Posts by Berck

I’ve long-held that the only bias in commercial news media is toward money. Money comes from viewers, listeners, readers… brainwashed entertainment consumers. As Stephenson says, you can sell two things: Products and Entertainment. It’s pretty obvious which things are products, and everything else is entertainment.

This includes all TV news and newspapers. The media conglomerates are not interested in any sort of theoretical duty to the public, and all of them, with the obvious exception of Murdoch’s holdings, don’t have any biased agenda. All they want to do is make money, and they primarily do that by selling fear, but there are plenty of other methods.

The most amusing example to me right now of the total lack of bias, as well as a total lack of honesty is in the electoral projections of commercial media. In short, all the electoral projection sites that aren’t run by the media conglomerates are predicting Obama, while all the big media sites are calling it a much tighter race. Why? A tight race means more viewers.

The next example of a total lack of liberal bias is the fact that they still aren’t giving McCain any flack over his poor military record. They’re quick to talk about crazy preachers, because those are exciting video clips. They’re not so interested in talking about the fact that McCain graduated at the bottom of his class, was a very bad pilot, and didn’t take his job seriously. On the other hand, Rolling Stone has a done great job pointing out that if you’re going to run for president on your military record that maybe you should have a good one.

It’s the sort of thing that will sell for Rolling Stone, but won’t keep folks watching TV. Liberal bias my ass–if there were actually some liberal bias don’t you think they’d be all over this?

The important thing to remember is that they’ve only furloughed a portion of those they intend to furlough. If I get furloughed, I’ll be one of the last ones to go because I’m at the top of the portion they may or may not furlough.

The good news is that I’m not furloughed yet. The displacement award is now anticipated for early next week, and I fully expect that I’ll get the Dash in Denver, simply because it’s a very junior aircraft and base. Whether that award makes me more or less likely to be furloughed in the future, I don’t know. If I don’t get the Dash in Denver, I’m going to be flabbergasted, annoyed and frustrated. Anything’s possible. I could, theoretically, be assigned to the ERJ in CVG, but that seems unlikely.

With the award should come some kind of class date, so maybe I’ll have vague idea about the near future.

I haven’t flown in a very long time. I spend $15/day getting to and from the airport, every day. I ride the AirTrain to the LIRR and then walk a mile. I haven’t driven a car in so long, I wonder if mine is rotted in Denver, or if I’ll even remember how.

I still don’t have a working MacBook, which is a constant source of frustration for me. I’m hoping that the parts sitting at home will allow me to fix it soon.

Rough schedule update until I get around to updating google calendar and facebook: I’ve got a 5-day trip starting on the 17th. I’ll stay on reserve until the 25th, when I go home. I have that Saturday and Sunday and Monday off. I’m then on Reserve again until Nov 2nd, and in training the morning of the 3rd. The plan is to be in Dallas for a Magnetic Fields concert on this Monday night. It doesn’t look like I’m going to get home until October 25th, which means I’ll have been away from home for an entire Month.

I found a great little book store a few blocks from Syd’s new apartment. It’s now called “Unnameable Books.” As far as I can tell, it’s the store that’s unnameable, not the books. The place used to be called Adam’s Books, but apparently someone threatened legal action, and so they gave up.

They sell both new and used books, and have a nice varied collection. They don’t have so much of the pop crap that you’re likely to find in places like an airport bookstore, and have a fairly high quality selection. Like every store in New York, it’s small. When I walked in at about 8:30pm, the door was wide open and there was no one in sight. I winced as I walked in, expecting some sort of annoying laser-tripped alarm that would alert the owner to my presence and cause him to pounce on me. No such thing happened. There is a sign in the front of the store that says, “Please don’t steal the books.” I browsed around the front of the book store for a good 20 minutes before I ever caught sight of the owner in the back, tinkering with his computer, behind a veritable fortress of used books. I eventually bought a copy of Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age and Richard Power’s Three Farmers. Both used, a grand total of about $13. A bit pricey for used books, but I didn’t have to pay shipping, and this is New York, after all.

The only other thing of note is that I somehow lost my Mesa ID badge. It was hanging off my shirt Tuesday morning when I went through security. It was not hanging off my shirt on Wednesday morning. I have no idea what happened to it. So I spent yesterday in Sydney’s apartment, doing exactly the same thing I do at work: reading and surfing the internet. FedEx brought me a new badge this morning just before Noon. It looks like I owe Mesa $25, now. Which I suppose is fair, but I really don’t know what I could have done to prevent this, short of tying the badge around my neck, which I simply refuse to do.

So, I might be furloughed after all. My earlier statement that I have 189 below me and that they’re furloughing 150 was correct. I failed to take into account the fact that 49 of those below have already been furloughed, but are on the seniority list. There’s much discussion and disagreement about whether or not this is the case. I’m inclined to believe that they are on the list, which would put me as the 10th from the last person to be furloughed. If 10 folks senior to me decide to take voluntary leave, then I’m good. If they do not, I’ll be out of a job.

I should find out on October 3, probably toward the end of the day. Wish me luck.

I haven’t got a plan B, thus far. Most flying jobs I could consider would involve moving from Colorado Springs in order to make less money than Joanna is currently making, which is something of a precarious move. I figure it won’t hurt to delay thinking about it until after Friday.

The remains of at least one person has been found in the wreckage from the fire.

I’m no expert, and have no real information, but it’s starting to sound like someone set himself on fire… No official word as to the cause of the fire, yet.

BarackRoll