I feel like a small helpless European country. Late last night, without warning, my iTunes software switched me over to the German iTunes store without me doing anything. (Switching back just required reentering my account information, at which time I was forcibly pushed back to the US store.)
Bizarre.
So, I’ve been reading more about sarcoidosis on the Internet, since I’m not having regular doctor visits. And — illustrating the dangers of patients making their way through the maze of conflicting information only — I’ve read that acute sarcoidosis often comes roaring in like a lion, only to slink out like a lamb soon thereafter.
And the question arose in my mind: If I’m taking these pills every day, how will I know if my symptoms are fading?
The answer, then, would be to take some time off from the pills when one of my monthly packs ran out, as it did yesterday.
It’s too soon to know whether the soreness in my left foot and knee and the general noise of my knees and feet are sarcoidosis-related swelling or just an early case of oldmanitis, but I can certainly tell the Prevacid portion of my pill cocktail is the real deal: I’ve got my first case of heartburn in months. It’s not a bad one, but boy, I don’t miss this.
There’s going to be a crazy-long city council meeting tomorrow, so I’d probably be wise to get my prescription refilled prior to then: If I’m going to be sitting in a seat in the council chambers for three or more hours tomorrow, it’d be nice if my knee and ankle were functional by the end of it.
The manufacturer of the iconic lawn flamingos is going out of business:
An estimated 20m of the plastic birds have been sold since the company began production. The line began when a newly-hired art school graduate named Donald Featherstone made a clay model of a flamingo, copied from a photograph in National Geographic.
Mr Featherstone and Mr Plante hope to save the bird from extinction. “It is sad that it is happening, but it may not be dead yet.” The two hope to find another company to buy the flamingo moulds and continue production. Wal-Mart has been its biggest customer, selling 250,000 of the birds each year.
(Anyone shocked that Wal-Mart sells more than anyone?)
A sad day for us all.
This is something that probably doesn’t need to be said, but all the same, I feel like I have to say something:
There’s a political mailer from “Citizens for Honest Government” showing up in mailboxes around Hesperia that, in addition to attacking one group of city council candidates (it’d be a lot easier if this wasn’t a non-partisan race, so I could refer to them by name as Group X or Group Y), accuses us of taking sides in the race because we are beholden to real estate developers:
We have attempted to inform Hesperia voters about many issues using the Daily Press and HESPERIA STAR, by using letters to the editors and regular articles. These newspapers (part of Freedom Newspapers) will not print our letters and viewpoints. Their intention, we believe, is to silence us so that their major advertisers (DEVELOPERS) will continue, perhaps with $100,000’s (sic) worth of newspaper ads.
Well, yes, we do, in fact, have real estate ads from developers, who see the newspaper as a vital way to sell houses. (Thank you, developers.)
This doesn’t translate into us taking editorial direction from anyone. I cannot speak for other journalists, but in my 14 years in journalism, I have never, ever been told to write a story or to not write a story because it would be good for an advertiser or because it’s the political ideology of our paper. And, frankly, if I had been told that, the answer would have been “no.”
Oh, and if someone doesn’t get their letter to the editor printed in the Star, it’s because we goofed up and it got lost in the shuffle.
If you’re angry at a story in the Star, you’re angry at us, not any developers or politicians or other shadowy puppet masters. Write us an angry letter to the editor calling us bozos, and we’ll run it.
CJRDaily has taken a break from its seeming obsession with blogs to talk with the Wired reporter who caught a convicted sex offender trawling for young boys on MySpace. (Hmmm, I suppose MySpace is bloggish enough to explain why the formerly great CJRDaily would talk about this …)
(If you don’t remember, this is what I’m talking about.)
|
|
