KFSM’s Junior Varsity news crew had an almost perfect day on Monday. They had memorial Day parade footage galore, tornado and election news from around the country – the only thing that might have ruined their day would have been the intrusion of an actual Arkansas news story.

As bad luck would have it, someone opened fire at a wedding in Arkansas, and they felt compelled to report on it. Not worry, though – they made up for it with lots of parade footage.

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KFSM II – What a great story for us to run on Memorial Day!

In the midst of stories of folk honoring America’s military veterans, Channel 5 obviously felt Memorial Day was the perfect time to run a story on Friends Forever, a pet cemetery which will be opening its gates in June.

A full-on ad for a pet cemetery on Memorial Day?

Now, that’s tasteless.

I hope the cemetery folk paid well for the chunk of news time they got.

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Come to Radio Shack – cuz we don’t need your stinkin’ money

I had to buy a mouse for my computer today, so I stopped in at the Radio Shack on North College. In the window was a large poster advertising a “Memorial Day Sale,” extending through Monday.

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On the door was a piece of paper announcing that the store would be closed on Memorial Day.

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Descent

It’s true- I’m a sucker for submarine stories. And I love to tell others about them. Why else would I make my wife sit with me while we watch season one of “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” and I try to explain to her what a great show it really was?

There just seems to be something extraordinary about the willingness to slip into a sardine can – no matter how big or small – and explore the ocean depths. And stories don’t come much more exciting than the tale of  Otis Barton and William Beebe, who descended half a mile down in the world’s first bathysphere.

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In “Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss,” Brad Matsen tells the fascinating (an overused word, but in this case absolutely true) tale of two men from vastly different backgrounds who came together under the auspices of the New York Zoological Society and the National Geographic Society to build and launch such a craft.

Imagine it if you will, two men with barely enough room to turn around, descending half a mile down into a dark world no one had ever seen before, and describing it for a fascinated radio audience. If that doesn’t make your blood  race, you need to check your pulse; you may be in a coma, and not realize it.

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rsdrake@nwark.com

 

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