Monday, May 06, 2002

Why Internet Streaming is Important to Me: Local News After 9-11 I signed up for the free e-warn system a weather warning service and for  e-News service offered free by WQAD-TV channel 8 (the ABC affiliate) for area surrounding my hometown.  Tornados and severe weather are a constant concern in the rural areas, and because I travel a lot it's always good to know what's happening at the house in Illinois.  So I signed up a couple months ago and other than getting a couple pages important news stories I never gave it much thought. And then the morning of Friday, May 3, 2002 hit. The insane over-egoed bastard who was putting pipebombs and letters in rural mailboxes did his dirty work in the area in and around my hometown. This is an area of the Midwest where the worst thing you're likely to find is a bag of dog shit in your mail box if you tick off a neighbor, but this insane bastard had seriously injured several mail carriers and local residents. About an hour before the national news picked up the story e-news started tripping off my pager with notices on my cell phone. Good Afternoon, Mary , WQAD.com has these latebreaking details: Explosive devices found in several rural mailboxes across QCA.   MORE DETAILS AT WQAD.COM CLICK HERE It immediately got my attention. Because I wasn't on the road I went to my computer and immediately went to WQAD's site to get the latest breaking news from Matt Hamill, one of their reporters.  Had I been on the road I'd have engaged my cell phone's web browser and got the news. WQAD had streamed the breaking news on their site.  It was good, but I wanted more news. I was sitting some 2000 miles from Illinois and the wire services hadn't broke the story yet. While WQAD alerted me to the news. But I wanted more. So I went over to another local television station KWQC's Channel 6 (the NBC Affiliate's) site because I knew the KWQC site streams ALL OF THEIR NEWSCASTS and archives them for one week online. (Scroll down the entire page.) I was in time for the local Noon news, and hit the LIVE ON THE AIR icon and went directly into the news, as if I were sitting in the kitchen table in Illinois. This is the type of delivery system that makes sense. I was completely connected. I got all the who-what-where-when information in about 15 minutes. Okay so KWQC's webcast is a tiny picture, and chops off the commerical in order to get around the SAG-AFTRA thing. No big deal. I get the news streamed to me anywhere any time. That is exactly what KWQC delivered. But then I wanted to listen to the local buzz and thought I should plug into the local radio stations: First up WOC-AM. The oldest radio station in the area and a news-information-talk format. They should have what I wanted to hear... ut-oh! It wasn't what I expected. Since Clear Channel recently purchased several of the major local radio stations they have taken WOC-AM and all their other radio stations off the web. Okay guys what gives? WOC is a talk station. Don't give me the CARP arguement! They don't play music. So what's the deal?  Chopping the commericals is no big deal! Go talk to WOCTV... er KWQC-TV . God knows someone local could show you how to do it! It would have given me great comfort to listen to Jim Fisher, Jim Albracht and Mark Minnick and hear what they were thinking. I've known Fisher over 25 years, and he is a wonderful common sense oriented local broadcaster. Jim has an excellent following and a very loyal group of listeners.  The Quad Cities is very fortunate to have him there and I would have loved to hear what Fisher had to say. In summary: The e-weather and e-news alerts are excellent if you need to be aware of local information, especially when traveling. They know how to deliver short, distinct pages with enough information. WQAD and their service provider gets Excellent marks for their service. However I'd like to have had more streaming video or at least audio of the news on your site. KWQC gets stellar marks for delivering streaming video of news as it happened online. It was up 99% of the time I logged in, and I haven't missed a broadcast since Friday afternoon. And as for Clear Channel-- what you have done to my local radio stations is insane. You have taken my ability to get local radio news and information away from me... and your advertisers. (I still purchase a hell of a lot of things when I'm in Illinois.) Fire up the damn streaming servers again and get the local news and information back on the web! 3:51:02 PM Google It!

[Bill Wundram Columnist for the Quad City Times Davenport, Iowa reports: ]  Talk moves ahead, I’ve been told, for that long-overdue marker on the spot where Ronald Reagan lived in Davenport, [Iowa] at 4th and Perry, the old Vale Apartments, then known as Perry Apartments and now a parking lot. A wet-behind-the-ears Reagan landed his first paying job — an announcer on WOC — while in an $18 a month flat in the place. For reasons unexplained, I’ve received checks for $50 and $25 from backers to help pay for a marker. They’ve been duly sent to hizzoner, Mayor Charlie. There is even talk of a Reagan Walk, on the hills he daily meandered to go to work. Good idea. I agree about the marker. And while we're at it-- has anyone up at 805 Brady Street got off their butts and dug out all the Reagan Tapes for archive? 1:30:43 PM Google It!

[The Shifted Librarian Reports] I'm not sure how Ernest knew that both my brother, father, and I would be fascinated by The Mercury Theatre on the Air, but I thank him heartily for the link! "All of the surviving Mercury Theatre shows are available from this page, in both streaming and downloadable RealAudio format. (MP3s are also available for some shows.) There are several Campbell Playhouse episodes available here as well; the rest are being added gradually." I just took a look. The site is WONDERFUL! It's a great start at making the great radio stories of the early days of radio available online.  The site owner is completely clued in-- by making the stories available as a stream or download, so you can take them to listen on your mp3 players. I give it 4 stars 1:11:14 PM Google It!

Skating Diva Speaks: When Pigs Can Skate or Why I Quit Skating... Part 2 This week the International Skating Union pronounced judgement on Olympic Pairs Judge Marie-Reine Le Gougne of France and French Skating Federation President for Didier Gailhaguet. Le Gougne was found guilty of misconduct in fixing an Olympic event and Gailhaguet was found guilty of pressuring a judge (Le Gougne) to fix an Olympic event. Now at this point you would think the ISU in the face of all the world attention would lower the boom and ban them for life-- right? No! The ISU in the face of all this attention and enough evidence to convict another celebrity murder case handed down a mere 3 year ban to include the 2006 Olympics on Le Gougne and Gailhaguet. Jeeze they have got to be kidding! This is insane! If they play it right, this little slap on the wrists would leave Le Gougne back to judge the 2006 World Championships-- and Gailhaguet could continue his backroom dealings in exile, like he has in the past. So, excuse me? Am I missing something? Were we not subjected to nearly a week of non-stop Olympic scandal and armchair judging by nearly everyone who has ever laced up a pair of skates, over the reasons why Sale and Pelletier should have placed first ahead of Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze of Russia or vice-versa? Did we not hear about the ISU's Executive Committee trying like hell to bury any hint of previous judging problems? Were we not subjected to the daily blow-by-blow details of ISU President Ottavio Cinquanta trying to blow off the media and their honest questions, or watch him try to upstage and overpower the IOC's President Jack Rogge when it was suggested the deal with "the matter" as quickly as possible? Amazing! I remember it as if it were yesterday! As far as I am concerned at this point Le Gougne and Gailhaguet should be stripped from all credentials and barred from the Sport of Figure Skating for life. And from what I have heard from ISU Technical Committee members Sally Stapleford and Britta Lindgren, the judge Jon Jackson and Ron Pfenning, the referee of the Olympic pairs competition, all have said that they believed Le Gougne should have been barred for life. Other well known skaters and officials have expressed similar opinions. The fact remains that Stapleford, Lindgren, Jackson and Pfenning heard Le Gougne confess in the Salt Lake City hotel that she had voted for the Russians because of outside pressures. That confession, which Le Gougne now denies making, was made in a hotel lobby on the night of the pairs final and confirmed at the post event judges meeting the next morning. Le Gougne signed a "confession of wrong-doing" inwhich she affirmed what the other officials has said. Isn't this enough to get her booted for life? Afraid not. Now is when we get to the interesting part... The angry and over emotional Le Gougne has stated to the media that she has had her personal and skating reputation, as well as her honor and dignity tarnished for life. (Jeeze I wonder why?) She is now promising that she intends to "tell all" about the backroom dealings, lies and political interworkings of Figure Skating. "I will explain how it functions," she said. "It is a system that is extremely slanted, dictatorial and even corrupt." Do I smell a book deal coming on? You bet ya! Le Gougne and Gailhaguet are telling everyone they intend appeal the convictions with the IOC's Court of Sports Arbitration, which has the final say in these matters. They have 28 days to file their appeal. In the opinion of Gailhaguet and Le Gougne, exonerating them of wrongdoing would have left the skating union no way of justifying the duplicate medals. "Cinquanta never wanted to give two gold medals; he was forced to do it," Gailhaguet said. "And now he has to live with it." Also they were upset about the ISU's failure to summon and pay the travel expenses of witnesses and the remaining Olympic Pairs Judges who might have been more favorable to their cause than the majority of the 13 men and women who testified during the hearing. While personally I loath what Gailhaguet and Le Gougne did, there are points in their argument inwhich I have to agree with. ALL of the Olympic Pairs judges should have been called to the hearing. The reason they weren't was because Speedy Cinquanta never wanted to deal with the fact the pairs event might have been "fixed" from the start. It would create too much of a scandal on the ISU and the event. God knows the IOC was sitting right there in Salt Lake City, and Cinquanta and the ISU Executive Committee has no quick escape. They did escape the IOC's prying eyes at the 2002 World Championships one month after SLC, over a situation at Dance event. It is a well known fact Cinquanta handled the entire Salt Lake City Olympic Pairs situation poorly, and as the scandal went on-- it went from bad to worse and shows no sign of getting its creditability back soon. The ISU's creditability is at stake. Even after the hearing, Cinquanta and other ISU council members have continued to declined to comment on what method they used to determine the length of the penalties the levied or even on whether they had voted unanimously or by a simple majority to determine guilt. Again the ISU is hiding behind closed doors. This cloistered "closed club" mentality is killing the sport and if the ISU doesn't go public with the facts soon, the IOC will have no option but to take action against the ISU. The entire reputation of sport of Figure Skating is at stake. From where I sit, it is long overdue but the International Skating Union must clean up its act from top to bottom.(I'm not the only figure skating alumni saying this.)  It is no longer acceptable for the International Skating Union or any national skating federation to hide their rules from the public. Everything must be out in the open and accessible to everyone for free. Use the www.isu.org site to post the rules publicly. Furthermore the sport of Figure Skating needs to understand on a molecular level that it is no longer is it acceptable for any of the participating national skating federations to play footsies and politics, as well as swap votes or play favorites. The game of "I'll vote for your skaters, if you vote for mine" is no longer acceptable behavior. And furthermore I still stand on my opinion that Cinquanta has to go. This man is completely Clueless. The Canadian press has stated, "The pair brought shame and infamy not only on their own sport but on the whole Olympic movement, the organization's executive director, Jeremy Pope, said in a statement. For them to be merely slapped on the wrist is, frankly, absurd and exposes the Olympic movement to ridicule. Pope suggested the ISU should be suspended from the Olympics until it eliminates corruption in the sport." If Figure Skating wants to remain an Olympic sport, it MUST clean up its act and skaters need to break their silence and speak up publicly about cleaning up the sport. Or we all lose. Question: Does anyone have the transcripts of Marie's "60 Minutes" Interview with Ed Bradley? What was said? 3:08:55 AM Google It!

© Copyright 2002 Mary Wehmeier. Last update: 6/1/02; 4:57:41 AM. Comments by: YACCS