News stories that drive me crazy...

There are a few stories in the news lately that have had me itching to comment.

Let's start with the polygamy story in Texas. First of all, I don't want to criticize these people, because many of them don't know any different. I say "don't know different," not "don't know better," because this has been their lifestyle for generations. This is how they were brought up, how their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were brought up.

I just don't understand how girls that young have to be "baby factories." New developments in the case this week showed that out of 53 girls, between ages 14 and 17, 31 of them had been, or are currently pregnant.

GOOD LORD!!

When I was between 14 and 17, I was enjoying high school, playing basketball and softball at St. Joseph Academy in St. Augustine, Florida and starting my first job. That was at Golden Corral in Palatka (great job, by the way).

I didn't have my first child until I was 28, and if all goes well, I'll have my second child in a few weeks, at age 31. I chose to wait that long, because it's a choice. Had other things to do first, I guess... college, marriage, get my career going... I could have chosen to have children earlier, but this was how it worked out for me.

I just feel so bad this is how they are taught their lives have to be. This is their duty, to bear children, over and over, starting at such an early age. They don't know any different because that's how they've been brought up, and that's how their parents and grandparents were brought up, too.

Now, I am not one to criticize another person's religion. I am Catholic, and there are some misunderstandings about my religion, so I've had some people ask me why we pray to idols and worship saints, the Pope, etc... when we should be praying directly to God. (That's a topic for another post.)

What I'm saying is, there are questions about my religion. There are questions about other religions... I feel bad for Mormons who have people ask them all the time why their church allows this, when they split off from these fundamentalist sects several hundred years ago.

But polygamy -- why does this continue to exist?

The next story that has me saying "seriously???" The shark attack, off the California coast.

A great white killed a triathlete named David Martin. This is a very unfortunate story, and Martin no doubt suffered a great deal of pain in the attack.

What irks me are the news organizations who repeatedly say "the hunt is on for the great white shark" that killed this man. Really?? Are there search crews out there with sonar looking for this shark?

What are these teams going to do with them if they find him, anyway? Cuff him and stuff him? Take him to shark court and charge him with murder?

The big guy is long gone.

Disney World Visit

Time for a fun post. I've been meaning to post these pictures since late DECEMBER... but hey, the title of my blog is "Too Many Hats" and sometimes all those things dominate my time.

(Yeah, yeah.. give me some wine and cheese to go with that...)

My husband Joey and I took Elena to Disney World during our December visit to Florida to see my family. It was awesome, and this picture just sums it up...

I grew up in Florida, and loved going to Disney World. But it's a different experience when you take your child. You realize that Disney is for kids, and that's GREAT!! It's even better when you experience it with them, seeing their face light up when they see the characters in the parade, etc... I highly recommend the parades. That was the best part for us.

Here's another funny one... it was PACKED the day we went -- not an empty bench to be found. Being the week after Christmas, I didn't expect that, but apparently, that's one of the busiest weeks.

However, we hung in there, and Elena took her nap on Daddy's shoulder in our 1 1/2 hour wait for the Haunted House. I tried to help as I could, but being 5 1/2 months pregnant at the time, I couldn't offer too much assistance.

We figured we'd squeeze it in and she might sleep through the Haunted House? NO. Just as we got on the black cars to start the ride, she wakes up! I said "oh dear... I hope this doesn't scare her..." but she was a trooper. She loved it. Luckily, Disney's Haunted House is more fun anyway... the ghosts aren't too scary and are more on the fun side.

At the end, as we walked outside, she said "I see GHOSTS, Mommy! I see GHOSTS!" and smiled.

Thank goodness!

Next time we'll find a less busy time to visit Disney, if that's possible.. but we will be back. I learned one other thing.. you learn a new meaning to the phrase "watch your kids like a HAWK" when you're there.

Nothing to fear... but now I understand why some families use those "kid leashes" in places like this.

The 60 Minutes Debacle

The past few days have been some of the most frustrating I've ever had, working in local news.

We had a technical error on our end that caused our CBS 60 Minutes broadcast on "The Prosecution of Don Siegelman" to go to black, just as the show was beginning.

Many of our viewers have been highly suspicious of us "blacking out the program" at that very moment. They have a right to be. There are some in the media who abuse their power.

Our satellite receiver failed at the worst possible time. But that's all there is to it. I could go into more, but I am plain TIRED of even thinking about this issue.

By the way, I was waiting at home at 6pm, looking forward to seeing Scott Pelley's report.

We've been bashed on the Internet, blog posts, national news, you name it. Keith Olbermann even put his on his "worst" list Monday night on MSNBC. Thanks, Keith, for taking the side of all the Internet rumors and not calling WHNT to get our side of the story.

Media people like Keith are why.... well, I've already written a blog on him.

We've heard every curse word in the book thrown at us since Sunday night -- in phone calls and e-mails.

One viewer today wrote that we should go stick our head up Karl Rove's you-know-where. Well, thank you.

We still provided a courteous and TRUTHFUL reply to that viewer about what happened, as we did to the hundreds who e-mailed us. Some were nice enough to write back. Some accepted our explanation and thanked us for the job we do here.

Some wrote back, still skeptical, but thanking us nonetheless for caring to provide a response.

Many others didn't write back.. who knows if our emails made a difference in their lives.

We believe in being open and honest about what happened, and we have been, even with the people who have dog-cussed us out. We're a local news station. Stuff breaks from time to time.

Yes, it even malfunctions on a Sunday night when no engineer is on the clock and we expect our CBS receiver to work well, just like it usually does.

This is not the first time we've had an equipment failure at NewsChannel 19. We lost power to the building a few weeks ago, during the 10pm news. Yet, the show must go on.. so we did go on... and did the news with very minimal lighting, in some cases, flashlights. It was primitive, but we presented the news, which is our job.

We lost power to the entire station (yes, a real blackout) last year, mid-afternoon one weekday. Yet, we still went on the air at 5pm and with hand-written scripts, weather graphics on a dry-erase board. Sure, our competition probably laughed at us. But we had no other choice. It happened, and you have to roll with the punches in local news.

We all seem to have 'black eyes' after the last few days.

I just don't have any energy to type about this issue anymore. We've apologized as much as we can apologize, and we got permission from CBS to re-air the Siegelman piece not ONCE, but TWICE, and we thank CBS for allowing us to do so. We also made the entire 12-minute report available on WHNT.com.

Some people still think we're Nazis. You know what I have to say to that?

My favorite line in the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - when Jones says "Nazis. I hate Nazis."

And I do. Can't wait for Indiana Jones #4, by the way. Even though I will probably be at home nursing a newborn, and might not be able to see it for another month or two...

I don't stand for censorship, and I wouldn't work at a station that asked us to censor things on the news. I wouldn't work at one where I even SUSPECT that it happened behind the scenes by one of my co-workers.

I don't feel that way about WHNT. I love the people I work with. They're good people. They're caring journalists. We are members of the north Alabama community -- we live here -- we shop here -- we go to church here -- our children go to school here.

We're your neighbors. Please stop hating us.

In closing, check out some of the blogs my co-workers have written on the 60 Minutes issue. Each of these people are stand-up, solid journalists whom I deeply respect.

Steve Johnson, Anchor/Reporter

Greg Screws, Anchor/Reporter

Denise Vickers, News Director and Station Manager

Patrick Ary, News Producer

Peace,
Claire

A Life Update

I haven't blogged recently, and I could blame it on work, but that wouldn't be original. Life has been busy, and things are going great.

I feel comfortable announcing to the world that I'm expecting another child!

In fact, I've had the great privilege of using a special new parking space at NewsChannel 19! Our general manager, Stan Pylant, recently added it, and until another pregnant woman presents herself in our building, I'll enjoy it. (I would love to share it with someone, I feel guilty using it!)

I'm 24 weeks along now, and am due in late May. Will probably deliver in mid-May by planned C-section. Trust me, I wish I could go the natural way, with no epidural. I'm that kind of girl. However, with my first child, the doctor recommended a C-section because of my past medical history (I had spina bifida as a child) so I took his advice. I don't regret it for a minute.

I thought it might make me less of a mother, not going through labor pains, etc.. but there is plenty you do after that surgery that makes up for it, trust me!

Please keep me in your prayers. It has been a relatively easy pregnancy so far... I'm just feeling "bigger" which is normal. My husband Joey and I are very excited, and will find out the gender of the baby when he or she is born. I'm old-fashioned that way, and he'd love to find out, but would tell me in about 5 minutes. Our friends and I like to tease him that he is a one-man communication system -- "Telephone, television, Tell-a-Joey."

Elena, my 2 1/2 year old, understands we're having a baby, but doesn't know that it will be a boy OR a girl, not both. We ask her all the time what she thinks the baby is -- a boy, or a girl? And she replies "boy-girl" or "brother-sister."

She's going to be a wonderful big sister. I just hope we can adjust to having 2 little ones around the house. It will be a big change!

More to come soon... I hope to post some pictures of our December trip to Disney World.

Good Music, Bad Music

First, the bad music.

My friend and coworker Amber Stuart has some, well, questionable taste in music. Some of her music choices I like -- for example, Robin Thicke.

Not this one.

Recently, Amber bought the new Britney Spears CD, 'Blackout.' God knows why. And even worse, she admits it to the world in her new blog post.

I applaud her for the two other CDs she bought. Those are reputable musicians. Spears is not.

While we're on the subject of music, I want to talk about one of my favorite musicians. I saw Keith Urban in concert this past weekend at the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center.


Urban is something else on stage. He's taken some hits in his personal life, and the tabloids bash him quite a bit, but they should stick to Britney Spears. Urban has talent and deserves a break.

He seems happy, and much of that is probably due to his new wife, Nicole Kidman. I love the two of them together. Wish she had been there, but he did dedicate a song to her with his charming Aussie accent! I really hope the two of them make it. It's wonderful to see them both so happy.

Back to the concert. Mary Calurso of The Birmingham News posted this review of the concert, and I have to say she is dead on. Mary, I apologize if some of what you wrote bleeds over in to my blog. I don't mean for it to. I just think you and I agree on many points about the concert.

I don't go for grungy rock stars, but Urban doesn't fall in to that category. Some might say he does, but there are plenty of ladies out there who will agree when I say that Urban gives me goosebumps. He can sing.. play the guitar, piano, drums, and really rocks the crowd. Even the guys who attended Saturday's concert had a good time.

Urban was also very gracious to the crowd. You could tell it's been a challenging year for him, and he's glad to be back on solid ground, which I believe he is.

My friend and I especially enjoyed watching a cowboy with too-tight jeans slide back and forth across the aisle.

We also enjoyed the Bob Jones High School drumline, from Madison, AL. They joined Urban on stage at the end of the song "I Told You So", which has a heavy drumbeat.

They only played for about a minute, but were STELLAR. The crowd loved them! I was really looking forward to this part of the concert because one of our NewsChannel 19 photojournalists, Colby Knight, profiled the drumline getting ready for their performance a few weeks ago.

The drumline's advisor says the students didn't actually get to meet Urban, which disappointed me a bit, but they did get to hang out with the crew. And the crowd made them feel very appreciated, too.

This is the second time I've seen Keith Urban live. He continues to get better.. because he has more songs in his repertoire now. He performed for more than 2 hours this time, as opposed to his concert in Huntsville last year, which was still good, but not as long.

Did I mention he is SEXY?????? Can't wait to see him on his next trip to Alabama.

Happy Thanksgiving, and I Love Nick Saban

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. Hope you have a good Turkey Day and enjoy your family.
Notice, I said "enjoy." Yes, I know that's not easy all the time... but they mean well. Some just don't know any better.

On to my thought for the day. Nick Saban. The man keeps Bama fans, and media folks, on our toes.

I don't envy Saban. He has one of the toughest jobs of anyone in the world. He's the head coach of the University of Alabama football team, for those of you who don't follow sports. He's caught flack from all directions this year, and he makes a zillion bucks, so he can handle it.

At the beginning of the season, Bama fans thought we'd win the National Championship this year. I didn't. Would've loved to see it happen, but I'm a realist.

Saban's not perfect. Neither is his team. He's trying to clean up a mess left behind by the last coaching staff, when I guess they ran around like hoodlums, as we are led to believe.

Saban's latest comments have some people in an uproar.

The Iron Bowl is this week, and we've lost our last two games to Mississippi State and Louisiana/Monroe, both of them at home. Not good. Not good at all. And the heat is on to beat, well, let me say "compete" against Auburn.

On Monday, Saban brought up two major events in American history, 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, in the same thought as Alabama's recent losing streak. He was trying to make a point that after those two things happened, America responded and came out stronger because of them. And, in turn, Bama would learn from its recent embarassments and do the same.

I watched the comments this morning (watch them here for yourself). I see what he meant. But others think the comments were too strong. Judge for yourself.

I don't expect a win against Auburn this weekend. I expect the hand, and a new thumb. (That means 6 losses in a row to our in-state rival). And I don't think the score will be close.

Are we not at rock bottom yet? God, I hope so. But Saban is trying to turn the Alabama football program around, and I think he's doing the right thing. He suspends players who don't follow the rules. I think he knows what he's doing.

The thing I love about Saban is he doesn't care what anyone else thinks. It's his way or the highway, and he's proving that. I'm glad I don't work for him... I couldn't handle it. But Alabama needs some stern leadership, and we've got it now. What's left of the old regime at the Capstone is learning that, and they might not be there much longer. GOOD.

No, Saban's not perfect. Some think he's supposed to be, because he makes more money than Oprah. Well, not that much. But let's have some faith in what he's trying to do.

Bama will ROLL again, maybe not this year or next. But we'll get there. I just hope our fans and alumni let Saban hang around long enough to prove he and the team can do it.

Halloween 2007

I've been trying to get around to posting these photos for a few days now. We had a great Halloween this year. My husband Joey and I always make a point to dress up, and this year, our two-year-old daughter got into the spirit, too. This is the first year she actually 'understood' it was Halloween, and definitely wanted to go for the candy!

Joey and Elena went for the "Wizard of Oz" theme, because Elena loves the movie right now. Don't they look great? Elena is Dorothy and Joey is the Scarecrow. I love how he really gets into the Halloween spirit.

Before you say anything, I did try to find a Wizard-related costume, but didn't have any luck. I was going to be 'adult Dorothy' but couldn't find a costume. I could have been the wicked witch, but didn't want to have to mess with green face and hand paint, or find a Glenda "good witch" costume.

Hence, I was Medusa. She was always my favorite character from Greek mythology.

Medusa would fool men - she appeared beautiful at first, but one look could turn men to stone.

I was impressed that most people knew who I was this year!

Hope you and your family had a great Halloween, too.