Quicky Points... Responsible Journalism, Book Reviews, and Josta.

My local Fox station, WAGA, reported today on an investigation where they found hispanic grocery stores sold persrciption drugs over the counter illegally. They went in, described what drugs they bought, how much they bought them for, and then confronted about it. It's sweeps month, this is normal stuff.

Except, the media was practicing irresponsible journalism. They told everyone in the Atlanta area that they can go to small, Hispanic grocery stores and buy drugs. Their profits are bound to skyrocket, and very little will be done by the police. You might as well report on bombings and show exactly how terrorists make the bombs. I've never seen the media act as irresponsibly as Fox 5 did.

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I finished All the King's Men finally, after starting in October. It takes that long to read a Robert Penn Warren novel. An amazing book, worthy of reading twice at least. See my earlier blog for a review of it.

I also finished Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo. If I had to grade it, I'd give it a C+. The characters are shallow, the plot unbelievable, and the story unexplainable. But it was enjoyable. It had a wit that I enjoyed, a couple of characters that, in a better novel, would have been highly sympathizable (is that a word?).

The main problem was that the author never explains the rules of Foo well enough to let us suspend our disbelief, and the fact that "fate" has so much to do with the movements of the characters, it makes it even harder to believe the story. It is clear that the author has a long way to go to become an experienced master of his trade. I will say that, once that has happened, his books will be well worth reading. I would instead recommend Diane Duane's Wizard series or MacHale's Pendragon series. I'm now going to read The Navigator. Seems promising enough. Linked below.

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I made Josta Reborn! Amazingly similar to its Josta ancestor. The problem with it is finding the ingredients. Bawls is easy-they now sell it at Target. Pepsi is simple. The Sobe Dragonfruit drink is more difficult. I found mine at a Shell station here in Conyers, but I did not find it at Krogers, Walmart, Target, and other gas stations. It's also similar in effects.