Things That Caught My Limited Attention Span
Flight attendant in bomb threat case being sent to Nashville
This is a follow-up to the story I linked to a few days ago about a plane being diverted to Nashville due to a bomb threat. Turns out a flight attendant having "personal problems" put the note in the restroom on the flight. There's also a
follow-up story in today's paper which covers a lot of the same ground. I'm not sure what the motivation would be for her to do this--but then again, I can't imagine any problem severe enough that putting such a note in the restroom of a plane would seem like a GOOD idea. And she's a flight attendant, for heaven's sake. Surely she would know that this is the kind of thing you just don't do--jokingly or not.
Asst. Attorney General Organizes Gay Pride Parade on State Time
This report which aired last night on Channel 4's news was the topic of conversation this morning on 104.5's
The Wake-Up Zone morning show. (I heard snippets while
Rick and Bubba were on commerical) The basic point the hosts, Charlie Monk and Mark Howard, had was--who cares? OK, so the guy used a bit of time at work to do this? It doesn't appear to have interfered with his work nor does it appear he made long distance calls using the FAX machine on the state's dime. Howard's point was that because Michael Bassham was organizing the gay pride parade, that's why this was "news." Had he been doing something like organizing a daughter's wedding or coordinating an event for the VFW, it wouldn't be that big a deal. Of course now, this guy has been outed to all of Nashville and Middle Tennessee and called under scrutiny for something that, quite frankly, most of us do every day. And let's face it--normal business hours for some of the places he might have been trying to contact to arrange these things would be during work hours. Getting a phone call or two or sending out a local fax isn't really a huge abuse. Now if he was mass faxing out info or spending four or five hours a day on the phone then, yes, this would be totally inappropriate. But it doesn't appear to be that way. Heck, without the ability to time at work for personal matters, none of us would ever really get much blogging done! I guess it must have been a slow news week for the I-team, though I am considering e-mailing Nancy Amons about all of us who blog and see if that makes the local news. (Just kidding!)
Spending the night with fiance lands divorced mom in jail
This was the above the fold, big headline today in
The Tennessean, so how could it NOT catch your attention? And to show you had much blogging has taken over my life, my first thought in readng this was in relation to a
post in L's Stream of Consciousness.... from Wednesday and thinking, "Well, it looks like someone had too much Happy Genitalia Time and it landed them in jail." My thanks to L for coming up with that unique turn of phrase.
My other thought on this story was that the woman in question was planning her wedding this weekend but will instead be spending time in jail. How embarassing is it that you have family and friends coming in for the wedding and they pick up the local paper only to see your name splashed across the front page in relation to this?
Tighter driver's license law cuts wait in testing stations
First of all, I'm all for stricter security in obtaining official documents such as a driver's license or a state ID. Definitely a good thing. However, why couldn't they have implemented these steps before I had to wait in line three and a half hours at the Murfressboro DMV station?!? Of course, I did get a good bit of reading done in the line and I did make some new comrades from trials of waiting in line. And I have to admit, I still have a wealth of respect for the lady in front of me who threw a hissy fit when a young, attractive girl "cut" in line. Even though the DMV guys did nothing about it, I still admire her.
Speaking of DMV, I know there are some who would say that in order to deal with the state's revenue crisis, we should cut the funding for the road paving. Heaven knows, if you've been stuck in traffic during the time when they're doing resurfacing or expanding the freeway, you can't help but agree. But, I will say this. I took a little drive up to Padukah, KY for a job interview the other day and the difference in road quality between Kentucky and Tennessee is night and day. Now, I'm not saying we should cut essential things like education so we have great roads, but I often think we forget how good we've got it here. We really do have some great, well maintained roads and we should remember that.
Finally, we have some good reviews for
Harry Potter and the Prison of Azkaban. Here's one from
The Tennessean, one from
USA Today,
The Washington Post and a good but less than raving one by
Roger Ebert. I must admit I'm eager to see the third installment of the series, especially since it's playing on the IMAX here in Nashville.
posted by Michael Hickerson at 6/04/2004 09:12:00 AM |
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