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Blood-Sucking Critters
Take care the next time you take a walk through the woods. Or through your yard, for that matter. An acquaintance’s child was recently diagnosed with lyme disease. Normally that would just be a reminder to the rest of us to be careful. But this story is a little different; this child has not spent any time recently in any of the risk areas identified by the CDC. As far as she can tell, the tick came from right here in Lincoln. That’s something worth thinking about.
In an odd coincidence, shortly after my dad heard about the child he discovered a tick on himself. Fortunately it was not yet embedded. The tick likely came either from the Abbott Sports Complex or from my father’s own yard. Neither matches most notions of ideal tick habitat.
The grassy and wooded areas near Beal Slough, on the other hand, do strike me as prime tick habitat. Daisy and I walk along the creek all the time. You can bet I’ll be checking both her and I for ticks after our walks from now on.
If you do happen to find a tick on yourself, remove it immediately and make a note of when you removed it, and when and where you may have acquired it. If you become ill shortly thereafter, that information will help your physician determine whether or not the tick caused the illness.
An Early Look
After many—too many—hours in front of the computer this weekend, I’m happy to give you an early peek at the changes I’m making to Lincolnite. I have a long, long ways to go, but I wanted to prove to you that I really have been up to something this weekend. What you are able to see here—that is, the few pieces that actually work—is just a tiny fraction of what I accomplished these past couple days. A whole lot of behind-the-scenes work went on as well.
As you can see, I am completely rebranding Lincolnite. It has a new logo, new colors, and a new underlying structure. And most importantly, I have a renewed interest in “re-finishing” this thing. For those of you aren’t aware, Lincolnite was finished a couple years ago, until a devastating database accident wiped out everything. Everything. Data, design ... all of it, gone in a flash. I spent several months in a bit of a depression, and I have spent the past couple years fiddling rather aimlessly, trying to figure out how to bring Lincolnite back from the dead—or if I even wanted to try.
I now know that I do.
In fact, I am putting a business plan in place that might even make me a few bucks. I’m not talking big bucks. Just enough to pay the bills to keep this site going, and maybe a little extra so that I can take the Missus out to dinner one extra night each month. I believe there is a market for a community-oriented website in Lincoln. I intend to tap into that market.
All of that aside, I hope you will take the time to let me know what you think of the new look—or at least the early incarnation of the new look. Don’t be surprised if you see some goofy goings-on on the site over the next several weeks as I play with the design and implement new features. If you hang around and toss me some suggestions now and then, I promise you’ll like what I have to offer in return.
A New Look for Lincolnite
Lincolnite is receiving the first pieces of a long-overdue renovation this weekend. It’s not yet clear to me how much I’ll get done this weekend. I have a good amount of the homepage redesigned, but far more than that needs to be done. I hope to have a reasonable prototype ready for you to see by tomorrow night, but that depends on a lot of factors. Cross your fingers.
FOX News and Eric Margolis: Fair and Balanced?
I am a frequent reader of the FOX News website, not so much because I agree with its conservative-slanted take on news, but because I check it regularly along with my usual routine of getting perspectives from all the usual US mainstream media suspects (i.e. the big 5: CNN, FOX, WaPo, NYT, LA Times). This time consuming habit grew out of my days in grad school when I used to channel surf cable TV btw CNN, FOX and (ugh) MSNBC to get the daily take on what are arguably the most popular sources of news for the majority of americans.
Anyway, I’ve noticed recently that Eric Margolis has become a more frequent contributor to FOX on global affairs. Margolis is a controversial figure for a number of reasons, most notably for his criticism directed at Israel and Russia (the latter being how I discovered him in my research in the Chechnya situation). I think he may be Canadian but not sure. I no longer have the benefit of watching FOX regularly as I once did since i have the basic Time Warner cable package (surprise surprise - CNN only). Margolis and FOX seem like an odd couple - FOX being mainly an uncomprimising pro-Bushite neo-con forum. Margolis’ addition may be an effort by FOX by to add an “old conservative” voice to their line-up, such as CNN has Novak and MSNBC has Pat Buchanan.
System Updated
I just updated the software that runs this site. I haven’t noticed any glitches so far, but let me know if you see anything goofy going on.
LJS Bias
The ol’ Lincoln Journal Star is always good for a laugh, and today’s edition is no exception. Don Walton—a man who is to journalism what hot dogs are to fine cuisine—wrote a simple article about a local man who discovered postcards from William Jennings Bryan sitting in an antique shop. The man bought the postcards for $1.00 apiece.
Sounds like a pretty harmless story, right? Well it would have been, save for these few paragraphs stuffed needlessly into the article:
Even today, Larrick’s eyes light up as he recalls the moment of discovery.
“I was emotionally distraught at the time,” Larrick said, agonizing over the Bush administration’s steady march to war in Iraq.
“Out of the blue,” he said, “here were these cards from Bryan” mailed to Lincoln a century ago in the midst of a journey seeking peace around the globe.
Larrick was the Green Party’s congressional nominee in the 1st District last November.
Through all the debates about health care, farm policy and Social Security reform, he made the case for peace and argued passionately against the war.
Talk about a non sequitur! I can actually hear the woeful background music as Larrick weeps about how he was “emotionally distraught.” And that last paragraph, where the hell did it come from? Who cares about Larrick’s opinions about the war in the middle of an article about a few postcards?
Neither the LJS nor Don Walton will ever be taken seriously if they continue to publish this crap (and on the front page!).
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