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ron olsen on the web/news & commentary/featured in the valley news group newspapers

Need A Good Laugh?

Posted on January 31, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

A link to Charlie Brooker’s “Newswipe” showed up on one of the blogs the other day.  Now people are sending me email with links to his show on the BBC via YouTube.  The guy is very smart and very funny.  Especially so, if you’re in the tv news biz.   Hopefully, BBC America will eventually start […]

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TV Anchor Quits Job To Help In Haiti

Posted on January 30, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

Julie Pearce, 29 year-old weekend anchor for KBJR-TV in Duluth, Minnesota, since 2006, is both a broadcast journalist and a nurse.  After seeing what’s happening in Haiti, she’s decided to leave the tv news biz and go back to nursing.    She’s heading for Haiti.
“After all,” she said, “There will always be part journalist that runs […]

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Sorry Haiti - No Health Insurance - No Healthcare

Posted on January 30, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

I was wondering how long it would be before our healthcare system settled into a realization that the Haitian earthquake victims have no health insurance.  It’s finally happened.  The Governor of the great State of Florida,  has called for clarification from the feds on who will be paying for the earthquake victims being delivered into […]

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The Mind Of Michael Moore

Posted on January 30, 2010 - Filed Under Movies | Leave a Comment

An interesting piece on Michael Moore by Chris McGreal in the Guardian looks at documentarian’s most recent film, “Capitalism: A Love Story” and the mind behind the movie.
“One movie maybe can’t make a difference,” Moore says. “I’ll say, what’s the point of this? What do I want [my audiences] to do? Obviously I want them […]

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Pasadena Playhouse Closing

Posted on January 29, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

It appears the “great recession” has landed on the Pasadena Playhouse.   With more than $500,000 in bills that need immediate attention and $1.5 million in other debts, the Los Angeles Times reports the Playhouse will be closing its doors on February 7th.
The Playhouse was founded in 1917 and designated the State Theater of California in […]

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Stop The Presses

Posted on January 29, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

 
photo: wiki commons
Newsflash:   One of the world’s great ecologists and renowned environmental scientists, Osama bin Laden, has declared global warming to be real.   Finally.  Now we can all stop arguing about that.
In Wichita, a man who admitted to murdering a doctor by shooting him in the head in the foyer of a church where […]

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J.D. Salinger Dies

Posted on January 28, 2010 - Filed Under Books | Leave a Comment

 
J.D. Salinger, the author of “The Catcher In The Rye” has died at his home in New Hampshire at the age of 91.   The book, featuring the adventures of the tortured and rebellious teenager, Holden Caulfield, was first published in 1951.  The impact of his writing is incalculable.
‘Enraged by all the “phonies” who make “me […]

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A Trip To The Woodshed

Posted on January 28, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Mr. Obama last night.  I knew he’d talk about a freeze on discretionary spending, which I really don’t understand.  It has the appearance of being nothing more than an attempt at throwing a bone to the Republicans,  who have proven themselves to be immutable.
The government is so deadlocked […]

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The iPad

Posted on January 28, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

 Apple calls its new iPad a “magical” device.  Click here for a review from the Economist, or jump down the page a bit for some of what Apple has to say about the new product and a slice of video from the unveiling with Steve Jobs.
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SAN FRANCISCO—January 27, 2010—Apple® today introduced iPad, a revolutionary device […]

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Acorn Redux And The NBC Nightly……News?

Posted on January 26, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

 
Sen. Mary Landrieu
The man who set up the phony Acorn “sting” has been arrested in New Orleans after he and three others allegedly took part in a scheme that involved two of the four posing as telephone repair personnel to gain entrance to the office of  Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu.
” Alleging a plot […]

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A Prince Of An Idea?

Posted on January 26, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

 
Hunter S. Thompson had a line about things never getting quite strange enough to suit his needs.  That being the case, I can’t imagine why he never settled here in California.   Woody Creek, Colorado, has to be downright sedate compared to the Golden State.  Hunter, who ran for sheriff up in Woody Creek, belonged here.
Think […]

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How Not To Run A Campaign

Posted on January 25, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | 1 Comment

  handout photo
According to NBC News,  democrat Marcy Winograd, (who wants to replace Jane Harmon as Congresswoman from the 36th District in CA), has sent letters to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steven Spielberg, Julia Roberts, John Travolta and other celebs, asking them to sign pledges to stop flying their private jets out of the Santa […]

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Looking For Fearless Leader

Posted on January 25, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

I discovered the contemporary anarchist movement in America while covering the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle in 1999.    At the time, I was hit by a blast of  culture shock as I watched what appeared to be college-age kids dressed in black and wearing face masks, spray painting anarchist slogans on walls […]

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Assault In New Orleans

Posted on January 25, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

I was born and raised in the gopher state and I worked on the old “Bud Grant Show” on KSTP-TV in Minneapolis way back when, so I feel more than a little connected to the Minnesota Vikings.   However, I hesitate to become emotionally invested in the team because of their habit of knocking on the […]

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Brown Swept In On A “Populist Wave?” Really?

Posted on January 23, 2010 - Filed Under Blog | Leave a Comment

 
  photo: cosmo magazine
Was just watching the network news on CBS and I heard the anchor say the reason nude model truck drivin’ regular guy Scott Brown defeated Martha Coakley, was a “populist wave.”  Oh really?  I’ve been reading that Coakley did everything she could to throw away the election, from overestimating her power […]

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