Welcome to Doug's Place

This is not the way to start a new year. My wonderful wife had a seizure last night. She’s in ICU as I type this.

I was at the hospital for 12 hours. Her folks came in from out of town late last night. I’ll be headed back to the hospital in a couple of hours or so. I’m here just to pick up a few things, including changes of clothes, for Cindy.

Responses are disabled from entry because I wish not to be flooded with responses. Instead, please pray to the deity of your choice.

I got an e-mail from her husband, Dave, earlier. He noted they got results for her scans from earlier this morning – and she’s cancer free and needs no further chemo. As he put it, “no cancer showing is great news for Christmas!!!”

Great news indeed.

Yeah, I know, I blogged about this last summer. It deserves a follow-up.

Turns out we have a name of the producer who booked “Borat Sagdiyev” and, in the process, was “tricked” into thinking he really was a Kazakhstan-born journalist – when he’s really a fictional character on an HBO show and now a related hit movie.

Her name: Dharma Arthur. Not long after the incident, she was reassigned from her morning producer duties to a similar capacity in the station’s 5:00pm newscast. Arthur and WAPT parted company this past spring.

While she reportedly has found work at a station in Florida, I sincerely hope she’s learned a valuable lesson from the whole “Borat” situation.
My fear, though, is she hasn’t learned anything.

She recently wrote to Newsweek, “Because of (“Borat”), my boss lost faith in my abilities and second-guessed everything I did thereafter.” Well, sheesh, if I were her boss, I’d put her under the microscope, too. “I spiraled into depression,” she continued to whine, “and before I could recover, I was released from my contract early. It took me three months to find another job, and now I’m thousands of dollars in debt and struggling to keep my house out of foreclosure.”

Uh, excuse me, Dharma. If you really want to know who’s at fault for all of this, look in the mirror. Now, I’m sorry you’ve gone through so much hardship; nightmares I wish on no one. But if you had done just a little extra bit of research instead of, apparently, basing you booking just on what “Borat’s” people gave you, you would have saved yourself headaches and you would’ve also spared WAPT a black eye.

In another article, Dharma was quoted as saying, “I don’t have cable. I have two mortgages.” Well, I hope you had internet access in your WAPT days. If so, all you had to do was enter the name “Borat Sagdiyev” into any internet search engine and I promise you would’ve discovered “Borat” was a work of fiction.

Then as now, may this be a lesson for all of us in the media.

(First, it continues to be busy ‘round here. Lately, my afternoons have been spent revising the community events section of ThePineBelt.com, a service of the radio stations I work for part time. With that disclosed…)

It’s come to my attention photographers with Playboy magazine are coming to town next week to seek local models as part of their upcoming “girls of Conference USA” pictorial, scheduled to come to a magazine rack behind the cash register of a convenience store near you next May.

I’m not going to get into the morality debate on this one. Instead, let’s get the obvious out of the way.

First, if the products of the photographers’ and models’ labors ended up under the marriage bed, divorce proceedings would follow.

And second, let’s all be thankful Fred Scott Sands is long gone. If he were still here, he’d lobby to do live remotes from the location of the shoot.

It continues to be busy here at Doug’s Place. The Mrs. and I are planning to be out of town to attend our niece’s wedding. I offered Niki and Kyle a countdown clock similar to the one across the top of the Doug Morris dot org homepage – but they declined.

Kudos are in order — to Dave Ware. He won the Hattiesburg Ward 4 special election. Ware succeeds the recently departed Red Bailey on the city council.

Someone asked me the other day, “Where’s Rick?” Funny, I noticed the lack of nonsense in this past campaign my own self.

If you visit this blog with any regularity, you know Rick James was my boss at SL. He later ran for public office, including the last regular election for Ward 4, and basically fell flat on his face. The last time on the campaign trail was one he’d probably want to forget. Ya know, the whole Dave Chappelle/“I’m Rick James b**ch” silliness.

Despite plans for a march to increase voter turnout, on the anniversary of the death of the singer, I think it’s safe to say Rick’s still nursing a few wounds after this latest failure.

So, let’s review. In the near 10 and a half years of RockTrax, Rick had…

\ a failed talk show (full disclosure, on WXHB-FM, under different ownership and format; since owned and operated by my radio bosses as a Gospel station).

\ a brief return to SL (before Clear Chuckle ate ‘em up; actually a wise move on his part to get while the gettin’ was good).

\ a brief run as a realtor (only listing I could find was some rundown house for just barely over 20-grand)

\ two failed runs for political office (District 102 state representative in the legislature and the aforementioned regularly scheduled Ward 4 election).

…think I miss him? Nah.

By now, I trust you’ve heard a suspect has been arrested in the JonBenet Ramsey case – nearly ten years after her death. News of the suspect is hitting too close to home.

The suspect, John Mark Karr, reportedly grew up in Hamilton, Alabama. Reports say Karr was fired from teaching jobs in Hamilton and nearby Winfield – mainly because he had inappropriate conversations with students.

I know this area pretty well. My grandmother lives there.

The word “freaky” comes to mind.

There once was a man named Brown,
who wore the FEMA director’s crown.
One day he just had to chirp,
that Gene Taylor’s a little twerp.
But we know better who’s the true clown.

If Congressman Taylor could give Mike Brown a job performance grade worse that F-, I know Mr. Taylor would.

Mr. Taylor, keep up the heat, the pressure and the great work.

(First, sorry I haven’t updated in a while. Been busy with business.)

If you’re of the praying type, please send one up for Kim Tufts.

Kim’s seen here next to me at a reception for Bryce and Rose Hatch, who were married earlier this year.

I just received this photo last night when Cindy and I attended the Thursday night worship at The Summit at ParkPlace. It was an unbelievable night -– mostly for the wrong reasons.

Kim’s husband –- David, known to us as “Biker Dave” for the many stunt shows he’s done over many years — delivered the night’s message. And it was extremely difficult for him to do so.

David and Kim have been married for a little more than a year. They said their “I do’s” about a month before we did. Just the day before David’s message, news came their biggest challenge in their still young marriage was underway.

Kim has been diagnosed with breast cancer.

When David noted that last night, I was stunned. My grandmother lost a breast to cancer. Cindy was in tears -– as were a lot of folks. I must confess — my eyes are welling up as I type this.

On the way home last night, Cindy and I sparked a prayer chain. We called one of our dearest friends, Erica Simoneaux, and told her what we’d learned.

Kim is an art teacher in the Petal school system. If you’re one of her students or co-workers, give her a big hug next time you see her. If you’re a friend or relative, give her a big hug next time you see her.

And above all, she, David and their children -– Dillon and Russ — needs our prayers.

David said he wished this were a nightmare he could wake up from. But it’s all for real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cwlogo.png

I sure hope the folks represented by the W in The CW, Time Warner, approved this logo. This almost looks like the early ’80s CNN logo.

It’s not terribly often I’ve watched 7th Heaven. But it appears after the series finale that recently aired on The WB, The CW will resume the series when the network launches in September.

I guess Alexandre Dumas was right. “Nothing succeeds like success.”

Hopefully this will be my last bit of blogging on The Today Show until Katie leaves next month and/or Meredith arrives next fall.

On this morning’s menu of features…

\ A cooking demonstration in connection with the NBC competition series Celebrity Cooking Showdown. Two thumbs up already.

\ An interview with Eva Longoria on the movie The Sentinel, who’s also a co-star on “another show on another network”, as they generically put it. (Eva did sneak in a mention for Desperate Housewives, which is fine.) If only they did the same with 24‘s Keifer Sutherland, also in The Sentinel, the other day in a pre-taped piece.

…now I doubt the folks in New York visit Doug’s Place. But, I’d hope a bunch of executives from NBC stations made their voices heard and they’re finally saying “uncle”.