I was set to thinking lately about the news on television and such because I've been reading a book called Scoop by Gene Gutteridge. It's the first book in the series called the Occupational Hazards. The second book is called Skid, which I accidentally read first, because I didn't even know it was a series. (It says The Occupational Hazards on the book, but it's partially covered by the labels the library put on the book) Scoop is a novel about a news station, Channel 7 News. (I don't think it's about the real Channel 7, but who knows) Skid, on the other hand, is about an air plane flight. I expect there will be more books in the series. Each book seems to feature one Hazard. (There is a family called the Hazards who is in each book) I think there are still several Hazards that haven't been covered yet.

It seemed to me that news was rougher business than I thought. To some reporters, it was just work, and it just mattered whether you got the news that was the most interesting to the viewers, rather than showing news that was meaningful, that could really make a difference. It seems like people want to see how many people die in a crash, not how many people survive. And news stations have to compete with each other to have the best information. It's pretty vicious business. I wonder if newspapers are like this too or if it's only the news stations.

Speaking of news, I probably haven't watched the weather much, because I was surprised to see that they seem to be using tablets now. I could tell because when they were showing the direction of wind or something, I saw a red arrow being drawn. I noticed there was a small cursor which looked like a pencil moving around. It was just like what my teachers had previously used. In 6th grade, my language arts/history teacher tried out the tablet for doing our daily grammar/spelling/etc. exercises, but it didn't work that well since most folks, including the teacher, couldn't draw that well using the tablet. Then the next year, in math class, my math teacher (who was, incidentally, the wife of my 6th grade language arts/history teacher) used the tablet to show us the lesson in math. Eventually, though, she switched to a document camera.

I remember I first was aware of them when my language arts teacher in 7th grade showed off her spiffy new document camera. Some of the teachers have them now too. My current science teacher uses it a lot...My French teacher has been using it, but it's not working out too well. I wish she'd go back to the projector. I wonder if they're wasting the donations of families on buying things that aren't even that easy to use. I wish they would spend the money on something else like replacing the chairs that are cracked and things like that.

Today, my father and I were planting tulips bulbs. We bought 50 of them once, and planted 25 last year. Most of them bloomed, but not all...We were digging up the dirt today and found some parts of tulip bulbs. I've always been wondering where the bulbs come from. Do tulips make bulbs after they die, or do two of them create bulbs and then you find them later? Or are bulbs plants which grow larger over time? It's confusing.

My dad thinks that the bulbs are dead since they look kind of dried up. I heard that seeds always have some stored food and other resources in them so they'll live long enough to find a place to settle down. I wonder if it really could last a whole year, though...Maybe not. But I hope so, because if they're still alive, there will be beautiful flowers in the springtime.

I dug up some other things. I found an acorn, which is odd, because we don't have those in my backyard. Perhaps a squirrel buried it there. I also dug up an earthworm by accident. I was really surprised by it. I put it on the sidewalk and watched it wiggle. It slowly moved its front, then seemed to start moving different parts, gradually. It sure takes a long time, though. Worms are really slow. It's like this joke... "A snail was mugged by two turtles. When asked about it, he said, "I don't know! It all happened so fast." " (I think it was a snail and turtles...I'm not exactly sure)

Labels: acorn, bulb, dehydration, document camera, earthworm, gene gutteridge, joke, money, news, scoop, tablet, teacher, television, the occupational hazards, tulips

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