Clean Your Cars!

I honestly haven't had much to post about lately, but the return of winter brings with it one of my big pet peeves.

Namely, people who can't take a few extra minutes to clean snow off of their cards.

We've only had two days of the white stuff, and I've already been behind a half-dozen vehicles that either A) create a blizzard in their wake or B) cannot possibly see out their back windows.

So, allow me to establish a few do's and don't for winter-time car cleaning:

1. Hopping in your vehicle, turning on the defrost, and pulling away does not qualify as cleaning off the snow.

2. If I can't see inside your car, you can't possibly see out of it. It's not that hard to brush the snow from your back window.

3. Cleaning off just the driver's side of the windows does not qualify. Take the extra minute to do both sides.

4. While you're at it, brush the snow from your roof and trunk as well. I like winter wonderlands as much as the next guy, but not when I'm driving 55 MPH down a highway.

5. Rule 5 applies even more to those of you with pickup trucks with bedliners ... on which about 4 feet of snow piles up.

6. All of the rules apply even more to those of you who, despite owning garages, still park your vehicles in the driveway or street.

Yeah, I know it's cold out. Yes, you might have to set your alarm 15 minutes earlier than you normally would in the morning. But, it would make you a much safer driver, and make the experience a lot more enjoyable for those on the roads around you.

So long Herb

There's been enough written about today's passing of Indians pitcher and broadcaster Herb Score that I won't rehash his history here.

But, I wanted to take a couple of minutes to reflect on Herb's influence in my life.

You see, I was a baseball player and fan from the time I was 5 or 6 ... and the voice that always brought those games to life for me was Herb Score.

Keep in mind, when I was growing up, cable TV wasn't really commonplace just yet.

So, while the Indians were on the tube, it wasn't any more than 20 games or so on WUAB.

That meant, to get your fix, you had to listen to the radio. And that meant the voice of Herb Score.

Sure, he became adept at messing up names, and sometimes got lost while describing the action. But, that was also part of his charm.

But, Herbie had a greater effect upon me. You see, I wanted to BE him.

I'm pretty sure that at a school-sponsored senior graduation party at my high school, we all wrote down our goals for life.

I believe I wrote down that I wanted to replace Herb Score in the broadcast booth.

I mean, what could be better? Watching and calling baseball games all summer long?

While I didn't quite achieve that goal, I do think the idea of becoming Herb is what pushed me to pursue journalism and broadcasting.

So, to Herb's family, my thoughts and prayers.

And to Herb himself, thanks for the inspiration, and remember it's always a "beautiful day for baseball."

Farewell Opus

Well, I already posted on politics and cartoons this week ... why not one more!

In all the hubbub of the election, I forgot to say goodbye to an old friend.

His name is Opus. And he's a cartoon penguin.

Opus was one of the stars of the great "Bloom County" comic strip of the 80's. He eventually migrated to a Sunday-only strip called "Outland," retired again, and returned with more Sunday-only adventures named ... appropriately enough ... "Opus."

This may sound odd, but I'm gonna miss the guy.

You see, I first discovered "Bloom County" during my high school years. I found its left-leaning political commentary hilarious.

In fact, every afternoon (yes, the Canton Rep was an afternoon paper back then), I'd grab the paper and head right to the funnies.

While other teens were reading "The Far Side" and "Calvin & Hobbes" ... I enjoyed the political satire of Opus, the wise-beyond-their years Milo and Binkley, sleazy lawyer Steve Dallas, kid genius Oliver Wendell Holmes, meadow critters Hodgepodge and Portnoy, and of course, the once-dead Bill The Cat.

Opus' creator, Berkeley Breathed, said that he approached the comics from two angles ... part Charles Schulz and part Michael Moore.

But, Breathed ended "Opus" for the final time this past Sunday. He says the political discourse in the country is too rabid, and he fears his Moore side will overwhelm his Schulz side.

So, rather than let his prized penguin become jaded, he sent him off to nap ... within the pages of a popular children's book.

It's weird to say that seeing a cartoon come to an end makes me sad ... but it does a bit. I've enjoyed following Opus for probably more than 20 years, and will miss waking up to him on Sundays.

It's also sad to think that with the decline of newspapers, cartoons will probably die out as well.

And Opus might just be the last, great character to say goodnight.

One last word

On the election ... Simpsons style. Thankfully, it's just a cartoon!

Election Night Wins and Losses

With apologies to my friend, Struke, over at Media Matters, it's worth discussing the winners and losers of the local media from last night's election.

This was my first election in 15 years where I wasn't a member of the media, and I always remember those nights as exciting, yet always teetering on the edge of disaster.

This year, more than ever, local stations had to balance the old (reporting results on television) with the new (embracing the power of the internet.)

So who succeeded and who failed? Here's one man's opinion. And for full disclosure, I used to work at WKYC/Channel 3.

First, the HUGE losers of the night, in my mind, were Channels 3, 8, and 19. I was ASTONISHED when all three cut away from network programming at 11pm to go to local news.

11pm, of course, is when the networks chose to call this historic election for Barack Obama, and the party in Chicago began.

So, instead of Brian Williams, Katie Couric and Shepard Smith, I was left with the local anchors talking over live pictures. Now, I will confess to not know whether Fox's network coverage planned to go past 11 or not. If it did not, 8 is excused from this rant.

Seriously, an election of this magnitude, and you go local at 11???? Brian Williams, at 10:45pm or so, even teased that viewers would "want to stay with them" at the top of the hour, as some big races would be called.

I can't even begin to tell you how stunned I was.

The big winner here was Channel 5. They had the foresight to stay with ABC News and Charlie Gibson through the calling of the race ... before going to local news 10-15 minutes later.

Of course, even the best decisions end up poorly. Once 5 took over, their first live hit from a reporter was with Curtis Jackson ... standing in the newsroom!!!!!

As for the rest of the wins and losses, I'll go by station. Also, since I live in Summit County, the race I was following the most was Issue 8, the Sewers for Scholarships proposal. As you'll see, each station handled its coverage a little differently.

WKYC/Channel 3: I kind of felt bad for my old friends last night, as it appeared to be a rough night for them.

The Good: The station embraced the new era, hosting Meet The Bloggers in their newsroom for the evening, once again. wkyc.com provided a live stream of them working, although it really just turned out to be a webcam shot of 7-8 people's backs ... their heads buried in laptop screens.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why they couldn't have had someone hosting this online, although there was a chat window open.
WKYC also used Facebook as a means to supplement their coverage.
Unfortunately, the videos they posted were "behind the scenes" items, which involved people waiting in line for food, and telling us what they were eating.
I would have preferred to see Tom Beres and his political experts providing some online punditry, since they were only used in some of the stations cut-ins.
The station also promised election results on my cell phone, but I did not test this out.

The Bad: Election results on wkyc.com took forever to load (at least for me.) The station was ambitious by trying to deliver results for more than 600 races. But, it was slow going.
I couldn't understand the station's decision to not use the end of the hour cut-ins.
Instead, we were left with Pete Williams doing some secondary anchoring, which was really dry, and as one friend of mine put it, a "buzzkill." Why 3 didn't use the opportunities for more local cut-ins is beyond me,
Anchor Tim White also went out of his way to show a great level of disdain for the "new media," at one point telling viewers, after a segment with Meet The Bloggers, that most of the television viewers had "no idea" what blogs are. You might be surprised Tim.

The Ugly: This was the truly ugly. Issue 8, the election issue I followed most closely, was reporting zeroes all night on wkyc.com. As were most of the Akron area issues.
It's great to show me people eating pizza on Facebook, but when that's delivered instead of the results, it's a big fail.
Luckily, Akron Bureau Chief Eric Mansfield was trying to keep folks updated on his blog. The station does get kudos for allowing Eric to cover reaction to the loss, which resulted in a great soundbite from Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic.

Channel 5/WEWS: They might have been the big winners of the evening, for reasons beyond sticking with the network for the calling of the race.

The Good: While their numbers were slower, they had the first updated figures from Issue 8 on newsnet5.com.
5 also took a big step forward in delivering election updates through Twitter. This was a big undertaking for someone, but you know what, it worked for those of us subscribing to Channel 5's feed. It actually delivered information, and while none of it drove me to watch them, it may have worked for a few folks.
The station also devoted reporter John Kosich to providing online reports on the latest from the election, and I believe also had Duane Pohlman blogging from the BOE.

The Bad: I didn't see a whole lot to complain about to be honest. They were the only station not to host a live web chat online, which was probably a mistake on a night like this one, where people are looking to discuss the results. If there was one there, I failed to find it.


Fox 8/WJW: Channel 8 had a solid, if unspectacular showing.

The Good: 8 embraced the web age with a live chat on their website, much like Channel 3 had on their Mogulus channel with Meet the Bloggers. Didn't see too much more in the way of innovation, however. They stuck with what they do best.

The Bad: While Channel 8 did deliver my Issue 8 results, they were woefully behind. Also, while the station included Issue 8 in their online results, they did not include the companion Issue 9.

19 Action News/WOIO: Some interesting leaps forward, combined with one terrible stumble.

The Good: 19 also embraced the web age in a couple ways. First, they were the third station to include a live chat on their webpage. Seems like a simple enough inclusion, although Channel 5 did not do one.
19 supplemented the chat with a live stream of discussion hosted by one of their anchors. Nothing fancy, in fact it looked a lot like you see when you watch Mike and Mike on ESPN. Just some people sitting around microphones, talking about the results. While it wasn't fancy, it was effective.

The Ugly: I'm skipping right to ugly here, because, despite all the things they did above, they failed to even list Issue 8 on their results website. Not good.

So, if I had to list the stations in order of how they handled election night, Channel 5, to me, is the clear winner.

The second, third and fourth spots I'll leave up to you. 3 was the most aggressive, but also had the largest failings to me. 8 was conservative, but steady. 19 delivered fresh online content, but forgot to, you know, give me the numbers.

Also, a couple notes to other media sources. Ohio.com may have been the smartest in dealing with results, providing a direct link right to the Summit Co. BOE website.

Also, akronnewsnow.com pretty much copied and pasted the BOE results right to their website. However, some of their analysis was a bit lacking ... such as this update:

"In the race for the 41st Congressional District seat, Latourette is still in an almost dead heat against O'Neill. In the rest of the Congressional races and those vying for a spot in the House of Representatives, the Democrats are taking the cake at this time."

Apparently, the author forgot that this race actually stretched OUTSIDE the boundaries of Summit County, where LaTourette was crushing O'Neill.

My final conclusion, if you want to find out how your local race is doing ... the best plan is to seek the info for yourself ... by heading right to your county's BOE website.

Follow along!

No posts today ... enjoy the election!

The Obama Rally

My feet hurt, my back aches, but it was all worth it.

You see, in my old job, I was the won who got to sit back ... while others attended the numerous political rallies of election season.

But yesterday, a friend and I decided to join the fray.

We were among the estimated 80,000 who flocked to Malls A, B & C in Cleveland for the Barack Obama rally.

But, I'm going to start with a confession. If it was Obama alone, I wouldn't have been there.

No, the appearance of Bruce Springsteen put my decision over the top.

I'm a pretty serious Springsteen fan, I've seen his every appearance in Cleveland going back to the "Tunnel of Love" tour.

The only exception, when he played at a John Kerry rally in 2004.

Some overall impressions of the day:

While the line was well-organized, I felt the crew inside the Mall was poorly orgainzed when it came to crowd control. I got forced out of a good standing position by some over-zealous organizer, and thrown to the back of the pile on a far side.

Also, I thought using a sideways setup on Mall B was a poor choice as well ... with the overflow crowds on Malls A and C. Didn't seem to me to be a good use of space.

A bit of a stumble by the Obama team ... when their "local" organizer came out early in the proceedings to remind everyone that Joe & Jill Biden would be in Copley Monday.

Only he pronounced Copley as Coopley. The crowd got a bit of a chuckle over this one.

After a prayer, an anthem, and a pledge ... we got some politicians, including Sherrod Brown. One gets the impression that Mr. Brown and Mr. Obama are pretty tight.

I wondered to myself how many rabid Springsteen fans would show up just for the Boss.

Turns out ... the majority of people I could see and hear were there to the see the Democratic nominee ... and not the rock and roll hall of famer. I think its interesting that Obama's popularity has eclipsed that of a singing legend.

Bruce took the stage and continues to prove why he's the best. We got classics like "Promised Land" and "Thunder Road." A predictable (but satisfying) appearance of "Youngstown." A cover of Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" (complete with crowd sing-a-long). And it ended with "The Rising".

But, it's what happened in the middle that sent me tingling. Bruce's wife (and fellow musician) Patti Scialfa joined him on stage for "Working On A Dream." A song that is now speculated to be a brand new Springsteen composition, debuting at the rally last night.

If true, it's a dream come true for a Springsteen fan. A world premiere. It's the second of my fandom ... and they're always a tres cool moment.

When the Obamas took the stage ... another great moment ... as the entire Springsteen clan joined the entire Obama family on stage.

As for the nominee himself. I will say this, which we already know. He is an absolutely electric speaker, and that's no different in person.

Obama got off more than a few zingers. And, the abolute high moment was when he was taking aim at Dick Cheney's endorsement of John McCain.

At the mere mention of Cheney's name, the heavens began to open, and a cold November rain came down ... a light rain, but cold nonetheless.

Obama offered a great ad-lib ... saying something along the lines of, "See what happens at the mere mention of Dick Cheney's name."

All in all, I'm glad I went. It was an opportunity to hear a few tunes from my musical idol, and a chance to be within a stone's throw of a man who might be the next President of the United states.