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Mock Convention Flashback!!!

With the 2008 Westminster College Mock Convention jumping from spring to fall semester, The County Line crew at WCN and Titan Radio News will need to hustle. I've started posting clips from the 2004 Mock Convention Coverage on YouTube to help students get a feel for how the convention works. It's also a nice way to reach out to those grads who lead the way four years ago.

2008 Presidential Mock Convention Slides Back Into 2007

from Titan Radio- August 16, 2007
The presidential campaign comes early in New Wilmington as the 2008 Westminster College Mock Convention will take place this November. That's three months earlier than originally planned. Convention faculty advisor James Rhoads, associate professor of political science, says a combination of early campaigns and primaries forced the College to move up the Westminster event. The Convention changes to a Wednesday-Thursday night schedule on November 7 and 8. The location will also change to the Witherspoon Rooms in the McKelvey Campus Center. The Mock Convention has taken place traditionally on a Thursday-Friday schedule in early February in Memorial Field House.

"The last several Conventions have had to move earlier and earlier due to the political parties moving up their primary schedules," Rhoads said. "This year, we have moved into the fall semester. In addition to the change in dates, we are instituting a year-long series of events to coincide with the presidential selection process."

When California moved its primary election date to February 5, 2008, it turned up the heat on presidential campaigns forcing them to begin nearly a year earlier. In Pennsylvania, Governor Rendell supported a move to change the Keystone State's primary to February. However, the initiative has failed to take root in the General Assembly. Nearly 40 other states will hold primaries before Pennsylvania's May primary election in 2008.

This year the Mock Convention will mirror the Democratic National Convention. Campus tradition dictates the event focus on the party not in control of the White House. Westminster's Mock Convention is recognized as the second oldest in the country as it began in 1936 founded by political science professor Thomas Mansell. The Convention started as an effort to educate students and cultivate participation in the political process of a presidential election.

USA's "BURN NOTICE" Burning Up My TiVo

Get out the SPF 30 as my TiVo helped me discover a stylish, new character-driven guilty pleasure for my summer viewing pleasure. It's USA's "Burn Notice." Well-written dialogue, good acting and some stylish directing make this Miami-set twist on the "spy" comedy/drama fun to watch. It promises to tell the story of what happens when spies get fired. That's exactly what the main character does with a McGyveresque approach as he improvises to make spy gadgets on a dollar store budget. The show's hero is glib, out of work tough guy/secret agent Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan). He often reveals details of his life as a spy during voice-overs vignettes while he's working episode-length freelance gigs he picks up to make an extra buck.

His mother (Sharon Gless) and a sexy ex-girlfriend, former IRA operative Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), trade one-liners as they're forced to come together in this light-hearted look at unemployed spies. The second episode even pokes fun at cop shows while paying homage to Gless with a reference to "Cagney and Lacy" (if memory serves me, Gless played Christine Cagney...geez I would have been in high school back then). Westen's trying to figure out who burned him-- each episode he gets a little closer-- he really wants his job back. In the meantime, he'll champion the underdog for a price and ends up turning the tables on Miami baddies like drug smugglers and corrupt real estate tycoons.


He can do what the cops can't do and he does it with style while also being tailed by the FBI as the people who burned him are still keeping tabs. While he wants to be a loner, he'll need to learn to be the ex-spy who loves his mother and old girlfriend to get ahead. The show's topical sarcasm and likeable cast of misfit characters have a cool rhythm.


"Burn Notice" is fresh and much more entertaining than the worn "4400" which has morphed away from its original concepts and lost my interest. I never got into "Monk" as it came off too much like any other spin on the old "NBC Sunday Night Mystery Movie" formulas. While I once enjoyed "The Dead Zone" it seemed to go on forever...but now USA has put some heat back into summer television with "Burn Notice." The show sizzles against the few new things to watch including those tired, predictable summer reality shows.

Downloading Movies to TiVo Just Became Easier

Amazon is now hooking up with TiVo for direct movie & TV show downloads. The two companies were working together through the user's PC's-- but now you can order that movie direct from your TiVo. Looks like I just found a reason to scrap Netflix where I'm always told there's a long wait for the latest movie by mail.