Weather: Not a cloud in the sky as of 8:45 AM Sounds nice, but we need RAIN! (Snow will do.)

Wildlife: Those pheasants are thriving -- eating front and back. Our cats don't bother them (they're terrified of large birds) and the ducks graze alongside in the back yard.

Charity Alert: The Animal Rescue Site : Feed an Animal in Need

Media Watch: One of the people who showed the world that broadcasting could be good has passed away at the age of 95: Alistair Cooke BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Radio legend Cooke dies
His work influenced me since I was in elementary school watching the first-unfathomable, then ever-more-interesting Omnibus. At least three times I saw Bert Lahr doing performing dramas on Sunday morning TV, thanks to that show. ("There's the cowardly lion, mom!")
I learned the deeper meaning of "point of view" in Alistair Cooke's America, and loved seeing BBC dramas re-presented on the not-always-aptly-named Masterpiece Theater.
His Letter from America was a radio show which I ran across at different times of my life, both in the U.S. and Europe. From 2000-2001 I looked forward to it every week in the lonely vigils of a 4 A.M. work shift. I never would have called him a Liberal, but he seemed to posses an objectivity that made me want to listen through any superficial disagreements. He was getting more and more conservative to my ears, though, but HEY! he was over 90, and had earned his opinions more that most of us. Here's the last few paragraphs from his last Letter from America:
"...But what President Bush's 10-point drop did to the hopeful Democrats was to let them say now, without fear, that the war was fought for a false reason, and it also generated a wholly new conviction which had little to do with the issues - the three problems which the national polls say are nationally paramount.
One: to recover the two million jobs lost during the administration. Two: reform of the healthcare system and, quite a way down, three: Iraq.
The new, invigorating party conviction is a belief the Democrats had not dreamed of so far. It is the belief that George Bush can be beaten in November.
This thought apparently took hold of the primary voters long before it dawned on the Democratic Party as a whole.
Hence the 15 out of 17 primaries won by the Massachusetts senator, John Kerry, who since the campaign's beginning has sounded an odd and lonely boast: "George Bush must be driven from the White House and I'm the man to do it."

Sublime to Ridiculous: Jan de Bont's somnambulistic version of The Haunting (1999) was on ABC. We were out cold within an hour.
Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House (1959) was a masterpiece of simply-written, psychological horror. Here's an essay about her, mostly: DarkEcho/HorrorOnline
Robert Wise did a remarkable job in bringing the essence of Jackson's novel in a 1963 black and white movie called The Haunting. I could write a good deal about Robert Wise's contibutions to Sci-Fi and Horror movies -- this very important film maker has done some effective slumming in genres that may have seemed "beneath him."
A color-remake-sequel The Legend of Hell House (1973) with Roddy McDowell had some moments of quality, but not too many. Methinks Richard Mathesen was mostly writing for money.
Omigawd -- there's a play out there: SCT's The Haunting of Hill House
Adapted for the stage by F. Andrew Leslie ISBN: 0822205041 Publish Date: 1/1/1964 Publisher: Dramatists Play Service Inc.
Steven King's Rose Red (2003) was a better rip-off of Shirley Jackson's and Robert Wise's concepts, plus he borrowed the Winchester House.
The best crib of The Haunting IMHO was the Wynan Brothers' Scary Movie 2.
Waydadaminute -- Scary Movie 2 isn't even a good film! What gives?
Scary Movie 1 makes ME laugh. Even though it's gross and stupid, it's boisterously and gleefully so!
It was a parody of Scream 1, 2, and 3. Those flicks are supposed to be funny/suspenseful, but they bore me to distraction -- I turn 'em off.
Scary Movie 2 is also gross and stupid -- but there's far fewer funny scenes, and they're generally forced, or stolen. Is this an indictment of every imitation of The Haunting so far? YES! This dawg-assed show is STILL the nearest horseshoe to the peg.
Maybe there are some things that literature accomplishes best.