It's ALL Good. Or So They Say, and "They" May Be Right.

Michael Yon’s new column is up. Mr. Yon talks of the news media, old and new, and their relationship with the war, the public, and the military. In so doing he has a few good words for the MSM and reveals his new relationship with Fox News:

Behind me I heard several NBC crewmembers talking with Craig White. I did not know Craig, but he was talking about an American Colonel I had the honor of getting to know, Colonel Stephen Twitty. The way Craig and the others were talking, Twitty sounded like he walks on water. According to some soldiers who know him, he does. Craig had been embedded with Twitty previously, and wanted to try to see him again. That was the opening I needed to interject that I’d just spent a month in Mosul with Twitty’s people in the 2-7 CAV. Later when I emailed the news up to Mosul, Twitty gave high praise to NBC. And when I watched Brian Williams and Richard Engle and General Downing do live interviews, everything they said was consistent with what I am seeing on the ground. Brian and Richard both clearly were concerned to get it right.

[…]

This week, journalists are all around this area—ABC, Fox, New York Times, Associated Press, The Telegraph, Stars & Stripes (DoD publication) and others, all flagships—but where are the bloggers? Prohibitive costs, very high risks, and an increasingly shrinking market for the work probably contribute to the poor showing. Will the blog-world still maintain the attack on coverage from the mainstream media? Instead of looking for mistakes in some coverage, the common cause might be better served by well-informed bloggers searching all sources for the reports that get it right and driving readers to those.

[…]

Readers who came to this website via a link on the front page of the Fox News website are beneficiaries of one example of this cooperation. Fox News is on the cutting edge of this new wave. In the coming months Fox will post excerpts of my latest dispatches that link to the complete versions here. While Fox uses their resources to penetrate the murk here in Iraq, I will maintain independence and the net effect is more readers will see more of the situation on the ground.

There’s much more, of course. Mr. Yon’s comments are pretty much spot-on. He’s a voice I trust, but certainly not the only one. It’s good to know Mr. Yon thinks there are quite a few MSM types that are working hard to “get it right.” Forgive me, but I’d find it pretty hard to make that sort of positive value judgment if I hadn’t heard it from Michael. Maybe I’ve just seen too much Wolf Blitzer and not enough Brian Williams.

I wish I had more days like yesterday. It was almost as if I had one of those “Easy Buttons” Staples goes on about. The weather was pretty decent, my interaction with government bureaucracy was better than one could hope for, the external hard drive I bought worked with no intervention on my part (real plug ‘n’ play), the backup software I installed worked as advertised (albeit slowly), the commissary had everything I needed, and there were no check-out lines. Anywhere. Which, come to think on it, there almost never is a line at the Cannon AFB commissary, unlike large bases where long lines are a chronic problem. I feel a digression coming on, but I won’t. Digress.

The best thing about yesterday was the experience at the Social Security office. If the rest of the gub’mint worked as well as the Social Security Administration we’d have significantly fewer problems, IMHO. (Parenthetical comment: the fact the system is going broke isn’t the Agency’s fault. Don’t go there.)

Mr. Andy Chavez, the guy who took care of me yesterday, was thoroughly prepared for our meeting, courteous, knowledgeable, and didn’t seem disgruntled in any way…unlike most government employees who tend to communicate a vague feeling of resentment at your mere presence. Think “DMV.” The other thing that struck me was the system’s efficiency. The Agency’s record of my lifetime earnings was accurate. Given the Agency sends each of us an annual record of our earnings and one’s estimated SS benefits, along with an address and a simple process for contacting them if you have a dispute is probably a key to that efficiency. The Agency also has a good web site with real, useful information, as opposed to self-promotion. One can obtain and download a comprehensive benefits calculator at their web site, which I did. And that calculator is pretty accurate, too, or at least it was in my case. My “approved” benefit and the benefit I thought I’d be getting were within one dollar of each other. Amazing, that! In other words, the Agency set my expectations before I even contacted them. It helped that I was prepared and had done my homework. But the Agency gave me the tools (the annual letter, the benefits calculator) to do my homework. Impressive. And I’m not being sarcastic. Not at all.

All in all, a very positive and reassuring experience. Lord knows we need more of those when interacting with the gub’mint.

Now…about that back-up software. Eight hours, 39 minutes and 38 seconds to backup 66.5 Gb of data in 89,711 files. Not all that bad, I suppose, but if I learned anything at all, it’s to schedule back-ups for the dead of night. Coz while one can use the ‘puter while one is backing up, it’s painfully slow. But Hey! At least I’m finally backed up. I knocked on wood before typing this and will do the same after I’m done: I’ve never experienced a hard drive failure. Never ever, neither at work nor at home. That might be some sort of record…given my 20+ years of PC use.

What he said:

I mean that's one of the joys of blogging. I'm my own assignment editor.

Look there's lots of news everyday. And sometimes that is all I do because the stories are interesting and enjoyable to write about. Face it ... when it comes to writing I'm a sort of hedonist. I do what I like.

On other days I may be in a bizarre mood or a humorous mood or even a contemplative mood and I look for other items of interest that reflect those moods. But I have no idea from one day to the next what I'll be writing about the following day.

Another thing which I find amusing is when I'm accused of not being 'fair'. I can't say this enough - I'm not fair. I don't try to be fair.

I came across those words of wisdom whilst reading all about the scandal du jour, which I won’t comment on, because (a) like Orrin Kerr, I know very little about it and (b) from what little I do know, today’s scandal seems to be a fabricated Left-Wing target of opportunity. I just wish the administration weren’t so damned good at creating those targets. Just sayin’.

Today’s Pic: More from the scanned photo archives, thanks once again to The Second Mrs. Pennington. This time it’s YrHmblScrb in the arms of his mother. Note the way Mom’s dressed; pretty spiffy, ain't she? I find myself channeling Mr. Lileks in this regard from time to time. He and I are alike in at least one respect, and that would be our mutual fondness for the (perceived) virtues of the past, styles and manners being just two aspects of our admiration for times gone by.

As usual, click for larger.

Atlanta, Georgia. Sometime in 1945.