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deep and crisp and even

Citing concerns about the mental health of workers, Czech labor unions are demanding stores stop playing Christmas carols or compensate retail workers, according to the AP. If stores persist, the union is demanding two days off or 500 koruna for each worker tortured with the merry strains of the season. One year, I worked at a Nine West during the holidays, and I can attest that the incessant repetition of christmas carols can easily affect a worker's sanity, but I do wonder what "Good King Wenceslas" would say.

time to register their views

The nice folks at the Federal Communications Commission are holding one of their "Localism Task Force" hearings in San Antonio on January 28th. The Localism Task Force was created in response to the outcry from the right and left after the FCC eased broadcast ownership rules. FCC Commissioner Michael "Mercedes Divide" Powell decided that locally-owned-and-operated media might be a good thing after all, and the FCC should study it as the media industry consolidates further. Clear Channel Communications, one of the prime beneficiaries of the easing of radio ownership restrictions 1996, is based in San Antonio, and I'm sure its no coincidence that Powell's posse decided to have a meeting there.

plateau

my work table on a relatively un-cluttered morning

bloggy bloggy blog-blog

I'm posting one of those loathsome "I'm not blogging much" posts, but I'm coming to the conclusion that I've lost my enthusiasm for blogging and perhaps its time for me to find a new public outlet for my creative energies. Maybe I'm just on a creative down-cycle; I also haven't exposed a roll of film since I was in Oklahoma this August. However, I do think that I've reach some kind of end-point in regard to blogging. When I was working, blogging gave me an outlet for my desires to critique the media, and, when I started grad school in media studies, I had even more energy and ideas to bring to a blog about media and technology issues, but, as I become more involved in "serious" media research, I spend less time online looking at news and responding to it. Perhaps I've made the transition from a reporter's mindset, addicted to breaking news, to a more scholarly weltanschauung, where I'm thinking more contemplatively and about larger trends.

There's an element of burnout, I suppose: when I started this, it seemed every other news story would inspire me to share my take with the world, but now news seems to be varying shades of the same old stuff. I have no doubt that the war with Iraq has much to do with my loss of enthusiasm. This spring it became difficult for me to read about my nation launching a war I so strongly disagreed with and then turn to other blogs where smug persons of privilege attacked anti-war protestors and other persons of conscience as un-American or anti-Semitic.

Nonetheless, I've been pretty slack this semester in many regards. I've been spending a lot of time and energy with running and lifting this semester. I'm not sure if I'm looking any better, but it's satisfying to finally to exercise as much as I feel I should. However, I haven't finished many art projects lately, I've coasted a little in my coursework this fall, and, of course, I haven't been blogging much lately. I was in the car with Hana, relating how I got out of the blog habit this summer while I worked at Dell, and now its sort of absent from my mind. I don't think to post ideas when I have them. Hana gave me a knowing look, but said little else. The same thing goes for art stuff; when I was in Philadelphia, it seemed that I would work on a project for a while each day, and, despite my table cluttered with tubes of paint and half-finished pieces, working on projects rarely enters my mind.

I guess I'm a little disappointed with myself. I like to think of myself as this creative, off-the-wall person, but my creative pursuits have fallen by the wayside in favor of morning runs and researching low-power FM licenses. I certainly think that exercise and school are worth my time, but I feel like I've lost part of myself.