Two years ago yet another school shooting occurred.
Multiple kids were dead or wounded. Family and friends had to deal with the results.
Grabbed my gun and went to the police station. "Can you destroy this?"
They said yes. I handed them the gun and ammo.
Yet another school shooting happened today. Four kids dead, nine wounded.
Fuck the 2nd Amendment.
Out of curiosity, looked up the number of impeachment cases debated on the floor of the US Senate. There's no need for suspense: 21.
Was surprised to discover which federal office was most often involved. I never would have guessed this one correctly.
Your turn: Take a guess.
Now, ready to see if you're right?
I'll wager a guess you didn't name federal judges as the most frequently impeached and convicted Federal officeholder in US history.
The ad on your TV screen mentions a show that you really, really like to watch. "Rated #1!" "Best Of Class", and my favorite (in a moment you'll see why)...... "America's Most Watched!"
Stuffing the last bite of pizza into your mouth, you rejoice if you are a Carlson Tucker or Sean Hannity fan. Both are crushing those blow-hard jackasses from the Other Side. It's no contest. Just look those ratings! You take a moment to give yourself an endorphin rush, because right there on the screen is evidence that your opinion is right. Those liberals couldn't be more wrong, wrong, wrong. The ratings show it. Incontravertable proof. Millions and millions of Americans agree with... ME!
Indeed, when seen from the perspective of audience popularity Tucker and Sean are leading the news opinion genre by a formidable amount. They can each boast of having nearly 5 million viewers per night.
But there are roughly 250 million adults living in this country (give or take about 15 million, which you'll see is still close enough for our purpose). Let's examine how popular each show is in comparison to the available pool of adults.
The red bars show the percentage of adults who are itching to watch a show by Carlson, Hannity, Maddow or Tapper. The gray bars show the percentage of adults who would rather walk their dog.
So when we look at a subset of data (say, viewers within a category) we get one picture, but if we then look at it from a different perspective (viewers compared to total potential audience) we get an entirely different picture? Yep. I really hope you are not shocked.
So how does the popularity of our foursome compare to the network evening news shows?
The red bars show the percentage of adults who prefer to watch an evening news show. The gray bars show the percentage of adults who would rather walk their cat.
Ooof. Three of the four top-rated evening news shows have double (and more) viewers than any of the news opinion shows. If you are still a Carlson or Hannity enthusiast, at least you can claim your favorites are a tad more popular than their stablemates at the FOX evening news show.
Let's look at how Carlson and crew fare in comparison to the top-rated TV series shows.
The red bars show the percentage of adults who watch a series show. The gray bars show the percentage of adults who would rather walk their parrot.
Examining data for the top-50 rated shows reveals that on a typical day... (* See disclaimers below)
Meaning, those massive gray bars seen graphically represent the 232,000,000+ people (excluding kids) who have something they would rather do, like walk their parrot, than watch a top-rated show. The number grows even larger for all the other shows that exist on our entertainment and education box that we call a TV.
Draw you own conclusions how this data effects your opinions, beliefs, and interests.
(If you don't give a shit about what I think, which follows, scroll down to see four cute pictures of birds.)
Apparent to even to an imbecile like me, results indicate that TV show popularity is not remotely contagious. Which should thrill doctors, nurses and medical researchers, who can instead focus on creating and distributing cures for human maladies like Covid-19. Psychiatrists, however, are shaking in their boots trying to figure out how to cure those who are certain they hold interests and beliefs that are very popular, despite the fact that 95% of the American population doesn't give a shit about (or outright disagree). Good luck convincing those patients otherwise.
The best news is for dogs, cats and parrots, who are clearly more popular with the American public - by massive margins.
* Disclaimers:
1. The data depicted above comes from analyzing Nielsen TV ratings that were released in late October. A week that didn't feature election results, sports championship games or a myriad of other crap that can skew results toward atypical results. My curiosity was drawn to the column listing the number of viewers for each show - a projection, because a head count is not possible. Millions to hundreds of thousands. Those numbers caused me to wonder what they would look like compared to the potential reach, knowing there are so damned many people and TV's in this country.
2. On December 2, 2020, Netflix announced that a show they produced, The Queens Gambit, a seven episode series, was watched by 62 million viewers, ranking in the top 10 in 92 countries and #1 in 63 countries (among Netflix members). Impressive numbers that would seemingly dwarf viewership of all shows mentioned above. But asterisks need to be noted. A.) Netflix ratings are not independently verified. B.) If a viewer watches any episode for ay least two minutes, Netflix counts that instance not only as somebody who watched an entire show, but also, the entire series.
Having both self-induced interest and formal education in photography, video, journalism and graphics, I have long been fascinated with how stories are created - and with how people react and interact with those stories. Indeed, a murky, never-ending rabbit hole to fall into.
Today I’ll highlight just one aspect - how visuals effect our perception.
Below are two maps of the US illustrating which 2020 presidential candidate won the popular vote within each state. At this moment the election result is undetermined, explaining why six states are gray colored.
The first map shows the winning vote by geographic area (square miles).
The second map shows the winning vote by distribution (population).
Do you perceive two different stories, or more? Yet both maps were created using identical data.* The only difference is how the data is being displayed graphically.
Something to keep in mind with any visual presentation. Question not only how it is displayed, but why a particular method is selected. Especially when seen on social media sites, notorious for false representation in order to garner outrage towards an "enemy".
* Data as reported on November 4, 2020 at 12:29 PM Pacific time. The most current (live) version can be seen on the Aljazeera site, where you can toggle between views for the 2020, 2016, 2012 and 2008 presidential elections.
“We have to entertain in order to educate, because the other way round doesn’t work.”
~ Walt Disney
Just did a first test of the Mikme BlackSilver microphone and was impressed. An easy to use, palm-sized mic that will wirelessly (via bluetooth) deliver fairly high-quality sound to your phone camera.
Just place the mic on a surface near the subject(s) or have somebody in the frame hold it, then record video and audio to your phone with the free app (compatible with iPhone and Android). I won't bore you with the specs, which make sense only to audio geeks. Suffice to say, in the twisted, confusing world of microphones the Mikme has a surprisingly good quality packed into a small, stand-alone unit at a reasonable price. Barb's first reaction was, it looks cute, too.
Should note, however, I am referring to the Mikme BlackSilver model, not the BlackGold which is a different and more expensive beast. In the US the BlackSilver with 4GB memory model (good enough for 98% of uses) is available through B&H Photo/Video in New York City for $219. An 8GB version is $249. I have ordered from B&H for years. Good product availability, reliable delivery, and their after-sale service has always been top-notch.
Below is a sample of what the BlackSiver version sounds like. Took the mic out of the box, charged it, turned it on, then pushed one button to begin recording - as Barb was getting ready for bed. No, I didn't shoot a video of Barb undressing for bed. Did you really expect me to do that? Get real.
Instead you'll hear a 7 minute recording in the manner as I plan to use the mic, which will also let you hear what your videos can sound like instead of using your built-in phone mic. The Mikme eliminates the problem of recording sounds - voice or whatever at a distance. In the real world, that would be any sound you want to record that is more than 2 feet from your phone. In those situations a remote mike should always make your video sound better. Unfortunately, available equipment needed to get that good quality sound into your phone has either been of negligible benefit, or a hassle to drag around, set up, and use (expensive, too). Not convenient for vacation or family gatherings where you don't give a shit about making a Hollywood-style production. The Mikme looks to be the easiest to use and most versatile mic I have yet seen for getting high quality sound into videos.
Hear more sound samples on the Mikme site.
248 million. Stripped naked. At 10:37 PM or AM, nobody remembers for sure because we were with three administrators who were still receiving federal paychecks to manage nobody at the National BS Disallowal Authority and thus had nothing to do, so we decided to guzzle whiskey at a pub. The drunken admins decided to announce disclosed that the department had successfully and, by god, accurately managed to group every US citizen 18 years of age and older into five indecipherably useless characterizations: 1) Liberal or conservative. 2) Democrat or republican. 3) Intelligent or dumb. 4) Hard-working or lazy. 5) Aware or ignorant.
Chief Administrator Francios Sarhenschy praised his furloughed employees, who are currently in desperate search of food, car and rent money for their families, with having accomplished the classification of millions of US souls. Data analysis experts have hailed the results for having a mind-blowing 37.6% accuracy.
7 percent! Uh, really? You are gazing at the number of US adults who watch TV series episodes ranked #1 through #3 (by share). Impressive? Jury is still deliberating. (Note: Viewer share and actual numbers watching are not equivalent.) What about TV series episodes ranked #4 through #20? At best, around 6 percent have watched #4 to #7, dropping to a low 4 point-something percent for #12 through #20. Scanning the charts from #1 to #20, one doesn't notice a precipitous difference in rankings because all are braced by an abysmally low reference point. Viewer share of shows ranked below the top 20? Yeah, right. Do the words "essentially invisible" make sense?
Such shining results make it is easy to understand why Hollywood's hype advertising concentrates on "most watched" and "best new show". Forced to mention actual viewer numbers, rather than viewer share, it would be damned tough to build excitement when more than 95 percent of US adults could give a rip about watching all but a handful of shows, and even then.....
114 million. Seniors guzzle checks, needed sex. The number of US adults who are currently retired, or will retire shortly, is somewhere north of 114,000,002 (Barb and I are now also members thus, the 2). Given the known number of eligible working adults, while being armed with intent to maintain current Social Security obligations for retirees during the next 15 years while adding only mandated COLA adjustments, auditors have determined that in the near future Social Security taxes will need to be increased to more than 30 percent. Holy crap. Obviously (now, not at the time), retirees should have had unprotected sex more often, when we were doing such things. Opportunity lost. We needed more young asses and elbows running around our house back then, to pay for today's Social Security checks now.
There is an alternative which has repeatedly bailed this country out of difficult times throughout two centuries: Significant immigration of working-age adults and their children. Makes me wonder why US citizens are fixated on border walls and tossing out people who went through hell to arrive here, when the better choice would be to improve and streamline our immigration process to unleash these willing workers so we won't bury our children and grandchildren in a mountain of debt to pay for retirees income. But noooo, that would be too easy and cost effective.
Facebook. Fricking daily. How boring would life be if you didn't have good friends re-posting from nowhere somewhere gif's containing pithy 5 to 12 word phrases that portend to be the holy gospel regarding inordinately complex political and social issues. To further drive home the inadequately analyzed point attempting to be made, said friend thoughtfully adds their deeply considered analysis atop the gif, such as "Yes", "So true", or "I agree."
To what end? Cut and paste is lazy. Thinking and writing for yourself takes time and effort. Don't fret, we want to hear from you. Your thoughts. Beliefs. In your words and style. Anything less is useless bull shit.
Charley nailed it. I won't belabor columnist Mr. Reese's article, released February 3, 1984 by the Orlando Sentinel. Go read it. You can send trivial baubles my way to express your appreciation.
The critical point made is there are 545 people in our Congressional, Executive and Judicial branches who decide what our policies, laws, regulations and taxation will be. Our government functions as it does because our representatives want it to be that way. They can make no excuses for a current state of affairs because they create and exercise sole control over what will effect the lives of 325 million citizens. What have our esteemed representatives delivered recently?
Mid-term elections in which donors spend 5.2 billion dollars and who of course never expect, much less ask to receive a smidgen of special consideration for their investment. National Parks lay in trash-strewn shambles. Corporations report millions to billions in profits per quarter, yet somehow need tax incentives and breaks to be competitive. An increase in funding for military operations (really, really bad guys are really, really hiding under every real rock) which all told cost more than the next 10 largest military budgets combined...but the troops did get a 6% raise to their measly pay. Yeah! This years mind-bogglingly "small-ish" military funding increase would, if redirected to a different purpose, pay a full year tuition for every student attending a public university in this country. Mergers and acquisitions galore arrive that reduce competitiveness in multiple categories of business, are heartily endorsed, then deemed as magically increasing competition. Representatives and their staffs preferred method to debate complex, critical issues is now undertaken via tweets and sound bites derived from murky-sourced surveys, while simultaneously denouncing the press for having somehow misquoted their seven word statement.
They want it that way
Final take. Below are a few suggestions. I own all errors and misconceptions, whether found or perceived.
Just because somebody doesn't conform to your view of the world doesn't mean they are evil, or bent on destroying life as you know it.
We frequently have more in common than first words reveal. Carelessly tossing people into narrowly defined buckets precludes our desire to listen, learn, and understand..
Our differences often nestle within small details about how to accomplish the big goals that we share.
Become a party of one. Divorce yourself from all party dogma. The downside is your primary ballots will look sparse. You just bumped into a cost of setting your unleashed sprit free.
Above all, don't accept the premise of a statement. Dig deep to learn what your representatives actually want, and for whom.
Every year British retailer, John Lewis, releases a Christmas time ad that is anticipated in England as much as Americans look forward to seeing new Super Bowl ads.
Having watched this years John Lewis ad, I understand why Brits become excited. It is an amazing combination of sound and visual delight that I cannot watch without tearing up.
The ad features Elton John signing a deeply personal song, for himself and us. Within the expressions and sounds I see a message of understanding, tolerance and above all, aspiration. That at our core we all share one hope, despite being billions in numbers and opinions.
But that's my take. Watch and decide for yourself what you feel and think.
The Sunday church service would be held outdoors. Among the highlights was to "bless the animals".
My first thought: "It should be the other way around."
Considering what we've done to animals, though, I don't know why an animal would bless us.
But what do I know? Maybe Barb's church is right. I haven't attended a church service in 50 years.
I found my church when I was 15 years old.
Alone, in a forest.
Want to understand my beliefs about nearly everything in life without having to put up with me in person?
All derive from sources including family and friend, male, female, history, plus animals and plants. Liberally slathered with the nasty gauntlet seeping daily from my mind.
The dinner as promised, representing the core...
The first course is Robin Willams.
The side dish is Lenny Bruce.
The main dish is George Carlin.
And if you aren't feeling sufficiently sauced yet...
The after-dinner drink is Thomas Jefferson.
See a pattern? I think comedians have the best grasp on what matters in this world.
It also proves, as should be obvious, that Barb is an incredibly patient, considerate lady.