sleep. I spent most of this day completely exhausted.

But I started going through my closet this evening, trying to empty boxes where I used to just end up throwing tons of paperwork that I felt I would sort through later. Well, I've done that several moves in a row, and I've never gone through the paperwork. Well, I'm going through it now and getting rid of tons of it. I no longer want to be dragging this useless stuff around the country with me.

I have been throwing away a lot of stuff. I'm really happy about that. Each time I do it, I catch myself and think about putting the stuff back somewhere else, and then I pile it up near my door and then rush it out to the complex's dumpster. It's hard to do when you're one of those people who likes to just save everything, convinced you're going to need 15 staplers one day or some other item that has been in a drawer or closet for years.

I'm working on it.

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Last day will be Friday

I didn't really want to move my last day at work earlier, cause I was hoping to make as much money as possible before leaving, but I discovered I had to be in California sooner than planned. There was going to be no way to get everything done with only one day after work ends on Thursday and then having to leave on Saturday. This gives me a week to pack up everything, send it, get some maintenance work done on the car, do some lab work before I leave, square away about a million things that need to be done, and then start on my way for the land of freedom and promise.

Other than that, it's just a lot of work getting ready to leave. I never realized one person could accumulate so much junk before. But yes, I did, and now I need to get rid of most of it. Lugging around the same junk I have no use for is not going to happen this time around.

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Countdown continues....

I have 10 days until I'm done at Spectrum Health. I was intending to leave for California about a week after that, but it looks like I need to be in Stockton by August 23rd. It appears that new student orientation is August 24th, so I need to be well on my way before that. With all that in mind, it appears that I'm going to have to leave Michigan by August 19th or 20th, probably the 19th. That gives me two days after I quit work to actually start getting ready. I may end up in a problem here, forcing me to leave even earlier because two days really isn't enough time to get all of this stuff done. I thought I had about four or five days more than I actually have.

I've been doing some background reading on the Soviet Union for the rewrite of my novel, To Touch the Unicorn, which is the one novel I have written three times already, due to the constant change in governments in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union to Russia and surrounding governments. Now that I have decided to write the novel within a moment of time, the August 1991 coup period, I think I have the proper place to put this story. It does mean a change in perspective for the novel, because now I have a new reason for why the plot takes place rather than the James Bondian type of story that it was before.

I put myself out there on some craigslist entries to find a future girlfriend. A few people have written back interested. So, who knows? I certainly couldn't find what I wanted to find in Michigan. Perhaps California will be what I've been seeking all along. It's too bad because there was at least one person I was very interested in while in Michigan; she just wasn't. It's pretty sad when you find someone who is exactly what you're seeking, but you're not what she's seeking.

I still don't have my "official" acceptance letter from UOP. The communications department graduate advisor says not to worry about it, that I've been accepted because they've already sent me the offer letter for the TA position that I returned signed. He said the graduate department is just really behind schedule. But when you're moving clear across the country, it's always nice to have all the T's dotted and the I's crossed. Or something like that.

I'm in a weird writing state right now. Having finished the Ameriad, I have been in a writing hiatus period, but lately the ideas have been swarming like bees looking for Piglet and Winnie the Pooh. This happens to me often where I've finished a project and then new ones start to resonate within me, forcing me to start putting together ideas for future projects. I usually don't do anything with those projects for years, but eventually they come to the surface and integrate themselves into ideas as I never suspected would happen. My short story, "Wise Men Say" happened that way. I had a twenty second snippet of dialogue that ran around in my head for about three years before the whole gay bashing, three person perspective of a man with amnesia reliving a bashing incident from every involved character's perspective came about. It was, at least for that period, one of the more powerful stories I had ever written. Probably still is. One day, I still need to do something with that story. I've been considering putting together a collection of my short stories and trying to sell those to a publisher. I have enough of them; I just have to decide which ones would be appropriate for a higher level publication process.

I'm getting really nervous about this move. I know it's the right thing to do, but I haven't made any brave moves in a long time. I've kind of fallen into a rut where I've done nothing that involved taking any chances. I know this is good for me, but sometimes it's hard to see the road before you, even if it's right there in front of you. If anything, it's forcing me to throw away so much stuff. With much more to go yet. Although I refuse to part with any of my books.

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The whole housing thing never seems to end

Yesterday, I called to verify that my housing at UOP is settled, and I got one of those student workers on the phone who really shouldn't ever be in a job talking to other humans. He told me: "They haven't made any decisions on placements yet, probably Friday, and I'm not really sure you have a place."

Well, let's just say that immediately put my day into a tailspin that even Superman returning couldn't stop. Later last night, I called back to housing, and I was told that yes, I was assigned to an apartment, #8, supposedly, and I should be getting more information. I kind of got the idea that getting actual, substantial information, is still going to be an evasive process, as have most things so far with UOP, but for now I guess I have an apartment. For the moment....

I'm really tired of Michigan. I so want to be gone.

I got yet another message from the government investigator position job I'm waiting on the background investigation for. For some reason, they can never seem to start the investigation because yet another thing is missing, even if it has been faxed to them four or five times already. Last night, I received an order (yes, an ORDER) from them to get an immediate drug screening, which I ended up having to do today after work. I guess they're under the impression that people don't actually have real jobs during the regular day and they can just drop everything and get lab work done at a moment's notice. I think the next complication is going to cause me to go tell them where they can deposit it, if you know what I mean.

I managed to pack one box yesterday of books. Oh god I have so much to do. It's not even funny. And I can't even figure out where to begin.

My last day at work is August 17th, although I sure wish I could just say "Friday's it for me" and start spending the rest of my time getting ready to leave.

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