DoomBook

I may have mentioned this before. It bears repeating.

Journalism went and offed itself at some point. I can’t exactly finger the moment it happened, but it’s definitely gone.

That’s not to say there aren’t some excellent journalistic endeavors out there. There are certainly journalists that are still journalizing and reporters that cover a story well. It’s just that they’re getting buried under an avalanche of powdery fine puff pieces of ass-kissery.

Even on NPR, supposed bastion of 24 hour news. In their case, it might be because it’s now a 24-7 news-o-rama.

Case in point. Every morning I end up listening to as much as I can stomach of a news show where they interview local politicians. Instead of any questions that come to my mind, the commentator inevitably asks a bevy of kindergarten style “and what is your job, senator.. what do you do on that hill..” inquiries. Occasionally a caller comes up with something a bit more pressing which is promptly answered with a “I haven’t looked into that yet” and let slide.

Basically it’s an excuse for politicians to push whatever platform they happen to like today at people with very little explanation.

Now don’t get me wrong. Some of those platforms are quite good, such as efforts to reintroduce criminal offenders back into society and help non-violent criminals instead of jailing them by the Connecticut justice system. But others amount to a local politicians expounding on how badly they deserve the political handout they just received from their friends. Both are treated as if equal with the same bland self serving dialog.

So maybe it’s just that there isn’t enough happening to warrant the amount of coverage, and the ever increasing amount of coverage being pushed warrants less and less real work behind it. Research discovering how today’s guest covered something sensitive up a few years back in direct opposition to the duties they’re currently taking on just doesn’t happen.

Alright! Back from Katsucon 2007. Not too many pictures compared to some people… and a good portion of what we shot was of various friends and acquantences hanging out. You can find them at http://villa-strayligth.net/katsucon_2007.

Overall the con was a good time. Went down with old friends, met up with people I don’t see all that often (as they live a few states over) and then hung out with a great crowd on Sunday morning (in the early-*early* AM) who happened to alse be loitering neer the Connecticon booth.

After the fiftieth round of whatever that childrens show was with the pirates and a woman who, I’m pretty sure, was high on something singing “something something A PIRATE!!” it got a bit old. If only I had a projector and a pocket sized PC to hook it up to…

Coincindentally, people seem to think being asked “Pirates or Ninjas?” at 2AM is odd. At this simple query I ended up getting people that actually gave a sidelong glance and walked faster. I’m asking people, mostly drunk, at an *anime convention* this, mind.

Chilling with the Magfest crowd was a blast, I’ll have to actually make it down to the convention this year (if only it wasn’t right after New Years! )

So that’s about it for Katsucon 2007. I imagine there was anime being played, people dressed up in costumes, and various activities. The art room floor was fun, as was the merch cavern (which we noticed was really the parking lot, and the reason we had to drive around endlessly on Thursday looking for parking). Otakon’s coming up and we’re looking at it with a bit of skepticism. The venue wasn’t all that hot last year, but I might make it down.

Apple’s subcontractor is attempting to finish their cleanup job. After running a quick PR campaign to convince people that their sweatshops in China weren’t bad (because, hey, they’re Apple, right?) contractor FoxConn swept into high gear and and had the Chinese reporters who covered the story’s assets frozen and filed a ~3 million Euro lawsuit against them.

While the Reporters Without Borders group is petitioning Steve Jobs to intercede on the Chinese reporters behalf, he doesn’t have such a good track record with press freedom.

Hopefully the reporters involved will have someone intercede on their behalf. Their reporting did expose some valid flaws in Foxconn’s working conditions based on Apple’s “Code of Conduct” and it looks like they’ll be punished for it if no one intercedes.