Enotes

"No news is good news." I always wondered about this oft-used phrase. Is it saying that there is no such thing as good news, or that when you find yourself without any news at all, that's a good thing? However you choose to decipher "No news is good news," I have one for you that is without ambiguity. "The news isn't convenient." There shouldn't be any confusion over that, but yet there is. In the whirlwind of social media sharing and updates in the wake of the horrific murders of two young television journalists---one a reporter, the other a photographer---in Roanoke, VA on Wednesday during a live interview, we had ourselves a genuine "made for TV" violent crime, and there was much pontificating about what to do with it. The alleged shooter of reporter Alison Parker and photographer Adam Ward, Vester Flanagan, aka Bryce Williams (on-air name), a reportedly disgruntled and frustrated TV reporter himself, crafted a highly...

My memories of Lynn Anderson are rather sardonic, but that's not her fault, necessarily. Singer Anderson, 67, passed away the other day of a heart attack in a Nashville hospital while being treated for pneumonia. She was best known for her song, "Rose Garden," which peaked at no. 1 on the country charts and no. 3 on the Billboard charts in early-1971. But around the campus of Eastern Michigan University in the 1980s, Lynn Anderson became a notorious figure, forever linked to the school's outrageous efforts to keep its football program in the Mid-American Conference (MAC). Let me explain. By 1983, MAC officials were considering kicking EMU's football program out of the conference, because of poor performance on the field and more importantly, poor performance at the turnstiles. The latter was a direct effect of the former's cause. The conference pretty much gave the university an ultimatum: lift attendance to a minimum threshold (I can't recall...