Random notes on the bastardization of media, Part II

I saw a guy on television last night talking about media and how terrible it is. I wish I had never had any contact with the internet. The invasion of privacy involved is like having a private detective following you wherever you go. Not only that, but to add insult to injury—or injury to insult—facts about you are sold to the highest bidder.

Random Notes on the Bastardization of Media, Part I:

Some people think that media in America is not very good, but that is contradicted by a lead headline I read today on AOL that the word “graduation” was misspelled on a Nevada high school’s diplomas. For more important news, turn to just about any American media purveyor. 'Nuff said!

Sex for Sale

Not the usual meaning! The kind of sex for sale I’m thinking of is the kind that sells newspapers. I’m talking about the continuous stream of exposes about the sexual practices of prominent and not so prominent people. One’s sexual preferences are nobody’s business. It may be that John Edwards was indiscreet at best by falling in love with someone outside of his marriage. It’s likely that a more severe term than indiscreet would be inappropriate. But does this expose really warrant his entire character and career being devastated? Was it necessary to forever and irrecoverably damage Eliot Spitzer’s life because he went to a prostitute, along with a substantial percentage of the male population? Does Anthony Weiner’s indiscretions or even perversions justify ruining his life and the life of his family? He was a fine congressman now lost to us and to himself and to his family forever. The list could go on and on. I don’t think this would be upsetting to Rupert Murdoch; he became a billionaire in part because of his scandal-mongering tabloid papers. Whether the allegations are true or not matters little. This carries over into entertainment as well: Does John Travolta’s sexuality have any effect on his acting ability? If only there was more empathy and less salacious curiosity, we’d be much better for it. In the days of John F. Kennedy, his liaisons were numerous but the press did not pursue them. Had it, we would have lost him more quickly than we did. Newspapers and reporters were a little more decent then. But today we live in a monstrously cruel society…. Shame on you, Mr. Murdoch, and your likes!

Reflect!! Comments please.

At Wall Street Journal, Bill to Ban Lap Dogs Unleashes Lowered Standards

What is this world coming to when the Wall Street Journal runs a featured first page article on animals sitting on laps of drivers?

The WSJ has come a long way—backwards, but not forwards. Well, what can you expect from a Rupert Murdoch newspaper? 

(Source: WSJ.com - “In Rhode Island, Bill to Ban Lap Dogs Unleashes Fight")

Austerity is Counterproductive

On November 16 2011, I blogged that the European attempts to end their recession by austerity measures was just plain counterproductive. Eliminating the jobs of teachers, policemen, firemen, and other government employees was clearly not the way to create jobs. Europe's angry voters are finally realizing that, voting out of power their leaders who have been championing austerity to scant positive result and replacing them with leaders more in line with Keynesian economics which favors spending.

What do you think? Will more spending finally start to get us out of this recession? Or is sticking with austerity the right course? 

New York's Worst Restaurants

There is a competition going on for the unhealthiest places to eat in NYC. The winner will get a ton of butter and 5000 quarts of lard and a medal for causing the most heart attacks in one month.

Let's meet the contestants:

1. Crumbs Bake Shop

Not one low fat or no fat item in the whole store!


2. Any Jewish Deli

Enjoy your pastrami while you may and head for the nearest hospital!


 3. Papaya King

More for hot dogs than Papaya and they have the gall to talk about the health giving properties of Papaya.


4. McDonald's

Leader in pink slime and French Fries. Mr. Mcdonald would roll over in his grave!


5. Any place that serves hot dogs.

 I won't tell you what's in them but it will turn your stomachs and give you a fast coronary!

6. Any French restaurant

Try the pate if you hate geese and want a short life and love to see a poor  animal force fed!

7. All steak houses

Watch the slaughtering of the frightened animals…enjoy your meal!!

Have your own favorite worst restaurant in NYC? Your nominations are welcome!

Wechsler Announces 2012 Presidential Campaign Platform

Platform of Presidential Candidate Stuart Wechsler, nominee of the the Party Party (also known as the Know Everything Party, formerly the Know Nothing Party):

1) No taxes for anybody.
2) Free ice cream and French fries for everybody.
3) Free rides on any Coney Island attractions.
4) No solicitations for your sisters, that's not nice. (Unless you get a fair percentage of the price!)
5) Lower the voting age to 3.
6) Lower the driving age to 6 months of age.
7) A chicken in every pot.
8) Foreign policy: First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin. (Per foreign policy adviser Leonard Cohen.)

Wechsler 2012 announces new cabinet members

Stuart Wechsler announced today that, if elected president, he will bring in the following to his administration:

Pee Wee Herman: as Director of Vice

Ricky Snow Arbron as Director of Family Relationships

Petra Zakrajsek: Director of Slovenian Affairs

Jim Bergman: Director of Directors

Wechsler 2012: The endorsements are in!

The Wechsler for President Campaign announces it has gained the endorsements of the following:

Rush Limbaugh
John Edwards's mistress, Rielle Hunter
Newt Gingrich
Mitt Romney
Rick Santorum
Vladimir Putin
Caesar Chavez
Bashar al-Assad.

Stuart Wechsler Announces Candidacy for President

Mitt Romney is surely an "empty suit." If you check my previous blog on politicians, you'll know how I feel about them in general. Not principled politicians like Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, and a minority of others. But it's not all bad to have a flip-flopper in an empty suit. After all, who but a few would want Romney to really commit to a Tea Party agenda and be unwilling to modify it if he's in office? The president in office has to deal with the realities as they exist. First of all, he's got to be elected. In general, we are lucky to be saved from the true believers like Rick Santorum and Ron Paul. It would be fun to imagine exactly what would happen if this country were run by a screwball like Ron Paul. Or a demented Rick Santorum. Franklin Roosevelt in his second term espoused a cut-government-spending program which led us straight into a depression cured only by World War II. Great men must be ready to change their minds as was even Albert Einstein.

Maybe a health care bill will protect the health costs of the masses. Even Obama, whom I much admire, is acting quite differently than as said forth before he was elected. What about the promises regarding Guantanamo? What about the promise to get the troops out of Afghanistan? What about his acceptance of a drone program which he criticized during his presidential campaign? Was he playing to the potential voters or did he change his mind after assuming the terrible responsibility of a president?

I say Stuart Wechsler for President. John Edwards, that paragon of virtue, for Vice President. I promise to create a new agency of Dog Catcher and appoint Sarah Palin to run it as Secretary of Dog Catching. The Secretary of State might be Ron Paul. Rush Limbaugh as Press Secretary.

'Nuff said for today!

Comments very welcome. The best comment will receive appointment as Secretary of Defense!

What Does It Contain?

What does it contain: hot air? 

Just kidding, this stuff is great. Check it out.

Education, Part II

Those of you who read my prior education post may think that I am in agreement with Rick Santorum regarding education. Not so, said he. The more education available, the better. And the more help by grants or other ways of encouraging education are more than appropriate, perhaps necessary. But in the present state of affairs where how tall you are and how high you jump may be one of the limited ways to get scholarships, and with the extraordinarily expensive cost of higher education, one should not despair. With curiosity and the massive amount of reading available, particularly on the internet, one can reach Mecca by a different route.

Great Reads

I have enjoyed the following two books and am passing on my thoughts as to each. 

The biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson is the fascinating story of the rather bizarre Steve Jobs from barefoot boy who rarely bathed to the head of the world’s biggest company, Apple. It is little known that Jobs was not a particularly good engineer, but he had an indefinable something which this book elucidates. It’s a book that shows the important part that serendipity plays in our lives. It is extraordinarily well-researched and written, and great fun to read for whatever message one takes from it. For example, there are many ways to get to the top, not necessarily by being “the best.” How many know that Jobs rarely bathed, wandered around barefoot with robes while deeply involved with Zen Buddhism? Having been abandoned by his father, he in turn abandoned his daughter. Kind of an interesting psychological puzzle.

 

Another great read is The Good and the Ghastly by James Boice. Esquire magazine reviewed the book saying  that it was a great book. It is the tale of one Junior Alvarez’s striving to become a great man of power and prestige in 34th century American society where Visa is king, and the interactions between the people living in that era.

What great books have you read lately?

Only in New York

Today I was walking along Park Avenue and noticed something strange in a black limousine. Its windows were closed. The driver was inside the limousine. I looked more closely and noticed that he was playing a trumpet. No one could hear it because the windows were closed…..ONLY IN NEW YORK!

I was told a story today about "New York's Finest," the NYPD. A friend of mine was walking with his wife on Lafayette Street in lower Manhattan. He noticed that someone was breaking into cars. The thief seeing a couple pulled out a pistol, loaded it, and pointed it at the couple. They ducked around the corner and called the police. The police showed up quickly in a police car. The couple pointed out the direction in which the thief was going. The police, as efficiently as one might expect from the NYPD, turned to the police car to get in and make the chase, but–-believe it or not–-the police had locked themselves out of their car. It could've been a Jim Carrey film; but it wasn't. …..ONLY IN NEW YORK!

At 5 o'clock in the morning I looked out my window on 93rd St. and noticed an old lady with 5 massive plastic bags filled with cans and bottles scouring the garbage. As if this were not strange enough, there was a man several feet away from her, also with massive plastic bags who appeared to be competing with her for the best garbage…. ONLY IN NEW YORK!

To be continued....

Have your own Only in New York situation? Please share it in the comments!

Angelina Jolie

An example of powerful distortions by media is Angelina Jolie. Her manipulation of media is close to unprecedented. How else could one explain the description of her as beautiful from head to toe and her rise to a position of the lead sex goddess in America if not the world? With the temerity to stick out a leg at the Oscars, this husband-stealing shrew deserves to be taken off her perch. More is said about the media who’ve bought in to her pandering and illustrates the shallowness of our media.

Politicians

Politicians are not held in great regard by the public, and for good reason. The public statements by politicians are not at all their opinions and are spoken or written only to get votes.  Aside from this grotesque picture of the average politician who tempers his/her views to whatever he/she thinks the voters want he/she is a prisoner of our supposedly democratic country. What counts is who pays the freight. Obviously, a politician who is able to run a campaign (and campaigns cost lots of money) seeks support from special interests. In order to get elected and reelected the politician must pander to them. To make it worse, the recent Supreme Court decision which opened the doors to unlimited financial support for candidates is shameful.

Those who believe that “the law is the law” should understand how “the law" works. Take the Bush/Gore 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court. It just so happens that the five judges who voted were the right wing of the court. The law is what the judges say it is. When a judge says the law is the law is the law, does that mean it's true?

No matter how you slice it, Gore got the majority of votes cast (excluding Ralph Nader)—while the absurd farce of using electoral votes led to the election of minority president George W. Bush. The farce of a decision by a kangaroo court resulted in the election of George Bush and the most disastrous foreign policy in American history. We are now and will always be suffering the consequences of this Supreme Court decision and the election of a dumb-dumb. We also owe the Supreme Court for the curse of the King of Waterboarding and the man behind the throne, Dick Chaney, whose only virtue was the support of gays not the least of reasons was for this was the fact that his daughter was gay.

Celebrities for Hire

It is shameful and outrageous that celebrities are selling their souls for money by selling their names to the highest bidder and appearing on commercials for products they know nothing about with the purpose of inducing the public to buy. There is another name for people who sell their souls for money, and it ain’t pretty. Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Hanks, Jerry Stiller, are simply examples who have put money before principle to act as shills for dubious enterprises and engage in shameful money-grubbing. Their agents negotiate the highest price. They have no idea what they are recommending. Have they no sense of decency? Have they no sense of personal shame?

Education

One would think that as an educated man—Yale Law School, University of Pennsylvania, Naval Officers’ Supply School—that I would be in favor of college education. Not so, says he. Look at Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and many others who never went to college or dropped out and were enormously successful. Of course, college is a necessity for certain occupations such as doctors. Abe Lincoln had no formal education, became a lawyer without going to law school, and we know the rest of that story. The main secret to education is the desire to learn. This can be done by reading or on the job training. In addition, education by parents at home can be far more valuable than formal education.

High Fashion is No Joke

With Fashion, Time Marches Backward

Proof for the Existence of God

The only proof that God exists is that he is able to get 94% of Americans to believe in him/her.

Also, that he is able to get people to believe he’s a he. Wouldn’t it be a surprise if he turned out a she?

I hope the all-knowing God isn’t listening. I don’t want to go down (or is it up?) to roast in hell.

Hey, if you’re listening I really don’t mean it.

This God is surely on vacation, allowing all kinds of bad things to occur. Or maybe he/she is busy with another planet or visiting hell to make sure the fires are burning to torture nonbelievers for eternity.

Well goodbye and God bless!

A Few Questions for God, Volume II

Are you reading this blog? (I hope not.)

Are you black or white?

Do you have a beard?

How’s your son?

Have you any other children?

Are you a good god, a bad guy, or someone in between?

What did you have for dinner last night?

Do you bet on horse races? After all, you know who’s going to win. Boy, would you clean up!

Don't you think you should watch the Catholic priests a little more closely?

Are you and the devil on speaking terms?

Are you for gay marriage?

Don't you think you ought to pick better priests? And shouldn't they burn in hell? 

How old are you?

Do you eat kosher?

Is there life on other planets? 

A Few Questions for God

Who’s gonna win the Super Bowl?

Have you lain with Angelina Jolie? If not, why not?

Are you a he or a she?

Are you a virgin? If a virgin, explain your son Christ.

There are many different gods in the world. Do they speak to each other? Have they divided up their territories in a mafia kind of way?

Do women gods get equal rights?

Did you make jackasses in your image?

What do you have for breakfast? What do you eat without a girl up there?

Do you masturbate?

Do you brush your teeth with Crest?

I’ll be back with another blog – God willing!