Swine Flu ...

I graduated! Hehe, and I actually went to commencement, which I didn't think I would. I am glad I went to the Russian commencement, very personal, very nice, very small. I didn't go to psychology.

Then I went to History. It was funny. First, they said that the biggest problem facing us today is global warming (I guess that means we should have all been Environmental Science majors instead. oops.). Then they quoted Obama. Then they said we all did "so much" to help to elect Obama (you know me). Then they, very seriously, said that we would not be shaking hands because of the H1N1 virus outbreak.  The guy beside me went "what is that ... the swine flu?" and I laughed. Yep. And he laughed. Apparently, one student off campus may have tested positive for the disease.

Meanwhile, the WHO announced that it might declare it a global pandemic. Back to CU, they also cancelled the midnight breakfast for finals because of the outbreak, and there are fliers all over campus telling us to wash our hands. And then it hit me. People want this to be a problem, an outbreak. They want there to be an emergency, it is exciting! And the closer to the emergency you are, the more attention you can get (and the less of a real threat it is, the more "bravely" you can deal with it.). We live in Colorado, too, how sad. We missed 9/11, London, Madrid, Bombay, come on, people, throw us a bone! "But you had Columbine ..." "Well yeah, but that was like, ten years ago! And besides, I was in Boulder when it happened, and that was in Littleton ... that only works when you go out of state." Every time something bad happens (or something we can pretend is bad happens ... ), people seem to frantically trace their lines back to it, to see how close they can find that they actually were. Come on, people, six degrees of separation? I know I can do better than that. It is actually quite ridiculous. It seems like, instead of feeling sympathy for the people who were actually affected, people try to see how they can get a little bit of the spotlight.

And that is when there is something going on.

Obama and Biden order a hamburger ...

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_12301116?source=rss

Because it was Cinco de Mayo, Joe Biden ordered his hamburger with jalapenos, joking that, in Delaware, you couldn't even order a burger without a slight Mexican accent.

Obama quickly corrected him. "Burgers are Austrian, Joe."

Warren Buffett on Newspapers ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124139748870881957.html

Warren Buffett is lamenting the state of newspapers. His deputy, Charles Munger, even called it a "national tragedy." But is it?

Let's look at a brief history ...

Newspapers started in the US in 1608, with John Smith's Newes From Virginia, and did not reach their height until the New York Sun, the first penny, or people's, paper, was published in 1833 (before this, newspapers were too expensive for many people to buy). Throughout this time, objectivity was not considered necessary to journalism. Different newspapers had different viewpoints, said what those viewpoints were, and used the news and facts to argue them, advocacy journalism. Objectivity was not considered to be an important trait in journalism until the twentieth century, when more centralized media forms like television and radio emerged. Forced to compete with this, large, centralized newspapers began to emerge, as small, opinion based papers died out. Before this, in the US, 2,600 dailies and 14,000 weeklies were published. As prices and competition increased, this number began to decline, and so did the influence of the newspaper.

So, at the height of newspaper popularity, newspapers presented opinions, using facts as a basis, and they were cheap to publish and accessible to the majority of the population.

Does this sound like blogs to anyone?