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JBY

Member since: Oct 10th, 2006

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Creamy Fettucine with Sweet Peas and Prosciutto (Kitchen Daily)

Oct 24th 2010 6:29PM We made this dish, anticipating it would be rich and tasty. It was indeed tasty, but the appallingly gluey texture of the dish is opaque and entirely unappealing. Cooking a la pesante is one thing, as one finds such marvelous food all over Italy, for example, but this dish is hardly that. It is instead akin to gruel; one could and perhaps should use it instead to attach wallpaper or to repair broken ceramics. Not recommended at all!

Sprint Dumps Problem Customers (Switched)

Mar 5th 2008 12:56PM No one should find the nightmarish stories we're reading here surprising. Sprint,which is a cesspool of corruption, lies, and fraud, makes Enron look like Santa Claus. Oddly enough, I knew a guy who was exceptionally well versed in all things electronic, who worked for them; he filled me in on their "training" regimen for employees, which essentially demanded that they lie and cheat their customers. As for me, when I was with Sprint--paying them very good money indeed on a business account- I cannot even recall teh nubmer of times they attempted to lie and steal. I usually caught them and, after a lot of back and forth with the morons who populate their Customer Service (though in fairness, one in a hundred of them is sympathetic and competent) got my money back. For example, I called in to have my number changed. I told them that I wanted to maintain all the features I had on my account with the new number. No problem, they told me. Would this cost anything? Why, NO, they said. In fact, two of their reps told me as much. And then, next thing I know, there's a charge for $250 on my bill for changing the number. Well, that's a clear case of misrepresentation, and I demanded, and got my money back. But on another occasion I was not so lucky; I had insured my phone, and paid the monthly premium for such. But when the phone was damaged, and non-functional, they claimed it was not insured at all. Why? Well, because I had *Changed my number* --and this in spite of the fact that I instructed them, in no uncertain terms, to keep all my current features, including insurance, with my new phone number--which was, to their minds, a new account. When signal strength was weak, they wouldn't hear of a possible problem with the phone itself, instead making preposterous claims that there were no towers in the area --this in spite of the fact that they sold me service in my neighborhood by representing there were working towers there. (Turned out to be a problem with the phone itself, but convincing them of that was a nightmare). There should ABSOLUTELY be a calss action suit brought against Sprint, which in this new move to get rid of customers, has broken its contract, and should be made to pay. I'm ready to testify: are you? At least I have the advantage of having my complaints heard in the major media, in my syndicated columns and elsewhere. It's time to bring Sprint to its corporate knees, then kick it in the teeth. By the way, one more amusing story: ON one occassion I called 411, to ask for a number in New York City. The Sprint operator's response? "Where is that?" I kid you not! I have no idea where they find these morons, but they do, and reward them for towing the party line, which is all they are good for. I'm with Verizon now, which is certainly better on the customer service end.

Whoopi Goldberg to Replace Rosie on 'The View?' (Blackvoices Main)

Jun 17th 2007 3:02PM Whoopi Goldberg, no matter her current metier or her future employment, be it on "The View" or on film, is the embodiment of what success at its most atractive should be about. Her humor, her elegance, her clarity of vision, her refusal to indulge in sanctimonious posturing for its own sake, or in the mean-spirited disparagement of others, no matter how cruelly deserved, is something we can all admire. While we can and sometimes will disagree with Whoopi Goldberg, as she will no doubt disagree with others, we can also follow the exemplary example she has consistently set throughout her public life as she raises the bar of spirited discourse about substantive issues. Like Whoopi, this we can do in the spirit of friendly competition, but always respectful of the feelings of others. Whoopi Goldberg is a master comedienne, a la Lucille Bal. She has long demonstrtated, either through her native intelligence or by shrewd observation, the political savvy of a woman who has had to work her way up by her bootstraps in order to earn every penny and every accolade she has garnered to date. This she has accoomplished with the steely discipline and determined resolve of a sargent major, yet in a manner dignified by her graciousness, loyalty, humor, and a delicious sense of irony that drive her most salient points home, rather than her oppoinents away.

While many, including this writer, find a great deal to admire, too, in Rosie O'Donnell for her uncomrpomising passion and willingness to speak out against injsutice, one is not discouraged from extolling the sheer economy of Ms Goldberg's greater discretion, and her diplomatic skills which, though they may now and again ring sharp or muted, never proceed from spite.

Simply put, Whoopi Goldberg is a woman of uncommon intelligence and authentic savoir-faire, upon whom we can certainly count to speak truth to power in such a way as to make power sit up and listen, but without alienating those dimensions of it which, when all is said and done, we are all left to deal with. In the final analysis, who can wish for anything better than to do good and get results from those who can make a difference in the lives of ordinary people? Thus in Whoopi Goldberg, to whom we can entrust much, we have found a reliable ally and a powerful advocate. We will all be better for it should Ms Goldberg embrace the wide net that a public forum such as The View would provide her> Let's hope she does and wish her luck. And in so doing, we can also offer her, well in advance, our heartfelt thanks.

Bravo, Whoopi! Bravo!
-JOHN BELL YOUNG
www.johnbellyoung.com

Cho Seung-Hui's Plays (News Bloggers)

Apr 17th 2007 4:53PM As long as the media is faithful to its customary and usual m.o., to wit, exploiting tragedy in a manner wholly out of proportion to what is necessary, and as a means to fill its corporate coffers, one can only wonder what the next twist in the reportage will be. In my previous post I opined that some clever producer will likely snap up the rights to the killer's screenplays and turn them into a gold mine. Perhaps that producer, in concert with a screen writer, will attribute the South Korean killer's real motives to the sinister forces of political adventurism, blaming it all on the Machievellian machinations of the North Korean dictator and his scheming cronies. No doubt, in the story to come, the entire murderous debacle, putting even Macbeth to shame, will be construed to have been a contract killing mediated in the bowels of Kim Jong-Il's Pyongang palace, a plan concocted with gusto and solely to yet again establize relations with the West at a most opportune time, to speak nothing of discrediting the South Korean meritocracy. I mean, as long as the media sees fit to blow this horror all out of proportion and extol it as the historical equivalent of World War II, then it might as well flesh out its repugnant cynicism with this sort of imaginative conspiracy guaranteed to generate even bigger bucks. Until the public puts its foot down and cries "Basta!" to all such creepy media excess, then it can expect, and perhaps deserves, its opinions to be pre-formed and spoon-fed to it ad infinitum. As the Buddah said, feel together, but think for yourself!

Cho Seung-Hui's Plays (News Bloggers)

Apr 17th 2007 4:26PM Mr. McFarlane's article, while compelling and revealing of his keen intuition, is also a bit naive. He paints the killer (why name the creep?) as a whacko and his actions predictable because his screen plays, no matter how poorly written, depict twisted and macabre acts of violence. Well, if writing of that variety is any indication of who is about to turn into a homocidal maniac, and should be reported, then I'd say we're all in big trouble: after all, 90% of the screen writers in Hollywood favor identical literary ideas. Certainly Mr. McFarlane is not unreasonable, as he also makes it clear that he had other, more personal reasons to suspect the killer. Even so, there's something more than a little ironic afoot now that AOL and the media has seen fit to publish the killer's screen plays, thus giving the creep a kind of posthumous victory. In making his so-called "playwriting" public, the media now gives the killer precisely the kind of attention he craved. Mark my word, some clever producer will buy the rights and turn the killer's plays either into a Movie-of-the-Week, or an opportunity to make a l great deal of money, one way or the other, in the ruthless world of entertainment marketing (even if the killer's writing eventually re-surfaces under a pseudonym) In the meantime, the media, particularly CNN, will invest itself 24/7 in this cruel story for another two weeks or so, until the ratings diminish and it no longer generates the lucrative revenues that make the old saying (a truism among journalists) so potent: "If it bleeds, it leads". While a hundred times as many young American men and women have been massacred in a senseless war overseas, and while outrageous crimes of this sort play out on a smaller scale in urban centers every day, the media once again blows things all out of proportion to boost its ratings. Today, a CNN reporter barely capable of composing a simple declarative sentence informed us that the VT affair was "the worst mass killing in American history", echoing the no less vapid assignations of her colleagues and even politicians, including George Bush. One has to wonder if our media talking-heads have ever read a book. To counter that sentiment requires only a single word: Gettysburg. (and that's only one example). Elsewhere, prime time media legends such as Larry King, for example, jettisoned his planned 50th anniversary celebration, joining other celebrity hosts who didn't want to miss out on grabbing a significant slice of the ratings bonanza the VT story promises. If any prominent media figure with clout had any real guts, he'd just report the story in a manner proportionate to world events, and leave it at that.