How I See News Media Ratings Over the Next Two Years

 Since early January, I've been thinking over the news media in the US, and where things are going for two years, and I have five observations:

1.  Fox won't be coming back....at least in the sense that they think they might 'recover'.  I do agree....maybe by mid-summer this year, around a quarter of the people quit Fox entirely....will go and find one or two Fox-players to connect with.  The bulk of Fox?  Screwed throughout 2021 and 2022.  

The more expensive contract players?  Go expect most of them to be edged out by the end of 2021, and Fox admitting that profits are down.  Some no-name folks will get their chance, and life will go on.

2.  CNN will admit by the end of 2021...that things are awful boring without Trump.  They will also admit that they don't see anything much with the Biden accomplishments to report.  

In simple terms....forty-percent of CNN's enthusiasm will dry up and you will be having five-person forums talking about college campus dorm life, lack of comfort in Ford pick-up seats, the sodium-level in canned chili, the realization that not many blacks live in Butte, Montana, and chatter over the 1912 Presidential election.  Even CNN management will agree, there's just anything much to report.

3.  Most all of the big names in journalism will be hard-pressed going into 2022 to explain why people aren't happy about the economy.  It'll be suggested as some big Scooby-Doo mystery and that consumers would not understand the whole landscape.  

4. Journalists will act shocked when discovering the 10-to-20 million newly visa'ed 'guests' of America....who had black-work going on prior to the Biden-visa business.....now have no real employment opportunity.

When the journalists go to the black-work employers....they will just state the obvious...they can't possibly pay $15 an hour for untrained labor.  Trying to tell this story?  It'll just go in circles and be written by 5th-grade mentality news people.

5.  Finally, the landscape of 'fake news'?  It'll continue throughout 2021 and 2022.  I would suggest that more than three-quarters of all Americans have a 'mute-mentality' now over the news and refuse to believe about half of what they are told.  

Trying to sell people newspapers or news magazines?  It'll be a very difficult process to turn a profit.  

This Biden Commission on Studying the Supreme Court

 First, no one is really sure what he intends to get out of the Commission.  Nor is anyone sure that he'd accept even one suggestion from such a commission.  Nor is anyone confident that 'fixing' the Supreme Court would really go far in fixing anything or just making it ten times worse.

If I were offering advice?  I'd have eight suggestions:

1.  Once 'elected' to the Supreme Court....you'd have a 3,650 day cycle (10 years), and then you'd be forced into retirement on the 3,651st day.  No extensions, no waivers.

2.  The dozen regional appeals courts?  I'd dump them and have 50 appeals courts (one for each state), with no more than 3 members per group.  I'd mandate that you have to have been a citizen of that state for more than 20 years before getting appointed to the regional state appeals court, and at least one member of this federal appeals court must be appointed by the governor of that state, while the other two are Presidentially appointed.  Again, a 3,650 day cycle.

3.  I'd move the US Supreme Court out of DC.  There's no reason for it to be there.  I'd put in some central location like Nashville, St Louis, or Dayton.  

4.  I'd mandate that the appointment to the Supreme Court must come by your 60th birthday.  Beyond that, you'd be disqualified for the position.

5.  I'd mandate that there would be a total of eleven on the Supreme Court, but only nine to hear individual cases and be responsible for the outcome.  If health issues or disqualifications were to occur, one of the two 'subs' would be standing there to hear the case, and be the 'back-up'.  I'd also mandate that around the 5th year of service....you'd be forced into a 90-day vacation (whether you liked it or not), with the 'sub' filling your slot.

6.  All confirmation hearings would be held in private.  That would mean the 'candidate', twelve chosen Senators, zero reporters, no Senator entourage folks, and no security people in the room.  Yes, totally sealed.  No drama televised nationally, or fake accusations.  If witnesses are scheduled....same deal....a sealed room.  If the six Republicans and six Democrats can't come to a conclusion, then you halt the process.  They would get another chance at another candidate in 100 days.  If they failed then, they'd get another candidate in 100 days.

7.  I'd drug-test the Judges on a random basis....once a year.  Failure to pass it?  I'd give you an exit-pass, and  you leave.

8.  I'd make a simple rule, if three of your fellow judges on the court said you were 'nuts', you'd be required to take a evaluation and take a 90-day pause in  your work.

Civility Discussion

 One of my top twenty characters of history is George Washington.  I admired the guy because he spent an awful lot of time....thinking and reflecting upon things.  Unlike Jefferson who spent a fair amount of time reading through books....Washington had a lot of conversations with people (chats).  His perceptions in life were built upon these chats.

At some point, he wrote this list of 'rules', and it had to do more with civility than anything else.  

For the past year, I've reflected a lot over the loss of civility in society, and how a fair number of Americans are not able to sit in the same room with various people because they are 'different'. 

So I pulled out the 110 rules that Washington wrote down.  Some of them are interesting to review, and some might be worth remembering.

Example: Drink not too leisurely nor yet too hastily. Before and after drinking, wipe your lips; breathe not then or ever with too great a noise, for its uncivil.

Example: Speak not evil of the absent for it is unjust.

Example: Be not apt to relate news if you know not the truth thereof. In discoursing of things you have heard name not your author always a secret discover not.

Example: Go not thither, where you know not, whether you shall be welcome or not. Give not advice without being asked & when desired do it briefly.

The chief problems in this modern era?  After a fair amount of pondering over the past year, I'd say we have four basic issues, which would need a lot of repair....because of our frustrations.  The four?

1.  Too much is going on without people having a face-to-face communication. You have some idiot on Twitter who goes off to insult 800k people, and if they'd had to face each of the 800k....they probably would have soften the insult by 90-percent.  

2.  People with the behavior-level of a 5th-grade kid....are trying to pretend they are mature enough or adult enough....to carry on a crusade or 'drama'.  Their audience attaches themselves to the crusade for a while....then realizes the fakeness or poor maturity, and then the whole thing collapses in a matter of days or weeks.

3.  Bullying is national trend.  You could be standing in the aisle of Piggly Wiggly grocery, and have some childish behavior occur, and suddenly there's a five-star act of bullying going on.  You could be sitting in a church group, and suddenly find your minister behaving more like a bully than an actual minister.

4.  With the amount of drama now put into serious chatter....if you asked enough questions, you'd find the guy in front of you with the serious mindset....really doesn't know that much about the topic.  He's standing there with a 3x5 inch index card of information.  So a lot of this missing civility....is due to people marginal information?  I would bet on half of society falling into this category.

We are messed up, but I don't see how the landscape changes for the future.  

Useless Classes, Training, Seminars, Etc

 I'm 62, and can look back over the entire era to note probably a hundred useless efforts to teach something of marginal or zero value.

There was the science classes between the sixth and ninth grades....where I could probably fill out a 3 x 5 inch index card with actual information retained.  I did note that the teacher tried every angle possible to skip the evolutionary chapter in the book....as each year passed, and I knew next to nothing about that point of science.  Luckily in the 1980s....I watched a few hours of PBS shows, where evolution finally was explained in detail.  

There was the continued Air Force training routines on chemical warfare....that occurred almost yearly (roughly 18 times over 22 years) and after about the fifth class....it was a waste of time.  

There was the sensitivity training that I got at the Pentagon, which didn't seem to really have any affect on me.

There was the three-hour seminar that the Air Force gave me once....on how to pack a pallet correctly, secure it, plastic-wrap-it, and ensure the warning labels were attached.  That was pretty much wasted because I was never supposed to be on any pallet crew.  

There was the Air Force seminars on 'I'm Ok and you are Ok'....which led to group sessions where everyone shared how they felt Ok.  I just kinda noted for the group that I was Ok before I came to the class, and was going to be Ok after I left the class.

There was the three-hour seminar where the Air Force taught me how to run the exercise bike and fitness-test people.  Over a three-month period, I tested forty people.  Every single smoker passed the test.  About a third of my test-crowd who were non-smokers....failed.  I could never get the base expert to explain why this occurred, and he would handle the failure folks on the second attempt.

There was a 8-minute explanation given on how to operate a forklift, and then 'Snuffy' signed off on my training package and I was Air Force-qualified to operate forklifts.  The rubber-wheel/steel-wheel roller?  That took twenty minutes to say I was qualified.  

I took an entire year of horticulture in high school.  To be honest, there's more or less nothing of value that I took out of the class.  Plants grow, and plants die.  The instructor ended giving me mostly B's but I have no idea how this miracle occurred.  

I took a class in logic (101) in college.  It was taught by some visiting Italian professor.  Around the third class, I got the impression that what I needed to know....mostly came from the Star Trek series, and watching what Spock said.  Beyond that....the class was totally worthless.  

I took a rock science course in college....taught by some nutcase dinosaur-digger professor who was in between digs in Montana.  It was mostly all worthless information but helped to fill my requirements for a degree.  I felt silly on the $120 I paid for the tuition (I think the Air Force felt even sillier because they paid $360 on their part).

Exiting Facebook

 Back around 2009, I started a Facebook account but really didn't have any real feeling for it.  There were certain old co-workers that I looked up and found.  There were a few current folks that I signed up as 'friends'.  

But somewhere in 2018, I just started to see Facebook as having marginal or zero value.  They were using me, or my 'friends' as part of some routine to sell something to someone (it was just never clear who that was).

I'd get recommended 'news', which I'd look over and consider to be 90-percent propaganda.  Throughout 2016's election, I saw this over and over. 

Toward spring of 2020.....I just kinda quit reviewing Facebook (maybe one visit every four weeks became the norm).

Around Christmas, I just said 'enough', and by the early part of 2021....I quit (deleting my data as I parted). 

I haven't had any massive urges or felt negative about the act of quitting.  It was not anything really of value.  

I look over the politicization of the past year or two with Facebook, and just kinda laughed.  It was behavior of a 12-year-old kid in running their program, and obviously slanted in some way.  If you wanted me to list a hundred things that we probably don't need anymore (like 8-track tapes, Atlas maps under the car-seat, or CB-radios)....yeah, Facebook would probably be on that list. 

Chatter on Inequalities

 Not that I pay much attention to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) and the DAVOS summit....but it came up today, with French President Macron speaking, and saying....well....that modern capitalism "can no longer work".

All of this chatter that he did....most centered on things just seeming to be more unequal and inequality existing more than it was before.

So he wanted to encourage folks....as we jump up into the woeful Covid-19 fixing....we ought to center our efforts on fighting 'evil' inequalities and capitalism.

The neat thing about this virtual DAVOS  deal....most everyone sat back in their country, and they didn't have to waste various evenings drinking expensive Champaign, or eating off a $150 plate of food, or listening to scandal-plagued dull people for hours.  

This unequal business?  Folks spend a fair amount of time wanting to educate you about this, and generally.....even in France....most regular working-class people will remark (up until the Covid-era) that they were doing fairly well and probably better off than a decade ago.  Course, they'd also admit that tax-wise, it's an enormous pain to pay French taxes (the VAT is 20-percent). They'd also admit the car registration tax is hefty.  They'd also admit that the tax for regular people (27.5k Euro to 74k Euro) of 30-percent is pretty crappy (meridique)

I would imagine that the French folks would like to educate the political folks how to cut spending and reduce the taxation business.....to lessen inequalities upon them.  But the politicians really don't have the time or patience to learn about this cutting business.

Just my humble thoughts.  

That Proud Boys Story

 For most of 2017 to the sixth of January....I loosely followed the branded-group "the Proud Boys".  There were branded in some way as a far-right extremist 'group'.

Their boss or leader?  Around late-November 2018.....Henry "Enrique" Tarrio became the defacto leader of the group.

So in the past week....some court documents came up (Tarrio is up on charges for things that occurred in DC).

The document say he was a paid 'informant' for US law enforcement...for YEARS.

His entire history?  This gets to being very curious.

He grew up in Florida, and around age 20.....got noted by the police for theft.  Luckily, he got off (now making you wonder what was in the deal)...he ended up with a community service situation, probation, and a fine.

Eleven years pass....he gets into more trouble (2013).  Stolen medical equipment.  he does 16 months in prison this time.

2012 to 2014?  He is listed as a paid informant....mostly involving weed, gambling and human smuggling.  Amount paid? Unknown.  

Was he on this Proud Boy routine as a honest deal?  Maybe.  But it just makes you wonder....from 2014 to today, no other connection back to federal law enforcement?  Maybe his obligation was fulfilled and he just walked away.  

This guy as the boss of the Proud Boys?  It just has a funny smell to it now.  Makes you wonder if someone was always in the background.