This past week, I got this personalized email from a big-wig (Cliff Levy) from the New York Times. Basically, it was a personalized appeal that I needed to support and read the Times because only they had brilliant journalists. The hint also....was that bloggers simply didn't have the sources for the news.....like the anonymous source folks.....to help give you a four-star story.
It took me about sixty seconds to assess that it was a rather weak and marginalized attempt to get me to subscribe with a newspaper known greatly for it's biased reporting and comical analysis.
The best quote from the email? "Real reporting is vital in a media landscape full of deceptive or outright false news. And we can do it because we have the support of our subscribers".
Maybe a decade ago, I would have easily bought off on quotes or news from the Washington Post or New York Times. In the past decade.....I've gone to a different plateau and ask a lot more questions. Just say some news comes from the Times or Post.....doesn't mean anything to me. I get this almost nightly now from public TV here in Germany, and find the handcuffed method of convincing me of things to be questionable.
How many people will buy off on this email from Cliff Levy? My humble guess is less than a hundred people will subscribe. I would even make the assessment that the Times has reached a point of desperation where it really needs another twenty-thousand subscribers.
Sunday, 18 June 2017
Friday, 16 June 2017
Resolution Ten Crowd
While I was off on a short trip this week.....the fine folks at the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution referred to as "#10".....condemning the Alt-Right crowd/all forms of racism.....in accordance with the gospel.
Yeah, it's actually written into Mathew, Mark and Ezra. Even Moses hyped up the issues of being Alt-Right and a member of the GOP. Jesus wept at some point and noted that Alt-Right was a terrible thing....it's all in the scriptures....you just need to read between the lines.
Well......no, it's not there.
Some SBC dimwits made up some hype and went off to say that the Gospel was interpreted to mean this and Alt-Right was something that ministers need to talk negative about.
In a way, the move helps to lessen the appeal of the Southern Baptists and focus some members on the comical behavior of the organization. It's pretty simple to just say adios and let go of the politicized organization.
The odds that Minister Bob or Deacon Joe will come to visit you after you stop showing up? You can just bring up resolution ten, and that you think Jesus was actually an original part of the Alt-Right trend. Minister Bob or Deacon Joe will stand there with some deer-in-the-headlight look, and realize their gimmick to paradise just isn't going to sell well.
In a way, the SBC folks are helping to dissolve the whole organization, with a long-term plan of non-existence.
Yeah, it's actually written into Mathew, Mark and Ezra. Even Moses hyped up the issues of being Alt-Right and a member of the GOP. Jesus wept at some point and noted that Alt-Right was a terrible thing....it's all in the scriptures....you just need to read between the lines.
Well......no, it's not there.
Some SBC dimwits made up some hype and went off to say that the Gospel was interpreted to mean this and Alt-Right was something that ministers need to talk negative about.
In a way, the move helps to lessen the appeal of the Southern Baptists and focus some members on the comical behavior of the organization. It's pretty simple to just say adios and let go of the politicized organization.
The odds that Minister Bob or Deacon Joe will come to visit you after you stop showing up? You can just bring up resolution ten, and that you think Jesus was actually an original part of the Alt-Right trend. Minister Bob or Deacon Joe will stand there with some deer-in-the-headlight look, and realize their gimmick to paradise just isn't going to sell well.
In a way, the SBC folks are helping to dissolve the whole organization, with a long-term plan of non-existence.
London Fire
I sat this week and observed the news-feed over the London fire. A number of things bothered me about this episode.
This was a building with roughly four apartments on each floor....one single elevator, and one single stairway. In a fire situation, it was a no-win situation. If you were above the fifth floor, your odds of getting out were severely limited. If you were above the 15th floor....it's just about impossible odds of getting out.
This material added in the renovation phase from a couple of years ago? It's been a big sales item in Germany, and I noted last year in Frankfurt.....they had a building which went quickly from a minor one-apartment fire to a massive fire.....same type material. Luckily, this was a three-story building....not a multi-floor building. My guess is that in roughly four months.....some PhD guy will come out and prove this renovation material is a major threat, and trigger a massive removal-type situation across Europe. Billions will be spent to remove it from the exterior of buildings.
Then I come to this personal feeling....that you need some type of rope-harness deal in your apartment and a repel-type device that you could just hook onto a doorway and break a window and slide down. It doesn't require rocket-science. Some engineer ought to be able to fashion something that cost less than a hundred bucks and guaranteed to dump you 300 feet to the ground....safely.
This was a building with roughly four apartments on each floor....one single elevator, and one single stairway. In a fire situation, it was a no-win situation. If you were above the fifth floor, your odds of getting out were severely limited. If you were above the 15th floor....it's just about impossible odds of getting out.
This material added in the renovation phase from a couple of years ago? It's been a big sales item in Germany, and I noted last year in Frankfurt.....they had a building which went quickly from a minor one-apartment fire to a massive fire.....same type material. Luckily, this was a three-story building....not a multi-floor building. My guess is that in roughly four months.....some PhD guy will come out and prove this renovation material is a major threat, and trigger a massive removal-type situation across Europe. Billions will be spent to remove it from the exterior of buildings.
Then I come to this personal feeling....that you need some type of rope-harness deal in your apartment and a repel-type device that you could just hook onto a doorway and break a window and slide down. It doesn't require rocket-science. Some engineer ought to be able to fashion something that cost less than a hundred bucks and guaranteed to dump you 300 feet to the ground....safely.
Sunday, 12 February 2017
A Little Hike
Occasionally, I'll pick up a story which ought to have 10,000 lines of description but you only have twenty lines describing the whole event. So it is with this story.
Back in the 2012-era....in Vancouver, Canada (on the far west coast).....this guy Anton Pilipa just up and disappeared. What the family will say is that Anton had some mental issues. No one says if he was on medication....but I would suspect such. Anton's particular issue? Schizophrenia.
If you've ever been around people with Schizophrenia.....you tend to notice that they aren't in the same world as you or I. They can look at a situation with five characteristics.....and reach a totally different conclusion in the end.
What is hinted in the story is that Anton had some interest in reaching a particular library in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The particular library? The National Library. It's a fairly fancy library by most standards. What few realize is that while they sat down and designed the place in 1961...it would be a decade later before they started work on the library structure. Oddly, they didn't finish work and open the facility until 1992 (taking almost twenty years in this construction and opening phase).
If you bring up this particular library with social and intellectual groups in Argentina....they generally get weepy-eyed and emotional....it's like a place of honor.
For whatever reason, Anton (the schizophrenic) got kinda emotional about this library as well. No one tells that part of the story.
So, Anton just disappears.
In the last week.....Anton has reappeared....in some jungle setting of Brazil. Five years have passed. He's fairly weak and a bit tired.....but folks in Brazil have figured out his identity finally and got him in some hospital.....where they've set up some medication to control his schizophrenic problems.
Anton hasn't said an awful lot about his little adventure....but it appears that he just took off, and walked down the US coast....on through Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and probably three other countries....to reach the library as his destination. Course, he had this one problem....no passport. Without an ID....they refused him entry. Yep....having walked over 11,000 kilometers without a passport.....he now found that he could not enter without this one document.
Various borders which should have stopped him? None. He kinda proved that how silly the whole border thing has become.
He did all of this....without any real cash....that's the shocker of the story.
The Darien Gap? No one brought up this part of the story. Typically, when heading south and getting into central Panama....you will eventually reach this point where Highway 1 ends (in Yaviza). It's a great road that stretches from Canada down to a jungle setting in central Panama. There....highway 1 officially ends.
To get from Yaviza over to some real point of civilization in Columbia? It's about a hundred miles of jungle. No road or trail really exists. Some folks will claim a path, and have made the hike but it's not for normal people.
Anton hasn't said how he made this part of the trip. I have my doubts that he hiked it. But you'd have to go and pay some guy with a boat in order to skip this part of the trip.
Maps? No one even suggests that Anton had a map.
Presently, the family is working up some kind of plan to get Anton back to Canada. The embassy folks will have to work up some passport and I suspect with two weeks....he will be returning....on medication.
How long this will last? Unknown. Most folks who have schizophrenia don't like the medication route because they feel inhibited....not in full control. The odds of him leaving again? Probably higher than 50-percent chance.
The last curious thing about this whole story? Five years have passed. If you pull out a map and chart the whole thing....you or I could walk from Vancouver to Argentina, and up into Brazil in about eight months. That only explains roughly twenty-percent of the period of Anton on this hike. So where was he the rest of the time? Did he get lost a couple of times? Did he head off in the wrong direction for six weeks at some point and then corrected his direction?
There's this epic story waiting to be written. Sadly, I doubt if Anton really cares to sit down and tell this story.
Back in the 2012-era....in Vancouver, Canada (on the far west coast).....this guy Anton Pilipa just up and disappeared. What the family will say is that Anton had some mental issues. No one says if he was on medication....but I would suspect such. Anton's particular issue? Schizophrenia.
If you've ever been around people with Schizophrenia.....you tend to notice that they aren't in the same world as you or I. They can look at a situation with five characteristics.....and reach a totally different conclusion in the end.
What is hinted in the story is that Anton had some interest in reaching a particular library in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The particular library? The National Library. It's a fairly fancy library by most standards. What few realize is that while they sat down and designed the place in 1961...it would be a decade later before they started work on the library structure. Oddly, they didn't finish work and open the facility until 1992 (taking almost twenty years in this construction and opening phase).
If you bring up this particular library with social and intellectual groups in Argentina....they generally get weepy-eyed and emotional....it's like a place of honor.
For whatever reason, Anton (the schizophrenic) got kinda emotional about this library as well. No one tells that part of the story.
So, Anton just disappears.
In the last week.....Anton has reappeared....in some jungle setting of Brazil. Five years have passed. He's fairly weak and a bit tired.....but folks in Brazil have figured out his identity finally and got him in some hospital.....where they've set up some medication to control his schizophrenic problems.
Anton hasn't said an awful lot about his little adventure....but it appears that he just took off, and walked down the US coast....on through Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and probably three other countries....to reach the library as his destination. Course, he had this one problem....no passport. Without an ID....they refused him entry. Yep....having walked over 11,000 kilometers without a passport.....he now found that he could not enter without this one document.
Various borders which should have stopped him? None. He kinda proved that how silly the whole border thing has become.
He did all of this....without any real cash....that's the shocker of the story.
The Darien Gap? No one brought up this part of the story. Typically, when heading south and getting into central Panama....you will eventually reach this point where Highway 1 ends (in Yaviza). It's a great road that stretches from Canada down to a jungle setting in central Panama. There....highway 1 officially ends.
To get from Yaviza over to some real point of civilization in Columbia? It's about a hundred miles of jungle. No road or trail really exists. Some folks will claim a path, and have made the hike but it's not for normal people.
Anton hasn't said how he made this part of the trip. I have my doubts that he hiked it. But you'd have to go and pay some guy with a boat in order to skip this part of the trip.
Maps? No one even suggests that Anton had a map.
Presently, the family is working up some kind of plan to get Anton back to Canada. The embassy folks will have to work up some passport and I suspect with two weeks....he will be returning....on medication.
How long this will last? Unknown. Most folks who have schizophrenia don't like the medication route because they feel inhibited....not in full control. The odds of him leaving again? Probably higher than 50-percent chance.
The last curious thing about this whole story? Five years have passed. If you pull out a map and chart the whole thing....you or I could walk from Vancouver to Argentina, and up into Brazil in about eight months. That only explains roughly twenty-percent of the period of Anton on this hike. So where was he the rest of the time? Did he get lost a couple of times? Did he head off in the wrong direction for six weeks at some point and then corrected his direction?
There's this epic story waiting to be written. Sadly, I doubt if Anton really cares to sit down and tell this story.
Wednesday, 18 January 2017
The Manning Pardon
There's various topics that you can bring up around Army folks and you can predict exactly what they will say. In the case of Chelsea Manning....the 35-year sentenced former Army guy....99-percent of Army folks are pretty negative about the guy. Rarely does any Army member defend the guy.
President Obama set aside most of the 35 years today....down to seven. He'll be finished with the sentence by spring of 2017.
My opinion of Manning is kinda simple. He's a psychological question-mark. He probably was this way all throughout high-school. The stress of the Army life? It probably made him even more of a 'basket-case'.
The Army, because of recruitment shortfalls during the war period....went out and accepted a lot of people like Manning....never grasping that he needed guidance and authority extended to him....twenty-four hours a day....seven days a week. Giving him a clearance? That was a big mistake of the Army. If they'd done a psychological profile.....he would have been pushed into some Army chow-hall and given simple work to finish out his Army career. But they were never smart enough to figure that out.
What happens after May? If I were Manning....I'd go quietly into some urban area and try not to draw any attention or appear on any national TV show. The problem is that there are other people from the Army.....past or present....psychologically unfit as well, and maybe more unhinged. They might think of some weird need to attack or go after him.
Prison being the solution for Manning? No....I think the Army would have been better off doing the examination and recommending some federal mental institute and a long-term stay. Once he goes out of prison, I think he's just a magnet for problems, which will continue on.
President Obama set aside most of the 35 years today....down to seven. He'll be finished with the sentence by spring of 2017.
My opinion of Manning is kinda simple. He's a psychological question-mark. He probably was this way all throughout high-school. The stress of the Army life? It probably made him even more of a 'basket-case'.
The Army, because of recruitment shortfalls during the war period....went out and accepted a lot of people like Manning....never grasping that he needed guidance and authority extended to him....twenty-four hours a day....seven days a week. Giving him a clearance? That was a big mistake of the Army. If they'd done a psychological profile.....he would have been pushed into some Army chow-hall and given simple work to finish out his Army career. But they were never smart enough to figure that out.
What happens after May? If I were Manning....I'd go quietly into some urban area and try not to draw any attention or appear on any national TV show. The problem is that there are other people from the Army.....past or present....psychologically unfit as well, and maybe more unhinged. They might think of some weird need to attack or go after him.
Prison being the solution for Manning? No....I think the Army would have been better off doing the examination and recommending some federal mental institute and a long-term stay. Once he goes out of prison, I think he's just a magnet for problems, which will continue on.
Wednesday, 6 April 2016
Revision of DC's Weed Law
It was one of those things that you'd predict. The city of Washington DC.....has more or less blessed marijuana (medical or otherwise).
As time went by....people started to smoke weed in public settings.....more and more. There was suggestions that even in pubs and nightclubs....weed was now being smoked with no hassle from the cops.
So, this week, the city council voted 7-6 (notice how close it was) to ban smoking weed in a public area or in any club/pub. To make it an effective passage....they have to meet back up within a period of time and vote on this a second time. No one is sure if the same seven folks will agree on the second time around.
What this creates? If you were a serious marijuana smoker, who liked to smoke on the street, or in some city-park....up until this point, the cops couldn't touch you. Now? Well, there's some possibility that you might end up with a misdemeanor. But what cop would waste his time on something so minor?
It's probably another reason to revert 75-percent of DC back to Maryland.
As time went by....people started to smoke weed in public settings.....more and more. There was suggestions that even in pubs and nightclubs....weed was now being smoked with no hassle from the cops.
So, this week, the city council voted 7-6 (notice how close it was) to ban smoking weed in a public area or in any club/pub. To make it an effective passage....they have to meet back up within a period of time and vote on this a second time. No one is sure if the same seven folks will agree on the second time around.
What this creates? If you were a serious marijuana smoker, who liked to smoke on the street, or in some city-park....up until this point, the cops couldn't touch you. Now? Well, there's some possibility that you might end up with a misdemeanor. But what cop would waste his time on something so minor?
It's probably another reason to revert 75-percent of DC back to Maryland.
Saturday, 2 April 2016
My Wisdom and Advice to a Kid on the Way to College
It is spring and in a few weeks....kids will wrap up high school and make the fateful choice on college. So my ten bits of advice.
1. You will only be at college for four years....unless you go on for a masters, or really foul-up your first year and have to repeat. Don't screw this up. You can figure at a low-cost state college, that your dad or you....are tossing $15,000 a year for tuition, board, food, and gas-money. At a regular up-scale state-school, you might be using up $28,000 a year. If you think this is some social club, pub-drinking association, or lifestyles-orientation theater.....boy, you got screwed.
2. You have basically two kinds of lecture-dopes or professors. One that actually knows something and is willing to part with this knowledge.....or one who is a dimwit and just reads out of a book. Do some research and ask stupid questions before concreting up your class schedule. Once you find competent instructors.....stay with them. Once you identify incompetent instructors.....let people know and avoid them at all costs.
3. You'd best add up what this degree will cost and ask yourself how it relates to income levels and job opportunities. If your degree is Russian literature, Japanese art, Civil War history, or volcano science......ask yourself where this is going lead and how the income works out. Most Civil War buffs end up as park rangers, history teachers for high schools, or Air Force Intelligence Officers. Throughout the entire US in one year.....there might be ten positions opening for Russian literature. If you did something stupid and got a degree costing $80,000.....what's the value for the rest of your life?
4. A bunch of dopes will try to hype up off-time for some diversity or fake cultural garbage. If you got time to waste and you like fraudulent gimmicks.....fine. If you stand and ask stupid questions and just get stupid answers.....maybe you ought to avoid the episode. Just because some idiot says 'diversity matters'.....doesn't really mean that 'diversity matters'.
5. Some people you bump into will be life-long friends. Some will not.
6. The idiots who designed campuses never meant for them to be easily figured out for a 'rookie'. You'd best go spend a day or two prior to your classes starting, and get a decent road-map from the dorm to the classes.
7. College isn't supposed to be some simple cake-walk where things make perfect sense. It's built as a challenge. Either accept that or walk away.
8 College isn't really designed as some theater production episode of Shakespeare. Probably half the professors or instructors you bump into.....are a bit odd and half-way insane. You might end up thinking this is kinda like an episode of Gilligan's Island.....where the Professor, the Skipper and Mr Howell offer daily bits of wisdom, and the rest are just there having fun.
9. In twenty years, you will look back and regard all of this as some life experience, where you learned some things....forget most things....and feel shocked at how it paid off.
10. In the end, you may finish up with only one real positive or understanding.....knowledge is only half the trick. Applying it or manipulating it.....is the real pay-off.
1. You will only be at college for four years....unless you go on for a masters, or really foul-up your first year and have to repeat. Don't screw this up. You can figure at a low-cost state college, that your dad or you....are tossing $15,000 a year for tuition, board, food, and gas-money. At a regular up-scale state-school, you might be using up $28,000 a year. If you think this is some social club, pub-drinking association, or lifestyles-orientation theater.....boy, you got screwed.
2. You have basically two kinds of lecture-dopes or professors. One that actually knows something and is willing to part with this knowledge.....or one who is a dimwit and just reads out of a book. Do some research and ask stupid questions before concreting up your class schedule. Once you find competent instructors.....stay with them. Once you identify incompetent instructors.....let people know and avoid them at all costs.
3. You'd best add up what this degree will cost and ask yourself how it relates to income levels and job opportunities. If your degree is Russian literature, Japanese art, Civil War history, or volcano science......ask yourself where this is going lead and how the income works out. Most Civil War buffs end up as park rangers, history teachers for high schools, or Air Force Intelligence Officers. Throughout the entire US in one year.....there might be ten positions opening for Russian literature. If you did something stupid and got a degree costing $80,000.....what's the value for the rest of your life?
4. A bunch of dopes will try to hype up off-time for some diversity or fake cultural garbage. If you got time to waste and you like fraudulent gimmicks.....fine. If you stand and ask stupid questions and just get stupid answers.....maybe you ought to avoid the episode. Just because some idiot says 'diversity matters'.....doesn't really mean that 'diversity matters'.
5. Some people you bump into will be life-long friends. Some will not.
6. The idiots who designed campuses never meant for them to be easily figured out for a 'rookie'. You'd best go spend a day or two prior to your classes starting, and get a decent road-map from the dorm to the classes.
7. College isn't supposed to be some simple cake-walk where things make perfect sense. It's built as a challenge. Either accept that or walk away.
8 College isn't really designed as some theater production episode of Shakespeare. Probably half the professors or instructors you bump into.....are a bit odd and half-way insane. You might end up thinking this is kinda like an episode of Gilligan's Island.....where the Professor, the Skipper and Mr Howell offer daily bits of wisdom, and the rest are just there having fun.
9. In twenty years, you will look back and regard all of this as some life experience, where you learned some things....forget most things....and feel shocked at how it paid off.
10. In the end, you may finish up with only one real positive or understanding.....knowledge is only half the trick. Applying it or manipulating it.....is the real pay-off.
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