KCTU HAPPENINGS

We've been fighting a war of sorts with some robot that has been leaving trackbacks for porn sites and other spam on all out posts.
The more I wiped them out, the more they came back.
Then, I had a brilliant idea--why not eliminate the trackbacks for a while?
Voilla...no more trackbacks.
So, spammers, in the immortal words of Dirty Harry, "Go ahead... make my day."
--R.J. Dickens

According to antennaweb.org, 101 people in our viewing area purchased antennas last week after having gone to their site and inquired as to what antenna would work best for watching KCTU.
That was after 79 people went to their site last week.
From all of us here at KCTU, thank you!
--R.J. Dickens

Don't forget to click on the "News" link at the top of the page for more threads.
We'll have the other categories up in a few days.

I had to laugh the other day when I heard a woman ask her grandson why he couldn't seem to observe common courtesies. It's because there's no such thing. People are becoming increasingly rude to each other, and it crosses every social, economic, and even generational line. People cut each other off in traffic, flip each other off, curse and swear at one another, and even fail to observe the most basic rules of etiquette.
When I was a teenager, my dad often chastised my brothers and me for treating each other poorly. He insisted that everyone in the household treat one another with courtesy. In my daily life, I try to treat everyone I encounter with the same basic courtesy that I expect to receive. Ordinarily, it's a pretty promising start. People respond well when treated kindly. It's more difficult to maintain an aggressive attitude if you're not met with aggression.
I just want to know; how hard can it be to preface a request with a "please" and an acknowledgement with a "thank you?" We correct our young children when they forget to say those things, but who corrects us?

We're shaking things up this week:
--At Home Live moves to 8 AM (the show has been out of production since January, so it's not really live);
--We've finally found a source for morning movies, something a lot of you have asked for since UATV went under, which will run from 9-11 AM;
--Money TV returns to its 5:30 PM slot;
--Growing Pains is being replaced by Amen at 6 PM and Alice at 6:30;
--At 9 PM, we'll have two episodes of The Wonder Years;
--At 10, we're once again proud to be one of the few television stations around that brings you two national newscasts from two different sources: INN News at 10, utilizing the resources of Fox News Channel, followed by ANN News, which draws from the worldwide bureaus of Reuters, at 10:30.
What do you think?

As many of you are now aware, the Prospector has ceased publication of Ron's, Sheryl's and my weekly columns. I wished it hadn't been so abrupt, what with the city elections coming up, but it was not to be.
I submitted a final column to them, which they have not printed.
So, to provide some closure (at least for me), here it is:

In this business, in the back of your mind, you always know it's coming.
It's becoming exceedingly rare for anyone in media to retire of their own volition.
So, when I got the e-mail last week that The Prospector was not going to continue this column, I wasn't completely surprised.
Not that the thought hadn't crossed my mind, a time or two or three, to walk away from this of my own volition. Sixteen years is a long time to be doing anything these days.
It would have been nice to at least be able to continue through the end of the current election campaign. There are still a lot of things I'd like to say about that, because I believe we're on the verge of making some huge mistakes next month here in our beloved Doo-Dah.
But, just as most of us can't choose the time we die, there is almost never the right time for these things to happen.
I'm just grateful for the opportunity to say goodbye--at least for now--to those of you unable to watch KCTU-TV.
We've been through a lot, you and I--three presidents, three governors, five U.S. Senators, four engagements, and a couple of mayors.
And, I think, on the whole, we've lived up to the old Native American proverb, and we leave this place better than we found it.
I just wish I had the faith to believe this would last.
The political dialogue in this great nation of ours is probably the worst it's been in over 100 years. And for my small part in contributing to that, I'm sorry. There were a lot of times I could have couched my words better.
And there are others where I regret not speaking more strongly.
When I first came to Wichita in 1989, I felt that I was in exile. For the first few years I lived here, I absolutely hated it.
Then, in 2000, I found my voice. In attempting to deal in good faith with the denizens of the 13th floor of City Hall, I was put off, rebuffed, and, in my humble opinon, betrayed.
These people are supposed to work for all of us. Heck, they weren't even trying.
It was then I realized there are two Wichitas--one for the privileged and special interests, and one for the rest of us.
Even with a new Mayor and City Council, even with a new city manager, you can still hear the contempt in their voices every time you call the manager's office.
The fact that there are people who think the mayor can fire the City Manager. There are people who think the mayor has veto power like a president or a governor...and these people are voting.
And unless something changes, we're about to guarantee ourselves at least four more years of the same.
But I digress. I take a lot of memories with me.
The most striking? Russian President Boris Yeltsin marching up and down in front of a bleacher full of airmen at McConnell, grinning from ear to ear and waving an American flag.
The worst? Getting up early one morning to go to work, and having a police officer stop me and say, "We caught a man with a gun in your back yard."
The biggest surprise? Who knew that when I wrote a series on my vision of Wichita television news, I would end up being news director of a television station several years later.
I'm not going anywhere. I've come to love our beloved Doo-Dah, and I think there's something here worth fighting for. I'm going to keep fighting for this city.
I'll still be at KCTU. And if I have anything to say about it, I'm going to take a page from my mentor Jerry Dunphy and die of a heart attack on my way to work at the age of 87.
Devin and Dwayne, thanks for a great 16 years.

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