We have new neighbors. Well, they aren't really new, been living across the street for a few months now but I have yet to discuss them here... I think. They are really nice people from North Carolina. We thought it was pretty cool they are from the very place we were dying to get away from. He works at one of the local television stations as a manager of some sort. I looked him up on the website and found his title, but have forgotten. I do know that what he does has a direct impact on ratings, because he is always working a lot of hours during what they call 'sweeps'. They have been here just over a year now but renting somewhere else in town, and just recently I saw in the local paper that the television station he works for has improved tremendously in the ratings since he joined the team there.

Anyway, I bring it up because he was over the other day, and we were talking about a lot of stuff. I brought up the fact that I was reading Arrogance by Bernard Goldberg, and asked him what he thought about all that bias crap. I had asked him about it before, but he wasn't familiar with the guy. We got into a discussion about how hard it is to get anywhere in the business, basically he said you have to know somebody... or rather, have worked hard for somebody so they won't have anything bad to say about you if ever anyone comes snooping for references. He did say that they have had to shy away from giving a bad reference about anyone they don't think is worthy, all they can really do in that case is emphatically confirm employment.

We also got into a discussion about animal farms. He was telling us about cleaning out chicken coops when he was young, and everyone ran him ragged because he was good at it. He talked about the smell, which got me going about large animal farms in general. That got him going about the way animals are raised for consumption. He noted that he's been through several old forts and civil war era landmarks, and how he has always had to lean over to go through doorways. We're talking lean waaaay over. My wife piped up because she knew what he was getting at, it seems there is a consensus among people in America that we have been getting taller since getting into mass production of food to feed the growing population in this country. I thought that was pretty interesting.

There were lots of other things, but my wife is awake now and we need to interact.....