Poor Elkhart. How would you like to live in a place that became "a symbol of the economic meltdown"?
The Big Boys of journalism are still trudging there to find out how the little people of the heartland are weathering this turribul recession. Of course, they don't all see the same things. The Wall Street Journal reports that there are signs of hope as unemployment falls from 18.9 percent to 14.5 percent, with embattled RV makers actually starting to hire people back:
Things you never see at the high-end steakhouse:
WARREN, Mich. — A man who walked into a Michigan diner with a 5-inch knife stuck in his chest ordered a coffee and complained only about the cold weather.
The 52-year-old man, who has not been identified, called a 911 operator in Warren on Sunday night to ask that an ambulance be sent to Bray's, an eatery in neighboring Hazel Park.
Complained about the weather
Wouldn't it be a wonderful Christmas if states really could get some power back
South Carolina's attorney general plans to investigate the vote-buying that surrounded the proposal in the Senate majority leader's office.
When newspapers go away, what are you going to do for information as valuable as this, from USA Today?
Happy winter. It's cold in much of the country and a perfect time for a brisk walk, a bracing run or a giddy trip down a ski slope. But winter also can be hazardous to health — and may be especially tough on hearts, hips, hands and hides (your skin).
So, what do you think? Is this guy a geek or a nerd?
But David Anderegg, a professor of psychology at Bennington College, says that merely mentioning terms like nerd or geek serves to perpetuate the stereotype. The words are damaging, much like racial epithets, he says, and should be avoided.
The juxtaposition of the day is for all you dog lovers out there. First, we have the story of a brave woman's demise:
Police in western Indiana say a woman trying to remove her injured dog from a highway was struck and killed by a vehicle.
Sometimes I might seem a litle gloomy, but I'm a cockeyed optimist compared to some people today. Time magazine calls the oughts the "decade from hell" ("This decade was as awful as any peacetime decade in the nation's entire history") and Americans rate the current decade as the "worst in 50 years":
Thw "Regret the Error" blog has released its annual list of "best' (i.e. most embarrassing") media corrections for 2009. Lots of contenders, but this one from The New York Times might be my favorite:
With the coming closing of B. Dalton's, Laredo, Texas, population about a quarter of a million, is about to become the nation's largest city without a single bookstore. The story includes this "Well, duh!" observation:
Some worry that the closing could send a message that books and reading are not priorities in Laredo, a hot, steamy city of 230,000 that is choked by smog from trucks lining up at the border, which is home to the nation's biggest entry point for trucks and trains.
The National Association of Manufacturers sent President Obama a plea on the eve of his trip to Copenhagen (pdf file):
