The crazy lady strikes again for Wednesday, September 6, 2006

According to a slide show presented by AOL, dieting can be expensive. The average single American not on a weight-loss regimen spends $54.50 per week on food. On some of the weight-loss regimens - such as NutriSystem and Jenny Craig - one can spend at least twice that on food, if one buys the food sold by that program (such as Jenny's Cuisine). That strikes me as too high a price for a weight-loss diet. The irony is that NutriSystem in particular seems almost proud of the cost of its prepackaged... Sign in to see full entry.

By now, it is common knowledge that Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin died the other day. I noticed something about the coverage of his death that I wanted to discuss here. Coverage of Irwin's death provides me with an excuse to contrast it with the coverage of Rosa Parks, who refused to get up and move from her seat on an Alabama bus, and who sparked a bus boycott led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mrs. Parks did something equally important, even though she did not intend to do so, but coverage of... Sign in to see full entry.

Yesterday (9/5/2006), I was watching television coverage of the first day of school in Chicago. (The Chicago public schools start their new school year on the day after Labor Day every year, while suburban school systems usually start during the week before Labor Day, in late August, a practice which started to take hold during my school years several decades ago.) Mayor Richard Daley went to Sherman Elementary School to ring a ceremonial school bell marking the start of the first day of the new... Sign in to see full entry.

This morning, I was watching CBS' The Early Show. (My husband prefers CBS programming because the Chicago outlet, WBBM, is least likely to engage in fluffy "happy talk," and therefore most likely of all three of the network outlets to feature hard news early in the morning. Yes, we're both news junkies; I hate it myself when the early-morning news shows feature "fluff" at the expense of the important stuff.) On The Early Show this morning, the host featured a story about a father in Stockton,... Sign in to see full entry.