Good first day of February, Everyone, and a really frigid day it is.  The temp on the news is at 2F with wind chills of -20+.  Another day we will be inside and as snug as possible.  Let's see what I find on my trip through the 'net.

Buried deep in this little op-ed piece is a statement that struck a cord.  Once upon a time (30 years ago) a president could address most of the 'whole nation at will' because people (at least 50 million of them) watched the evening news each and every evening.  Well, yeah, I can relate to that because I was one of them.  And I read at least 1 news paper daily and two news magazines each week.  And I watched several TV news 'magazines' each week.  So, what happened?  Well, the nightly news programs expanded from half an hour (fifteen minutes each for local and national news) to two hours (an hour and a half for local and half an hour for national programs) much of which is devoted to pure fluff.  The newspapers and magazines are a shadow of their original form and mostly filled with ads.  The TV versions are equally insipid.  The coverage of presidential appearances are reduced to minuscule sound bites devoid of context or coherence.  I turned off Good Morning, America this morning when the fluff appeared which happens predictably after 20-30 minutes and two commercials.  I simply don't waste my time.