What a fantastic Day! Happy for my Bonnaroo going friends! Happy for my Riverbend friends! This is a beautiful weekend to embrace fun!

SHOP TIL YOU DROP! and other not very well thought out ramblings...

COURTESY and SOURCE: CHATTANOOGAN.COM
Friday, the website Chattanoogan dot com published an interesting article written by Ms. Judy Franks.

So, the economy is down. The general revenue coming in -- is down. Governments are trying to balance budgets with shortfalls. While white knuckling a wallet seems like a very smart thing to do -- I sometimes wonder if the whole "SHOPPING" thing is now out of style?

Remember when "SHOP TIL U DROP" was on logo gear everywhere? AND the movie industry focused on the sociology of mall life?

I wonder if trends to "shop local" truly pinch the larger retailers? as moms and pops make very strong efforts to rock it out in the local markets.

Apparently, savy shoppers have cornered an area of retail that not allows one to shop but to DODGE prices by clipping AND USING - coupons.

I say the AND USING part because clippin the buggers is only a third of the actual task of savings.

Ms. Franks article says that the retailer KMART is doubling coupons with values UP TO $2. -- Got a two dollar coupon -- well, by the time it's all said and done, the saving is $4! Very nice!


So, this Sunday -- when you're sorting through your paper -- or even cruising the web to supplement your shopping list with coupons -- it's an interesting tidbit to keep in mind. But don't forget to visit your local fresh markets too!

visit sippingcosmos.blogspt.com for new entry

testing out my mobile blog option!

Is it Day 3 in a North Korean Labor Camp?

This week, in the moments I am not asking questions and contemplating the next big step …I’ve been thinking of what I would have once considered an unimaginable fate.

It’s been at least three days since headlines translated a frightening fate for two American Journalists.


I don’t know about you but I haven’t seen much about 32-year-old Laura Ling and 36-year-old Euna Lee since it was announced they’d spend twelve years in a North Korean labor camp.

According to a journalism festival website, where Ling was scheduled to appear, the two journals were arrested while filming near the North Korea-China border.

The site states: "The two journalists, together with a cameraman and a guide, were headed to the town of Yanji where they planned to interview women forced into prostitution, according to sources.

Laura Ling was due to appear at the International Journalism Festival on Saturday 04 April as part of the presentation of the Current US Vanguard journalism unit."

The website goes on to share: "Laura Ling currently serves as Vice President of Current TV’s Vanguard Journalism unit, the network’s journalism division dedicated to covering global issues that are relevant to young adult audiences. Ling also serves as an on-air correspondent for Current TV. She has covered subjects including the avian flu crisis in Asia, slave labor in the Brazilian Amazon, China’s booming sex industry and marijuana cultivation in California’s national forests. Prior to joining Current in 2005, Ling worked as a series producer for Channel One News where she produced reports from over two-dozen countries. She has posed as a tourist in North Korea, covered underground youth culture in Iran and interviewed the leaders of the United Wa State Army in Myanmar—one of the largest armed drug trafficking organizations in the world. Ling co-created Breaking it Down, a documentary series on MTV that aired between 1999 and 2001. Her work has also appeared on ABC's Nightline, NBC, PBS and the WB."


Busting rocks in a labor camp for twelve years? I wonder.... I did find this interview and thought I'd share the link in case you wanted to read that. It's pretty incredible.




Where do they sleep? How often do they get to sleep? Why are they being punished? What story were they on? AND twelve years may be the longest assignment ever….

More questions continue for me. Why? From what I’m reading in the New York Times, there is one indication they inadvertently crossed the North Korean border…however the only headlines I’m seeing as of late, talk of US and China sanctioning.

It goes on and on. But this is what I think of today.

ENCORE: TN Travel Tips -- Bonnaroo Weekend

Saturday, June 6, 2009
Traveler Tips as Bonnaroo Time nears:
FOR TRAFFIC INFO:
Cell: 511
web: www.tn.gov/tdot

TDOT is also on Twitter:

TN511 are statewide tweets
Nashville511 are tweets for Nashville
Chattanooga511 are tweets for ....well -- you get the picture!
Memphis511
Knoxville511

Need trooper assistance? simply dial *THP from your cell phone.
(automatically connects to THP's operator at nearest dispatch)

WOW - You've gotta be kidding me!

Just imagine -- you're at work. You get a call from an "authority" asking you to test your fire alarm by pulling it, then to turn it off -- break out all your windows and set off the sprinkler system. At what point do you have a red flag this may not be an "authority" on the phone?

Last night, my dear uncle in Arkansas shared a very interesting story with me about a PRANK CALL that led to 50-thousand dollars in damage to a hotel in my hometown of Conway, Arkansas. AND yes, same hometown as American Idol, Kris Allen. And no, I do not know him.

SERIOUSLY! The police report indicates: a person called the front desk of the Holiday Inn Express and said they were an employee at a fire sprinkler service. Supposedly, the caller told the clerk there was a problem with the sprinklers and that there was an immediate need to reset them - by pulling the fire alarm. Naturally, the alarm goes off. Caller says pull the fire lever down to cut it off. Nothing happens, so she's told to break out the windows to keep the sprinklers from firing off their watery spray. Now, keep in mind, alarm goes off -- everyone staying there evacuates because they have NO idea what is going on.

In the meantime, this clerk proceeds to break out the front windows, asking a bystander to assist her in the glass busting task! OH and this is not the end. THE caller then says, take part of a sprinkler head off -- again to prevent them from doing what they're there for. Again, doing as told -- the FLOOD began...

AND yes...the story continues: Apparently the next instruction was to reset the control panel -- but again -- unsuccessfully because the water showering down caused the POWER to shut off.

By the time police got there well over a hundred guests, the clerk and her glass breaking bystander were hanging in the parking lot.

So then she says...Do you wanna pay with credit,, cash or check?

Reading through the piles of news stories and headlines I’d missed in ONE day…I found a tidbit about a doc having to give up her psych license. Why you say? The dialogue is just playing through my head – “YOU wanna CHARGE ME FOR THAT?!!!”

The whole thing falls on the lines of a made for television movie and maybe even an bad after school special...but just to put a positive spin on this...I'll start by saying:

One of my Favorite movies -- is What about Bob?

So, that was your set-up if you didn't catch it -- the whole dependency on the doc thing.
NOW:
Fact verses fiction -- There's a psychologist out there that handed in their license that was under scrutiny -- THIS COMES, after taking a patient SHOPPING and on extended trips. Maybe, hmmmm...maybe the red flag was the good doc charging the patient for the retail therapy!

While even a "non-psyche pedigreed" could observe the unnatural order of that relationship and ethic....but really -- how weird is that?