Random Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Well I started out thinking Brian Williams would survive (and he kind of has) and then I backed off to the "not sure about that" position (which may be right because I'm not sure he comes back from his six month suspension.)   What a strange end to a strange lie. 
• And we've certainly learned that high-profile journalists are held to a different standard that high-profile politicians. 
• Jon Stewart announced his upcoming retirement last night, and it was as big of news as the Williams suspension. If you didn't understand The Daily Show, there may be quite a few things you don't understand in general.
• Everyone and their dog made a "Williams and Stewart just need to switch places" joke last night, but some were actually serious. I don't think you can do that on the national scale with ABC (at least not for 20 years), but I'm stunned a local station in a huge American city hasn't changed its approach. Laugh a little bit. Don't act like a deer in headlights when there is a technical problem. Add a legitimate funny observation after some crazy neighbor just appeared on packaged footage.
• Some outfit named The Institute of Medicine took a step yesterday towards making "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" a legitimate ailment. I've always questioned it but not as much of a buddy of mine who once said, "Heck, I get Chronic Fatigue Syndrome every day when I drive past a golf course on the way to work."
• The leader of Tarrant County Open Carry and their lap boy Rep. Jonathan Stickland received one of the funniest setbacks yesterday in their efforts to let every Texan walk around with an open handgun with no license. Read that link. It's short. 
• 660AM The Answer's Mark Davis in the Dallas Morning News today condemns 50 Shades of Grey but comes off sounding like the pastor in Footloose.  (You have to wade through a lot high-toneness to get to the sentence, but he finally says it is "pathetic" that those who see it will be liberal, liquored up, and too dumb to realize how vile the movie is and don't care.) 
• I've still got to do a post on Davis' appearance at Fellowship Church in Grapevine this summer after he was given the opportunity for some reason to speak in all three weekend services. (That's the church where the pastor just baptized 50 Shades.)  I'm still stunned they allowed Davis to mention from the pulpit that he had written a new book and that it was for sale in the church's bookstore in the lobby. That is, until I went into the bookstore and found it to be a profit center for Pastor Ed Young and his million books.
• Wait. Selling books in a church vs. a movie with seedy content?: Didn't Jesus get angry at the money-changers in the temple but showed compassion to the the lady caught in adultery?
• A Tarrant County jury awarded $16 million in a wrongful death suit after a lady was killed by a drunk driver who was sent home from her work at a nursing home. (Nerd legal point: I just had the weirdest flashback to studying a similar case, Otis Engineering, in Torts in 1984 in law school. Yet I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday.) 
• As people entered the courthouse in Erath County this morning for the beginning of the "American Sniper Trial", the courthouse bells played the gospel hymn, "My hope is built on nothing less."  Hmmm.