I have three WordPress blogs, and WordPress provides the software platform for free. The software is really cool and capable. I’ve also asked for help several times from the folks in support with excellent results. I wish all the companies I pay for stuff would treat me so well.

Thanks, y’all! You each deserve a cookie (the milk-and-flour kind)!

Best regards!

I launched This Just In! in August 2007. My first viewers showed up in December, and the readership curve in 2008 is a positive upward trend. Many thanks to you for that!

I would like take the occasion to mention a few of my favorite posts from the first year.  As always, I welcome your comments since your opinions matter a lot more than mine.

My most favorite post is about Jill Bolte-Taylor, the brain scientist who had a stroke and discovered nirvana. The story contains a link to an 18 minute video posted on the New York Times web site.

In the humor category, I enjoyed The Front Fell Off, a short video spoof on oil tanker safety that is posted on YouTube. I had fun writing Spitting–It’s not just for baseball anymore. I don’t follow baseball, so when I do see a game the peripheral things are more noticeable to me than the fine points of play.

One of the most viewed posts was my announcement of Bruce Bowditch’s book, the Yoga Practice guide, Dynamic sequencing for home practice and teachers. We have scheduled an interview, so look for that to be publish soon.

I’ve written several posts on the decline and fall of the print journalism industry, a trend that saddens me. However my sorrow is mitigated by the wonderful growth in the blogosphere. I think journalism is just changing shape, and in the long run it is definitely for the better. If you want to track these down just search on ‘journalism’.

I received a couple of nice comments on No tea with the neighbors–why is that? Thanks for those.

I also wrote about a couple very low profile videos that are quite charming. One is about a homeless artist who gets to redeem his life through the help of a kind stranger. See The Cats of Mirikitani. Another is King Corn, a study of the economics of raising corn, that amazingly is interesting and fun to watch. Then there is The Real Dirt on Farmer John, a charming and touching profile of an eccentric farmer who finally makes good after much personal hardship.

Finally, I began my plan for world peace written in serial fashion. I’ve discovered a great wealth of books on that and closely related subjects.

To return to my theme, thank you for taking time to visit!

–Dan Wilson

Newspaper writers of various stripes have been lamenting the demise of their industry for some time now, and with good reason. I came across a couple of articles today that prompted me to think about this again.

Columnist Steve Lopez writes about the bargain the Los Angeles Times represents at 50 cents a copy. Or, as he says, free online. Now, I like the Los Angeles Times, but as far as I’m concerned, this article has a little tinge of “eat your broccoli, it’s good for you.” I don’t begrudge Mr. Lopez his hand-wringing anxiety. I’ve been anxious about job security many times, and I empathize deeply. Given the change in ownership of the major papers, and the bleeding of talent from their staffs, the industry slide toward mediocrity is probably irreversible.

A crowd of some 8,000 people recently filed through Laguna Niguel, California, many of them intending to bare their bottoms for the amusement (or otherwise) of nearby AMTRAK passengers. (I’ve been on that train and just saw scenery!). It was the 29th year for this event. For some reason the cops behaved differently this year.  Police helicopters flew overhead and patrolmen on foot brought the party to a halt.

I lived in Southern California for many years and did not know about this annual event. It strikes me as one of the state’s more outstanding regularly-scheduled pranks. At the age of 29 it seriously pre-dates Spencer Tunick’s 2000 video, Nake States, and his 2003 Naked World.  In both videos he photographs crowds of naked people in public places. He goes far beyond mooning which is both quick and partial.

Do we have a national attitude toward pranks? A regional attitude? A city attitude? Do you have any thoughts on the subject?

Whatever your position on the merits of pranks, it makes for interesting reading in the Los Angeles Times.

I have launched a new blog titled Dan’s Book Report. The reason is that book reports really don’t fit my original concept for This Just In! Yes, there is a concept for this blog, sort of. You mean it isn’t obvious?

In any case, the new blog gives me a bigger space to rant and rave about the books I love. I invite you to check it out and make comments. Hopefully you will be moved to read a book you might have otherwise overlooked.

I’m stopping at three blogs, as far as I know. I think I need more adult supervision.

I try not to think about what the federal governent might be buying with the money I pay in taxes. It might be going into some slush fund to be used to overthrow the government of a small, helpless country, as we are so fond of doing. The whole subject of where my money might be going is too unpleasant to consider.

I get much the same feeling when I buy gas. Is a male chauvinist, dictatorial, elitist sheik somewhere in the middle east making nefarious plans that will be funded, in part, by my purchase? Is Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez planning another affront to civilization at the expense of Venezuela’s citizens, its neighbors, and the world at large using my money? Am I helping get Exxon so excited that it will find a way to drill oil wells in our national parks?

I’m feeling the pain of funding the super-rich to do things I don’t approve of and have a hard time even thinking about. That’s my newest motivation to conserve gas.

This is one of the funniest videos I’ve ever seen–The Front Fell Off.  It’s by a pair of comedians from Down Under, Bryan Dawe and John Clark. It’s only a couple of minutes long, and it’s a blast. It’s especially fun if you have a job that has anything at all to do without controlling quality.

Do we hold ministers to certain moral standards higher than the average? Does proposing the abrupt removal of another man’s most treasured body parts violate those standards? I think it does. Mr. Jackson was ordained as a minister in June 1968, and I think he does the office a great disservice.

I would be more more comfortable if this remark had been made by Mr. Jackson, not Reverend Jackson. I propose that he remove something from himself: the title that indicates that he is spiritually disciplined and worthy of serving as a moral example for the rest of us. Let him become Mr. Jackson, and I will accept his glaring faults.

We don’t know our neighbors, and we’ve lived in our house for more than four years. I’ve given some thought to why that is. Why don’t we drink tea, or coffee, together from time to time?

We visited our friends in California this summer. Our main group of friends has been hanging out together for 25 years now. We used to have lots more friends in California than we do now because some of them moved to Washington state, some to the Phoenix area, and some to South Carolina. It used to be relatively easy to see them all, and it didn’t involve a lot of travel. Now it does.

When we moved to Tucson we made it a point to meet as many neighbors as we could, much as we did when we lived in California. It was a brand new housing development, and we thought it would be fun to meet people who could share the whole history of the place with us. We “clicked” with one set of neighbors out of the many. The man and woman broke up, both moved, and we have stayed friends with the woman, our good friend Lin.

The Los Angeles Times reports today on the 10 most fuel-efficient non-hybrid cars. There is a U.S. brand among them: the Ford Focus. Want to know more about why Ford only has one on the list? Check out this blog entry from a Harvard Business Review contributor.

General Motors is conspicuous by its absence. Apparently G.M. learned nothing in 1973 when we couldn’t get enough gas at any price. What were they thinking all this time? I suppose Hummers could be used to store gas for one’s Toyota, Honda, Kia, or Mini-Cooper.

But for something really exciting, check out this YouTube video on cars that run on air!

And my thanks to Bruce for sending the video link to Tai, and to Tai for sending it to me! It’s good to have friends!