Lots of Catch-up Underway...

I hope you like Catch-up on your Blog. Maybe a little mustard too, with onions on the side.

All joking aside, I'm still toying with the links secion off to the right of this post, and each and every one of those websites is needing serious updating and overhaul.

So, plenty to do, plus Twitter, My Space, Facebook and this Blog to update, so hang in there while I try to get up and operational.

I'm attempting to get the two slideshows going to show off some of the "Best of the Best" of my images, in particular, scenics. And then I have new slide shows to create, so the main thing is trying to experiment and get the URLs right, otherwise, things don't work.

And I'm not much into html so, it all becomes a little probelematic which is why I experiment with different gadgets here on this site.

Nothing much going on here in Reno. I need to take a break and take a walk down the Truckee but it has been too hot. Today, the temperatures are to drop 20 degrees and isolated T-Storms are expected. Those can be rather spectacular. There were some nice Cumulo Nimbus build-ups yesterday ~ the anvil style clouds ~ but the stayed to the East and produced nothing but a beautiful sky.

The Truckee River has changed somewhat in the downtown Reno area since my last stay here. They now have a swim park down by Arlington Avenue and everyone enjoying one of the most leisurely and clean Rivers in America and Nevada, as it makes its way to Pyramid Lake from the Donner Pass area in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, alongside I-80.

A rather amazing place is Reno. New Courthouse, Theatres, shops, Apartments and other features along the Truckee in the downtown area. The Harrah's Automobile Museum still exists in smaller size, and of course, we have the new Minor League Baseball Stadium just east of the Harrah's Hotel and Casino, where the Reno Aces are in their first season and actually doing quite well. They are the farm Team for the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix, Arizona, and ballplayers called up from the Minors go straight there, so it has got to be an exciting experience for them.

Two to Three months max until Fall arrives and sometimes the early winter by Thanksgiving. There's nothing like seeing the surrounding mountains North, East and West of Reno, covered in Snow, and if Highway 395 can't provide you with a scenic view, then the roads leading to Donner Lake and Lake Tahoe can.

Hot August Nights about to arrive along with thousands of vintage and classic automobiles.

Must...have...camera...by...then...

That's it for now. If something else comes up today of interest, I'll post again.

Mourning the loss of Walter Cronkite, whom I literally grew up watching. This is a man who broke down on the news while confirming the death of President John F. Kennedy from an assassins bullet on November 22, 1963.

I watched that "Live," along with a number of NASA launches into Space involving Projects Gemini and Apollo. This man's history went back to World War II and he, along with Edward R. Murrow, set the standard for News and Televised Journalism which for decades now, has been undermined by Corporate News and "Pretty-haired Reporters." However, the troubles with Journalists and Newsman stretch back centuries, including the falsified stories of the Old West told to Easterners from reporters and writers that had never been there ~ just made those stories up from scratch and imagination ~ followed in the early to mid 20th Century and the Paparazzi attacks on the Lindberghs, the Kennedys, which coincided with the "Make Believe" Celebrities, also a fiction by the Press, which subject to this day, all forms of Entertainers to the "Stalkarazzi" because the Media labelled these people ~ along with the Hollywood machine ~ as "Public Figures," which is sometimes true, but for the majority of actors, untrue as they struggle within Hollywood to find work and an identity via their work ethic.

At my publications, the "Glenn Wagner Rule" applies. My reporters are not allowed to behave in the manner of the Paparazzi. I worked at UPI as a stringer (which means you handle far away or unusual assignments that you sometimes arrive on scene for "by accident" or chance) and watched Glenn work. He was always willing to talk with the lowliest of Stringers, despite the fact he knew every top notch, Celebrity there was in Hollywood. Literally, he would receive calls in his office from Celebrities inviting him over to photograph their family, or a birthday part for the kids, or to give him an inside Scoop about Tinseltown, as Hollywood has long been called. He kept an 8 x 10 photo machine in his home so that he could print out and then send prints of his photo shoots to those same Celebrities, endearing him to all. Truly, the nicest man and most elegant of all Hollywood Reporters, in my opinon. A newsman, not a Gossip, and his photos went over the wire all over the World, with United Press International (UPI). For me, those meager assignments, well ~ "Those were the days..."

Thus, if a Celebrity doesn't call one of my reporters and invite him over to photograph their Family and their kids, then my reporters aren't doing their jobs. Glenn Wagner got his invitations for being a Class Guy and a genial fellow. Guys hanging ten off Mopeds and chasing Princesses into Paris tunnels are not "Class Acts." They are not welcome to hang their hats here with my ILIPS Group. I want that guy or gal that a Celebrity will call because they are personal friends and are known throughout Hollywood, the Film and Entertainment Industry and in Government Affairs, for being a "Good Egg" and being honest, impartial and welcome, everywhere in the Hollywood scene.

At present we do not have that reporter, as much as I would like to. Therefore, we won't cover Celebrities other than through Press Releases or chance meetings, until such time as we do.

In all News aspects, that reporter is not a myth. As a Publisher and Editor, one merely has to search to find them as they are few and far between, in these, the black times of Corporate Press influenced by Corporate Corruption, money and a greedy lust for power.

There are still the few good Newspapers out there, like the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal. We need more. We also need the return of the smaller, hometown, "Mom & Pop" newspapers, before they disappear entirely off the face of the Earth.

Journalism has come a long way, but still has a long way to go. The Journalist's Ethics and his or her use of the Style Guide, critical to the foundation of every great newspaper that has ever exited, or ever will exist over time.

And so, many Journalists out there exist operating their own blogs, not realizing or indeed, realizing that they are Journalists in this new process, with some having no idea as to what a Journalist's Ethics are, while a handfull do and yet, that handful choosing to operate contrary to Ethics in Journalism because Blogs such as these are more about "them" and their vanity rather than the Public's Right to Know. I think it must be remembered that the First Amendment belongs to The People, and it's from that Right, that a Journalist's Rights and Responsibilities are primarily defined. Just remember, the Ninth Amendment leaves all Civil Rights here in America open to interpretation, as long as the Law agrees with your First Amendment intrepretations of Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Press, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Conscience, et al (Latin ~ "and all").