Web Notes Online

Last week we inserted a copy fo the Queen Anne's County League of Women Voters guide for the primary election in Queen Anne's County. Next week we will insert a copy of the Mid-Shore League of Women Voters guide for Talbot, Caroline, and Dorchester counties.
In addition to the inserted print copies in our print newspaper, I have also placed PDF versions on stardem.com.
These can be viewed online or downloaded to your computer and printed.
Give them a look and vote.

If you think you had a bad day today (Thursday, Aug. 24), compare it to Pluto. The planet woke up to find it had lost it's planetary status. The newest (1930) addition to the family has just been kicked out by the International Astronomical Union.
What is worse, the group doesn't know what to call the formerly ninth member of our solar system family.
As described in a Washington Post article, Pluto has been downgraded to a class of objects as yet to be named. I guess if you ask the IAU, they could tell you they know what it isn't; they just aren't sure what it is, yet.
This whole episode comes on the heels of another group's annoucement that there are 12 planets and Pluto was one of them.
Twelve? Eight?
All I know is my ninth grade science teacher told me there were nine planets. I'm sticking with him.
Does this mean that map of the solar system I did for extra credit will now get graded down?
Just a joke.
I never did a project on the solar system for science class. Other's did though and they may be upset now.
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In recent years astronomers have found dozens, if not hundreds of planets circling other stars. We are finding that the universe has a lot more planets in orbit than we previously thought. It is a shame that at the same time we are adding to the planetary list for the universe, we are reducing our own number at the same time.
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Science is forcing us to re-examine long-held believes in many areas. Why not the solar system.

The following is a letter to the editor I sent to our paper after reading one about the need to have children in shopping carts buckle-up. Shopping cart safety has more in common with cars than safety belts.
This letter is scheduled to appear in Wednesday's Star Democrat.

Letter to the Editor:
I read with interest Kelly Martin’s cautionary tale about shopping carts. Seatbelt use is a must while riding in a cart just as it is in an automobile. I must add that one should consider avoiding the use of cell phones while piloting carts around a grocery store. I was the victim of a young mother (she had two walking-aged children in tow) who was a distracted cart-pusher. With one ear to a cell phone she was navigating the isles with a cart and herding her children at the same time.
I’m a frequent salad bar patron at this particular grocery store. I left my cart unattended near the salad bar and I made my various selections. The mother, children and cart suddenly appeared in my area. The mother, still chatting on the phone, left her cart and turned to a selection of vegetables. One of her children took the opportunity to push their cart off down an isle. The mother turned back and walked over to my cart and started down another isle. I had to flag her down and retrieve the cart from her. With barely a shrug (or interruption in her conversation) she released the cart and moved to catch up with her children as they pushed her cart.
Distracted cart pushing can cause problems.

I occasionally have made reference to community sites on the Internet. One that has come up for most comment is Myspace.com. It has built its fame on being a focal point for people of all ages to interact. It has grown in popularity as huge numbers of people sign on and create profiles on the site.
Another site that is generating wide comment and attracting large numbers of visitors is youtube.com. YouTube is a site that allows people to upload videos and others to visit and view the videos. Millions have taken up the offer to both upload and view.
If you have seen humorous video clips on television news programs or on talk shows, it is likely they were first viewed on YouTube. If they weren’t there first, they soon found their way to the site. Videos can range from commercials to stupid human stunts to video testimonials by members of the lonely hearts club.
You can also find clips from soldiers in Iraq and civilians in Lebanon. Each case the viewer can have an uncensored view of life in strife.
This site was the subject of several columns in a monthly trade magazine aimed at journalists called “American Journalism Review.” In one column geared to the Internet newspapers are advised not to miss the opportunities such sites provide. Rather than ignoring such community sites, the press should seek ways to use them.
In another column several pages later, another author provides a cautionary tale of how news bloopers can take on a life of their own on the Internet. This column specifically targeted broadcast news. It noted several cases where gaffes on camera ultimately found their way to YouTube as video clips. The result was that a momentary lapse was later viewed by hundreds of thousands of visitors to the video Website.
I must go back to the potential opportunities. These are real. Last year when the London subway bombing occurred, the first views the world got was from victims with their video cellphones broadcasting their experience to friend. Where did we get the first images of the tsunami that killed several hundred thousand people in the Indian Ocean two years ago? They were provided by amateur videographers who were in reality tourists with their tourist video cameras.
The reach of news reporting has expanded as more average people have the ability to capture images of a news breaking event long before the professional journalists are able to arrive on the scene. The advent of video cameras and digital cameras — sometimes in the same device — a cellphone, have made everyone a potential reporter. The Internet and sites like YouTube have made it possible for individuals to distribute their “stories” to the world.
The local newspaper still has the best resources to gather and distribute the wide variety of material you normally seen in a community newspaper. But I agree with the write in the journalism trade magazine when she said news organizations should strive to incorporate the resources available on the Web.
That will be one of our goals here. Comments? Observations? Send them to me at: rpolk@ chespub.com.

In this space I will place and update the columns that appear in the Sunday Star each weei.