Well, isn't he yours, too?
Sep. 10th, 2004 05:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aruanAnd here's why. In case you needed convincing.
The reward for wrenching myself out of bed this morning was being treated to the best part of my day not twenty steps from my front door - the boy walking to class in front of me had on a Star Trek baseball cap. It was black with designs of ships and weapons and stars on the sides and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on top, silhouetted by the Starfleet insignia. Even cooler - he was otherwise dressed very ghetto fabulously in an oversized white shirt, baggy jeans hanging off his bum, and spankin' new trainers. Hee!
Yesterday, as Miranda and I waited to cross the still-traffic signal-less intersection of Buckman and University, another gent pulled up in his Eclipse Spyder blasting... La Tribu de Dana. We looked at each other in shock and confusion, waiting for one of us to nod her head in acknowledgement that we were actually hearing Celtic French rap on the streets of Gainesville before bursting into giggle fits.
Day was fine - McKeen took the helm in ethics today for a brief history of magazines, then we had a shorter version of Foley in a suit from the St. Petersburg Times regale us of how lawyers are crazy and juries are stupid. Or are they?
He recounted the hot coffee case about the woman who was scalded by McDonald's coffee in the drive-through who won $2.9 million. While everyone else in the news media was busy crying Idiots! and Tort reform! etc. one reporter asked Why did the jury do that? Well, after talking to the lawyers and reading court transcripts, it turned out that McDonald's keeps its coffee twenty degrees hotter than most other coffee retailers and has a history of seven hundred complaints of injuries, which it's settled with half a million dollars' worth of hush money. But this woman was hurt severely enough, with precedent enough, that the jury found fault at 80/20 in her favor, and awarded her $200K in personal and $2.7 million in punitive damages. He talked about our job not being to know everything, but to find stuff out, how we can't assume and we shouldn't judge without facts and stuff that should be logical but is alarmingly lacking from event coverage. Heck, news anchors even tell you how you're going to feel about a story before they launch into it! Journalism is not advocacy and vice-versa - our audience deserves to have facts, not confirmation of what they think they already know.
[/rant on the state of journalism today]
Next was free lunch over a presentation of a UF alum-cum-Boston Globe photographer who went to Colorado after Columbine, Iraq just before the war, and Haiti when Aristide was removed from power. Overwhelming stuff. Although I did have a better time than I should've, whatwith McKeen coming in and finding the only available standing room left right next to me in the far back corner. Me and my obscenely older, usually married man crushes. *shakes head*
*insert three-hour nap* Which brings the day's total to about six, a much more reasonable number. Roommate night was upheld at New City Cafe, where we passed around cheesecake, key lime pie, lemon/coconut torte, and chocolate fudge corruption. Mmm, if it even needed to be said.
And now that Joey's been properly toasted, here and on the business end, if the fates are truly kind, by Lance, I should possibly get a couple of hours in before facing Law in the coming morn.
Quote of the Day:
"You're in this class probably because you're a print fascist."
- Professor McKeen
The reward for wrenching myself out of bed this morning was being treated to the best part of my day not twenty steps from my front door - the boy walking to class in front of me had on a Star Trek baseball cap. It was black with designs of ships and weapons and stars on the sides and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy on top, silhouetted by the Starfleet insignia. Even cooler - he was otherwise dressed very ghetto fabulously in an oversized white shirt, baggy jeans hanging off his bum, and spankin' new trainers. Hee!
Yesterday, as Miranda and I waited to cross the still-traffic signal-less intersection of Buckman and University, another gent pulled up in his Eclipse Spyder blasting... La Tribu de Dana. We looked at each other in shock and confusion, waiting for one of us to nod her head in acknowledgement that we were actually hearing Celtic French rap on the streets of Gainesville before bursting into giggle fits.
Day was fine - McKeen took the helm in ethics today for a brief history of magazines, then we had a shorter version of Foley in a suit from the St. Petersburg Times regale us of how lawyers are crazy and juries are stupid. Or are they?
He recounted the hot coffee case about the woman who was scalded by McDonald's coffee in the drive-through who won $2.9 million. While everyone else in the news media was busy crying Idiots! and Tort reform! etc. one reporter asked Why did the jury do that? Well, after talking to the lawyers and reading court transcripts, it turned out that McDonald's keeps its coffee twenty degrees hotter than most other coffee retailers and has a history of seven hundred complaints of injuries, which it's settled with half a million dollars' worth of hush money. But this woman was hurt severely enough, with precedent enough, that the jury found fault at 80/20 in her favor, and awarded her $200K in personal and $2.7 million in punitive damages. He talked about our job not being to know everything, but to find stuff out, how we can't assume and we shouldn't judge without facts and stuff that should be logical but is alarmingly lacking from event coverage. Heck, news anchors even tell you how you're going to feel about a story before they launch into it! Journalism is not advocacy and vice-versa - our audience deserves to have facts, not confirmation of what they think they already know.
[/rant on the state of journalism today]
Next was free lunch over a presentation of a UF alum-cum-Boston Globe photographer who went to Colorado after Columbine, Iraq just before the war, and Haiti when Aristide was removed from power. Overwhelming stuff. Although I did have a better time than I should've, whatwith McKeen coming in and finding the only available standing room left right next to me in the far back corner. Me and my obscenely older, usually married man crushes. *shakes head*
*insert three-hour nap* Which brings the day's total to about six, a much more reasonable number. Roommate night was upheld at New City Cafe, where we passed around cheesecake, key lime pie, lemon/coconut torte, and chocolate fudge corruption. Mmm, if it even needed to be said.
And now that Joey's been properly toasted, here and on the business end, if the fates are truly kind, by Lance, I should possibly get a couple of hours in before facing Law in the coming morn.
Quote of the Day:
"You're in this class probably because you're a print fascist."
- Professor McKeen
