Shortcuts

Why does Katie Couric fight with her guests for air time? I'm watching the Today Show and she's interviewing Glen Close and Patrick Stewart and, like almost all of her interviews, it's a painful tug of war between Katie and the people who've flown into New York to plug their movie. Katie has three hours each morning to get her face and voice on TV. I don't know why she must vie for time. She's praised for her interviewing skills time and time again and I can't understand it. I love the interviews where she gets shut down, and this one was one of those. Glen Close was in the middle of answering a question and Katie started answering for her. This is a common occurance in a Couric interview, but this time, Ms. Close continued, raising her voice, and Katie had to shut up. But she would not be undone. She insisted on ruining an intelligent conversation about King Richard the Lionheart and film making by ending the interview with her seventh-graders words about how hot the actors were. Is that an incentive for her daughter to get her homework done or something?

Yesterday I made an attempt to cut some distance off my ride home by turning off my regular route and hoping the path I took would cut to the South at some point. I rode about a mile, still not out of my way if I could get access to the South. The air was filled with the putrid stench of decomposing fauna from the "clean green landfill" to my right. To my left was a fenced-off wild-life preserve. I've been riding this eight miles for a while now and I never knew that existed. There were good ol' boys in there trucks there but I couldn't find a hole in the fence to get through myself. I would have thrown my bike over but there were a bunch of a "keep out" and "no trespassing" signs. I can't say no to a sign. I kept riding until I came to a dead end. Actually, the road kept going but the land is apparently owned by someone who doesn't like people so I had to turn around. There's so much beautiful land around here and very little of it is accessible. There's an entire mountain range, the Oquirrhs, near my house that's owned by Kennecott Copper. At any rate, my "shortcut" added about half an hour and a mile to my ride. I'm glad I had my knee brace.