| Fall television schedule looks to have more misses than hits
If you believe blogs, letters to the editor and the deafening silence around the water cooler, the networks tripped, stumbled and fell when they cobbled together their fall lineups. In addition to fans still whining about the demise of "Jericho," blogs are currently bloated with viewers complaining about the lack of any good sitcoms, the proliferation of reality shows and the tendency of networks to cancel shows after just a few airings. Many have now sworn not to watch new shows until their sophomore season, the better to avoid the disappointment of cancellation. You might think it a national trend, but how then to explain the first-year triumph of "Heroes," "Ugly Betty," "Shark" and "Brothers and Sisters." (Evidently, the millions of people watching those shows aren't bloggers.) Still, the networks should take note.
Children orphaned in Vietnam War and adopted in the US look to ...
He was one of hundreds of Vietnamese orphans crammed onto a cargo plane as part of Operation Babylift, a mass evacuation in the days before the fall of Saigon in 1975. He arrived in Chicago as an infant, and grew up on a Mennonite farm in Wolford, North Dakota, near the Canadian border. There wasn't another Asian in two states, Slaubaugh joked. When it came time to adopt their own child, Slaubaugh and his wife Amanda agreed they would go to Vietnam. They returned home with 2-year-old son Ben in late May. The trip to his birthplace was Slaubaugh's first. My adoptive son and I will have a similar bond, he said. Both of us were abandoned by our mothers at the hospital. .
Relationship with father can be complicated
It's my job. It's what I do for a living so it can't be avoided. But my father, a two-time Vietnam veteran nearly forbade it the last time we talked."You have been to that war zone twice and I was in Vietnam twice. That is the Van Horn average so you need to stay home now," he said, in a rather convincing tone.Things with me and my dad were not always good. Like most father-daughter relationships and for that matter — relationships with anyone, there were my expectations and then there were the realities.On Father's Day, I think a lot of lying goes on during a day that could be used to say something more real than Hallmark has been able to express. But much of the time it, just as Mother's Day, is given a nod. A card that doesn't really say anything is sent and maybe we go to lunch.Parenting is hard business and there really is no school for it.
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