There goes the whole neighborhood

holy crap. Here's a quote from the story: "The partially mummified body of a man dead for more than a year has been found in a chair in front of his television, which was still on."
This is crazy. the reporter here did a good job wasting no time in getting quotes from people who said the same thing the reader was surely thinking: how the hell did this happen? How come no one was alarmed when they hadn't seen the guy?
I guess we'll have to wait for those answers. It said he had a wife already dead, but nothing about children.

Posted by Kevin O'Leary at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This about the story run about T. Denny Sanford from St. Paul. It's about how this guy says he doesnt want to die broke, so he's been giving huge donations to Medical centers here and in St. Paul.
One challenge the reporter must have had was getting hold of sanford himself. He's quoted in the story, but it's from other interviews and press conference dealys. There's one quote obtained by the reporter from him at the end of the story, and that's from an email. i think the reporter did a good job getting hold of the higher-ups that are involved in the financial deals, but a voice from the "man on the street" type would have been good too. maybe someone who plans on going to the new medical school he's building at the University of South Dakota, or some family that is all thankful for the clinics he plans to open. Yeah; that was not really in there, and it would have rounded it out, i feel. but it's pretty round as it is.

Posted by Kevin O'Leary at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

i went to the international section and decided i wouldn't do a blog on Iraq. I chose this article. it's fluff, sort of, compared to articles about war.
I suppose it's a good article. one thing the reporter neglected to do was give balance by interviewing people who are incredulous about global warming. The report instead focuses on the new report that came out last week and celebrities like Richard Branson, that charismatic "tycoon" of the headline, and Al Gore. It's not that the anti-global warming people need to be given as much space, just a mention, just to show that the report is objective. The tidbit about how this is similar to the Longitude competition from the late 17th and early 18th centuries was interesting. i never knew that. still, the reporter didnt get all the sides.

Posted by Kevin O'Leary at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another animal story. this time, the Morrison County board issued a permit to some (i'm sure he is a) jackass who wanted to have a kennel to hold hundreds of dogs for breeding. The thought of that many dogs being housed in a kennel is disturbing enough, if you've ever watched those Animal Cops shows on the Animal Planet channel. often the dogs are kept in small ass cages and barely have enough room to stand and turn around, and are kept in their own filth. See, i love dogs probably more than i love humans.
But that's not the most fucked-up part of this story. The permit was granted provided the jackass get the dogs "surgically debarked" - what a nice way to soften the meaning. it means slashing the vocal cords on the dogs. what the hell?! Now the Minnesota Court of Appeals has thrown out the guys permit (thank god) and the county board has to re-evaluate the situation or whatever.
The reporter here did a pretty good job of including the details that, while not sensationalizing, will surely outrage readers. This will lead to action, hopefully, and Morrison County had better inspect this guy's kennel. He probably tried to talk to the jackass (McDuffee) but his lawyer presumably talked to him. Maybe quotes from neighbors who live by the kennel would have been good to put in. It would be a bit biased against McDuffee, because i can't imagine they'd have good things to say. The reporter basically paraphrased what they all had to say by writing, "neighbors...had complaints about sick and injured animals and poor living conditions."

Posted by Kevin O'Leary at 7:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I just read this story on startribune.com about some crazy astronaut who flew off the handle. Apparently she had a crush on some other astronaut, and when she found out that guy was seeing some non-astronaut woman, astronaut-girl donned a disguise and tried to pepper spray the woman. The story was good because it was full of crazy details. The reporter gave pretty extensive lists of the weapons and items astronaut girl had with her - buck knife, bb gun, $600, garbage bags, a wig, a trench coat, pepper spray - and also the reporter got gross details about how Nowak, the astronaut girl, drove from Houston to Orlando to confront the woman and wore diapers for the drive so she wouldn't have to stop the drive (gross!). The reporter also did a good job by getting comments from other astronauts and a couple of higher-ups at NASA, which revealed that though she's being charged, her status as an astronaut has not yet changed. However, the man she pined for and the woman she is charged with trying to kill didn't comment by the time the story was printed. All and all though, good content, good coverage. i hadn't heard about this until now and the piece wasn't written like follow-up, it gave me the full story.

Posted by Kevin O'Leary at 7:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)