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The Butterfly Effect: Facing Our Darkness
Facing Our Darkness
The butterfly effect is a metaphor for the concept that small, seemingly insignificant events — like the fluttering of a butterfly's wings — can produce tremendous and unanticipated consequences. In this blog, Zainab Salbi, the founder of the humanitarian group Women for Women International, explores the often untapped and underappreciated capacity of women around the world to cause major and lasting change for good.
Read Zainab's previous blog post here.
I was just in Rwanda, where I decided to visit an orphanage that Alice Walker, Partihba Parmar, and I visited about three years ago. And though it is physically very different from the site of churches where massacres happened in Rwanda, both the orphanage and these churches have their own haunting stories. And every time I visit either site, I learn one more thing about the cruelty of humanity and human darkness, a darkness that is part of each one of us and does not only reside, as is often thought, in the depth of Africa or the Middle East or other parts of the world. The question is: How often do we acknowledge our own, individual darkness?
During the genocide in 1994, the orphanage, which is owned and run by a Hutu family, sheltered about 400 women and children, who were mostly Tutsis running away from the killings of extremists Hutus. They hid the women during the genocide, as they were more vulnerable to killings as adults, although every Tutsi or moderate Hutu was not safe from the massacre, even if they were only one-month-old babies. I had heard many eyewitnesses in Rwanda talk about how the babies were thrown or their heads knocked against the wall over and over again in order to kill them. Everyone was an enemy then, and no one was spared.
After the genocide, there were more than 500,000 orphans in the country, with limited orphanage capacity to take care of them. The country was in shock not only at what happened to the children, but also at how to take care of them when there was so much killing, displacement, and so many single heads of households were at the time just kids. So there was a public encouragement for people to adopt as many children as they could, and they did. At least half of the women I know in Rwanda have adopted a child. There were those who had surviving children but thought one more child will not make much difference, and there were those who lost all their children in the killing and ended up adopting more than they started out with. I remember in one of my first visits to the country, I met a woman who had seven of her children killed, so she ended up adopting seven children and lived with them in a small home she built in a model village called the Mandela Village. I remember her and her home so very well, even though it's been more than 13 years since I visited her. It was like wounded souls all gathering under one roof and helping each other in their trauma and in the pain of their loss and what they witnessed from the horrors.
Sixteen years after the genocide of Rwanda, the orphanage still has its horrifying stories, albeit different from the stories of the genocide. The orphanage is a decent orphanage. Kids of all ages live in it, from two years old to 24 years old. The older ones try to leave but are too afraid of the outside world so they keep on coming back to their home, the orphanage. The younger ones are still processing their new home and trying to come to terms with why they are in it.
There was Naomi and her sister, who arrived at the orphanage about a year ago. Their mother had locked them in a room and left. They were found by an elderly relative who brought them to the orphanage. I was dumbfounded to hear the story. To be abandoned by anyone in the world, including a father, is one thing, but to be abandoned by a mother is quite another thing, I kept on telling myself. It was a feeling and a pain that I had once experienced for years in my life when I thought my mother had abandoned me, and it took me years to understand her reason and to forgive her and love her so deeply. Seeing Naomi and her sister brought back the same feeling of pain. I don't know how to explain it. It is an ache of the heart. When Naomi saw me take pictures of her, she quickly went and changed into a beautiful red shirt and came back, held my hand and kept on saying "I love you." Her youngest sister is still recovering from malnutrition and under-growth.
Then there was Ruth, a 17-year-old young woman who arrived at the orphanage five years ago with her siblings. Her mother had passed away, and besides her siblings, she was the only living member of her family. She didn't know who her father was. The priest of the neighborhood brought her to the orphanage and passed away shortly after. Ruth had dreams. She wanted to be a "doctor to help women," as she says it. But her dreams are on hold at the moment. She is ill. She has a "web" squeezing her brain, and unless she has an operation, she can't read or have any consistent movement with her hands. Ruth wants to be healed. When I asked her what message she has for the world, she said, "Tell them I am an orphan, I am sick, and I want to dedicate my life to helping vulnerable people around me." When I asked her what has kept her going in life despite the challenges she has had to face, she said: "What kept me going is hearing other people's testimonies of what they have been through and how they have triumphed over the challenges." With a beautiful swift moment, my colleague from Congo, who was visiting Rwanda, took Ruth's head and we all circled around her and joined her in prayer, and held Ruth. Everyone cried. Everyone prayed. But the truth is we know we need someone to sponsor Ruth and make it possible for her to get the operation she needs, and we didn't know if we can make that happen.
We could hear drums of a drumming and dancing class that was taking place in the background, as we had our encounter with Ruth, Naomi, and so many other kids. There was the kid with a slight mental handicap who kept holding on to the arms of another colleague and insisting she take her bracelets as the orphan's gift to the strange woman who did not want to let go of her hand. When we finally had to leave, the sun was setting and there was silence in our hearts.
Each one of us left with a story that we had witnessed in that orphanage, without committing to do something about it. Ruth, Naomi, and the many other kids who were holding hands, or playing, or silently sitting by themselves, witnessed yet another set of strangers visiting yet another set of orphans and doing nothing to change their lives. I know that one can say that, through Women for Women International, we are helping more than 8,000 women on a monthly basis, in the country of Rwanda alone. One can also say that, yes, we will do some project with the orphans and have them come to our women's centers to dance or do a project where they can learn to earn an income and stand on their own feet. One can say that we are trying our best and that we have to focus on the 8,000 women we are helping, and not get distracted. But is this enough? Does it justify our own silence vis vis these orphans?
You see, I think many people see the best in themselves. And if you are working on a humanitarian mission and dedicate your life to it, you and many others also see the best in you. I often get compliments from strangers about how wonderful the heroic work I do is, and how kind I am. It is very hard. It is very, very hard to face that darkness in our own hearts. The darkness that starts with as little as knowing the dark part of human emotions we can hold — be it lack of generosity, selfishness, jealousy, or insecurity. The darkness that happens when we see something that one could do something about, but it would come with a sacrifice — sometimes a big sacrifice — and sometimes one is just too tired to acknowledge and address it, so one just moves on and ignores the problem. This is not confined to Rwanda only, or the extremity of seeing the orphanage. It is everywhere. How many times do we face these feelings, these realities, these injustices that we can do something about, but choose to ignore, in our own backyards? In our own, daily life in the comfort of America? How many?
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The theme of this issue continues in the same vein as that of Issue 17, which is of course our favourite hot topic - the service robot. We also begin to bring you related news from New Zealand as well as Europe and other countries. Compared to the many robot power houses such as Japan, USA and Europe, then New Zealand, an island situated remotely from the main continents, seems to be a quiet spot on the map of robotics research in the world. In reality, there are a lot of active research activities being carried out, and amazing results achieved by the local researchers who are well known among the population for their DIY (Do It Yourself) spirit. The special features of the New Zealand economy (agriculture, animal husbandry and forestry, to name a few) opens up an exciting domain, and provides a new flavour for the research in service robots. One of the reports in this issue brings you a new robot which mimics the human food chewing process, which has been developed by a research team led by Professors Peter Xu and John Bronlund at Massey University. This is just one example of many service robots being developed in New Zealand.
Copyright © 2008 The CLAWAR Association -http://www.clawar.org. All rights reserved. By special permission authors retain the right to place his/her publication version of the work on a personal website or institutional repository for non commercial purposes. The definitive version was published in (see Citation). The original publication is available at (see Publisher's Version).


Applications are made through a computerized national system known as Universities and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS). Students must complete a single UCAS form which allows them a choice of six universities and courses so that they don't have to make costly and time consuming multiple applications. UCAS forms are available at all British Council Offices in India for self funded students.
UCAS forms should be ideally submitted before 15th December of the preceding year. Students can start applying even if they have not received their final results. However, even after 15th December, applications can still be processed in the normal way until 30th June. After that, applications will be handled through "Clearing Process".
Students must apply before 15th October of the year preceding their year of proposed entry.
There are specific forms to be filled and sent to the universities.
You cannot apply to both the colleges in the same academic year.
Students are required to submit an official transcript from each college or university that they have attended from secondary school onwards with complete details of the subjects, credits involved and other details like correspondence courses, diplomas, etc. Most universities ask for the transcript to be sealed in an envelope and signed and attested across the seal by the registrar. This procedure is to be done for each and every college that you have attended. Some universities may ask for more than one transcript but most require only one.
If the originals are not in English, copies and a good English translation must be enclosed. If your undergraduate qualification or university is unknown to the admissions tutor, the British Council would be able to advise.
For most courses and universities, International students are required to take IELTS (International English Language Test) which is regularly administered by the British Council. Some universities may accept TOEFL as an alternative.
Note : Some Universities may waive IELTS if you have been studying in English medium throughout and they are convinced that you are proficient in English.
Send enquiries at least 12 to 18 months before the proposed date of admission. There are two ways to get application forms.
You can request application forms from the university websites. Most universities have a form on their website which can be completed online to request application material.
Many universities have a downloadable and ready to print version of their application form on the net. These can be used for applying just as regular forms.
Students applying for admission are required to submit an official transcript from each college or university that they have attended after secondary school with complete details of the subjects, credits involved and other details like correspondence courses, diplomas etc. Most universities ask for the transcript to be sealed in an envelope and signed and attested across the seal by the registrar. This procedure is to be done for each and every college that you have attended. Some universities may ask for more than one transcript but most require only one.
Note : Some Universities may waive IELTS / TOEFL if you have been studying in English medium throughout and they are convinced that you are proficient in English.
For most management courses, International students are required to take GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test). Please note that most British Universities do not require the GRE for admission to post graduate courses.
A number of professional and vocational courses require relevant work experience. For instance, many MBAs or master's courses in information studies require at least a couple of years' work experience.


"All you can do is not contact me again", I declare into the digitaltelephone as I hit the power button and the device shuts off. : Y G H M : another blog, yo!
"All you can do is not contact me again", I declare into the digitaltelephone as I hit the power button and the device shuts off.
20 Sep "All you can do is not contact me again", I declare into the digitaltelephone as I hit the power button and the device shuts off.
"What was that about?", the writer replies as he turns his head to me.
"I have never thought about stopping it", the writer remarks as he takes a sip from his coffee.


Kenneth Cole is an American fashion brand that creates and manufactures clothing, accessories, and shoes for both men and women. Their designs include both casual and more formal options, so you can find an outfit or accessory for pretty much any occasion! With Big Apple Buddy's personal shopping service, you can now buy direct from the USA Kenneth Cole online store anytime, anywhere.
The Fold-Over Leather Tote is made of cowhide textured leather and comes with double top handles and four inside pockets -- two zip and two open. This tote, which will go with pretty much anything in your wardrobe, is the perfect size to hold all of your everyday belongings and is a great accessory to carry to and from the office. Simple and understated, this bag is an easy go-to accessory that will make lugging around your laptop, important documents, and all your other everyday essentials a little bit easier and more manageable.
Kenneth Cole is also very well known for their shoe collection for both men and women. The Sound T-Rack Burnished Leather Oxford comes in the easy-to-match colors of navy, brown, or black and will be a classy and elegant addition to any man's shoe collection. The cap toe gives this shoe a bit of extra flair that will make it stand out from all the other shoes in your closet. This shoe also comes with a cushioned insole with arch support, so you don't have to worry about experiencing any pain after a full day on your feet. Choose whichever color best matches with the rest of your wardrobe, and these shoes will immediately add a bit of extra style to any outfit!
At Kenneth Cole, you can also shop from a variety of accessories, including many different styles of watches. The Stainless Steel Skeleton Dial Watch has silver-tone strip markers that show the inner workings of the watch, so you can see for yourself the impressive technology that goes into this convenient accessory. It is also completely water resistant, so you don't have to worry about wearing it out on a rainy day or spilling a bit of water on it: your watch should be able to handle it just fine. This watch is a great option for businessmen who are looking for something a bit different or quirky with their watch selection: not only does it do its job, but it does it in style.
Unfortunately, the USA Kenneth Cole online store does not currently offer international shipping. However, Big Apple Buddy, your personal shopper, can help you buy products direct from the official USA Kenneth Cole online store and ship them to your doorstep, no matter where you are in the world. We offer international shipping to over 190 countries including Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovnia, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lithuania, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, UAE, UK and Ukraine. If you would like to buy from the USA Kenneth Cole online store, simply let us know which items you would like to order (by filling out the form on the right) and we'll get back to you with a free international shipping quote within 24 hours!


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Home/News/Health & Living/Charles City, AMR agree to one-year contract
AudioHealth & LivingNewsPolitics & Government
Charles City, AMR agree to one-year contract
Charles City, Iowa – Charles City and its ambulance service provider AMR have come to a tentative agreement for a contract extending services for one year.
City Administrator Steve Diers says the city will subsidize the company $50,000 while AMR agreed to raise their call rates.
https://kchanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/AMR-1.mp3
After almost two decades of AMR sustaining their service by paying the city nearly $25,000 for drivers, rent and dispatch, money has run out, according to Diers.
The old contact is set to expire on June 1 and the city council needs to approve the contract at their next official meeting.
The agreement comes on the heels of the Chickasaw County EMS crisis that continued to drag on since the beginning of the year.
In hopes of taking a major step forward for service, the Chickasaw County Ambulance Council meets this morning at 10 at the Community Services Building.
AMR Steve Diers
Mother Nature strikes again, tornadoes and severe thunderstorms plague area
Man who stabbed 5 people at Mason City bar sentenced

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Finally replaced the pooched awning strip light!
I just did the same thing. Except I had to also replace the plastic track that the LED light goes into because it was all warped. It was a much harder job than I had anticipated. I had to remove the entire awning cover in order to slide out the old track and slide in the new one, which was not a very easy job! I'm super happy with the results though because the new LED strip (aftermarket from Amazon) is way brighter than the original one that came on the trailer. It also has a super thick gel like casing around the lights for improved waterproofing.
the new LED strip (aftermarket from Amazon) is way brighter than the original one that came on the trailer. It also has a super thick gel like casing around the lights for improved waterproofing.
Do you have a link to the one you used? I'm wanting to add a strip light, but even the "waterproof" LED strips just seem to have been dunked in very thin silicone. I'm liking that yours has a thick cover.
Love camping, homebrewing, and dirt bikes!
None of the pictures show it, but there is a thick rubber dome shaped covering going the full length of the strip.
Just a heads up that it was a REAL pain to get the strip into the plastic track. It is just a bit too thick (which is great for waterproofing). That being said, now that it is in it's not going anywhere! I just want you to be aware that it's definitely not plug and play, but it is doable. I also like the fact that it is warm white and not cool white.
However, if you are just planning on adding it to the side of your trailer under the awning and not using the OEM track, then this would be a perfect LED strip for that purpose. I also bought this 3m tape, but didn't have to use it because of how snug the strip was in the track.
So my furnace had very little to no air flow so I took Aluminum tape and taped virtually every place where air escaped which as you can see is everywhere no wonder it didnt blow it was all coming out at the source.
Now I can actually feel it coming out at the far end bedroom.
I need to do this! I did the A/C ducting mod and definitly noticed an improvement. For sure need to check the furnace ducting as the flow is pretty poor.
That looks good! Guess I'm lucky that all I had to do was slide the old strip out of the track and slide the new one in.
Thanks. Yeah, it would have been a MUCH easier job if I didn't have to replace the track!
"If it ain't Fast....It ain't Fun"
I will need to find a track to put it in as there is nothing there now. Or for as cheap as they are just try it as is and seal the wiring/solder joints and see how water proof they really are.
If it works as designed & the wife is happy with it, it's perfect!!


The Sanders Prize in the History of Early Modern Philosophy is administered by Donald Rutherford, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego and co-editor of Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy.
The core of the subject matter is philosophy and its history, though philosophy in this period was much broader than today and included a great deal of what currently belongs to the natural sciences, theology, and politics.
The Sanders Prize in the History of Early Modern Philosophy is a biennial essay competition open to scholars who are within fifteen (15) years of receiving a Ph.D. or students who are currently enrolled in a graduate program. Independent scholars may also be eligible.
Submitted essays must present original research in the history of early modern philosophy, interpreted broadly as the period that begins roughly with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant.
Essays should be between 7,500 and 15,000 words. Since winning essays will appear in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy,submissions must not be under review elsewhere.
To be eligible for this year's prize, submissions must be received, electronically, by October 1, 2016. Refereeing will be blind; authors should omit remarks and references that might disclose their identities. Receipt of submissions will be acknowledged by e-mail.
At the author's request, the editors will simultaneously consider entries in the prize competition as submissions for publication in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophyindependently of the prize.
Submissions and inquiries should be directed to Donald Rutherford, co-editor ofOxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy at drutherford@ucsd.edu.
Winning essays will be published in Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy.


Different types of appliances are used in orthodontic treatment. Read about Forsus Orthodontic Appliances.
You may experience difficulty chewing for four to ten days after the insertion of your Forsus appliance. Start with soft foods such as soups, pastas, scrambled eggs and gradually return to your regular diet as you start to feel more comfortable. Cutting your food into smaller pieces makes chewing easier and helps minimize the initial frustration.
Gentle but thorough cleaning around the entire appliance is important. You should brush around all springs, brackets and tubes. You may use an electric toothbrush or water pik if you have one. Be very careful with floss as it may get caught on the sping and pull it loose!


This elegant country home is nestled in the heart of King City, Ont., and spans 92 acres of scenic, open, rolling lands.
For the family looking to buy a country home just outside the city, this property offers a breathtaking landscape and so much more. Featuring a gated entrance, six bedrooms and 7.5 bathrooms, this home offers the best of both worlds, as serene nature meets modern luxury.
With a vaulted beamed ceiling and stone floor, the main house foyer welcomes guests into the home. Rich, warm colours from antique furnishings and artwork create an inviting atmosphere. The foyer then opens into a large entertaining space with a walkout to the south-facing terrace.
Just off the foyer is the living room, which features large picture windows overlooking the estate. Styled with vintage and rustic charm, the living room is complete with a gas fireplace and is sure to be one of the cosiest rooms in the house. The large living room opens into the formal dining room, furnished with wood flooring, which is ideal for entertaining.
For all of those entertaining needs, this home has a kitchen beyond compare. The floor-to-ceiling windows fill the space with natural light and panoramic views. Ample cabinet storage space and a walk-in pantry make this kitchen an optimal meeting spot to grab a snack before stepping onto the stone terrace. Once outside, it's time to enjoy the summer season. Those hot summer days were meant to be enjoyed in this backyard, complete with a large outdoor swimming pool and adjacent hot tub. A cabana overlooks the pool and hot tub area and includes changing facilities.
Overlooking the Town of Aurora and the Township of King, this majestic mansion boasts every luxury, including a private wine cellar, a stable complex, billiard room, media room and home gym.
This idyllic country estate is listed at $8.995 million. Learn more about this property from John Dunlap at john.dunlap@moffatdunlap.com.


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Democrats and Pundits Out of Touch with New Media Reality by Publius Tacitus
Posted on January 31, 2018 by Balint Somkuti
Why is Donald Trump winning? It is not because he has some a warm, charming personality. Nope. He understands the 21st Century media reality. That also explains why the Democrats and so many pundits who opine on politics are getting things wrong. The Dems and their pundit lackeys are living with a 1970s view of the media. They do not understand that ship has sailed.
Look first at the numbers of viewers for last night's State of the Union speech. This tells part of the story:
FOXNEWS 11,500,000
NBC 7,100,000
CBS 7,000,000
ABC 5,400,000
FOX 3,600,000
CNN 3,100,000
MSNBC 2,700,000
That's a total of 40,300,000 viewers. Sounds like a lot. But when you consider the fact that the population in America is approaching 330 million, that's only 12 percent of the population.
Let's take this to the level of who watches news. There is the assumption among those who turn on FOX or CNN or MSNBC that these outlets are influential in helping set policy and inform political opinion. That may have been true 30 years ago, but it is no longer the case.
Consider these facts.
Twenty-seven million to 29 million viewers, on average, tuned in every night [in the 1970s) to hear Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News. Today, though, the viewership of evening news programs on CBS, NBC and ABC combined is smaller than CBS' when Cronkite sat in the anchor's chair. The total numbers for CBS, NBC and ABC approached 49 million.
During the hottest days of the 2016 Presidential campaign, the number of viewers was dramatically lower:
FOXNEWS 2,900,000
TOTAL–28,063,000
Let those numbers sink in. In 1972, when the US population was approaching 210 million, almost 23% of the population watched the evening news. Today the number of people watching news shows has dropped to 8.5% of the population.
Here's another curveball. Rush Limbaugh. According to his latest ratings, 26 million people are listening to him on a daily basis.
Ponder that for a moment. Rush Limbaugh has almost as many listeners as all of the the Cable News and Network news broadcasts combined.
I think this is what Donald Trump understands. He realizes that the talking head media and panels of ignorant pundits are really an anachronism. No longer relevant to a world where most people do not read books. Instead, their heads are bent over scanning the latest headline to flash across the screen of their ironically named "smart phone." Yes, the phones are far smarter than the average citizen strolling the streets of any community in America.
I suspect that many of you that read this blog are the shrinking minority of those who tune in to watch cable news shoes. Some of you may even double up and watch something on one of the old network news slots. But please understand that you are an oddity. You do not represent the average voter nor the average citizen.
This is the danger we face–there is no longer an authoritative source of news that enjoys the confidence much less awareness of a significant plurality of voters. Ignorance and disinformation prevail. That's why, in part I believe, Trump continues to be more effective and to run circles around the conventional media.
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77 Responses to Democrats and Pundits Out of Touch with New Media Reality by Publius Tacitus
Haralambos says:
PT,
I believe you have hit this spot on. Thank you for presenting this diagnosis so clearly and concisely.
"No longer relevant to a world where most people do not read books."
Some days I still find this hard to believe. I just cannot imagine not reading books. But, I think you are correct that Trump not only understands this, he is one with those who don't read. As much as he comes across as fake to me in a lot of ways, he probably comes across as completely sincere to those, who like him, eschew the written word (in long form).
Eric Newhill says:
Hannity is the second most listened to radio show; 13.75 million weekly audience – on the air 3 hours a day.
However, the statistics can be somewhat misleading. Liberals tend to live in big cities and minorities comprise a substantial proportion of the liberal cohort. First, minorities tend to listen to their own ethnic radio and watch ethnic TV stations and news. Second, the listener/viewership is disaggregated because there are simply more choices for the city audience. So Hannity gets 13.75 mil listeners because he's the only option out there in fly-over land, whereas, in the city, there may be 13.75 million listeners spread across 200+ options (across various cities). No single source of news stands out. What matters is this; are the 200 options united in their liberal message or is it a hodgepodge?
You're correct though with regards to young people, who tend to get their news on "smart" phones and facebook. Guess that's how the Russians influence op was so able to be so devastating to the Clinton campaign 😉
Getting back to Rush and Hannity; it's a great business model. You're pretty much the only option. Then you declare the MSM to be fake biased America hating propaganda. Then your audience takes a look at the MSM and sees the likes of Morning Joe, Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, etc and they can't relate to such people at all, Thus confirming what Rush and Hannity say. Now you've got a loyal listenership into perpetuity. The message resonates and sticks.
Publius,
That's the best news the Democratic party has had all week. Best employment numbers for Black Americans in years, Congressional Black Caucus sits on fat asses. Congressman start a chant of "USA, USA" at the point inTrump's STOTU speech where he is praising veterans and the Congressman representing the "heart of Chicago" walked out.
https://gutierrez.house.gov/about/full-biography
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/01/30/dem_rep_luis_gutierrez_exits_house_chamber_during_chants_of_usa_at_state_of_the_union.html
"Now in his twelfth term, Congressman Luis V. Gutiérrez is the senior member of the Illinois delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is an experienced legislator and energetic spokesman on behalf of his constituents in Illinois' Fourth District in the heart of Chicago,…" Good thing for him Trump didn't talk about the thousands of shootings in the "heart of Chicago" while the Honorable member has represented the residents of the city.
Let's not forget the #hertoo CYA whitewash she who was not elected put out explaining why she ignored the recommendations of her staff and kept a sexual harasser employed.
The official party response – was from a multi-millionaire not-white-priveleged Kennedy who couldn't be bothered to spend a couple hundred bucks on a make-up artist for a nation-wide broadcost. At least the background was correct. I hope he found somebody to get that bitch'n camero running 'cause he sure doesn't seem to know how those things work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RKmiivRrBU
Richardstevenhack says:
I get ALL my news from alternative sources. Haven't watched any network or cable news program in years.
I may be utterly uninformed about whatever CNN or NBC is pushing at the moment in terms of domestic issues or what used to be called "human interest" or the like, but my understanding of foreign affairs is far greater than it ever was back in the day (70's-80's-90's). And I owe that to blogs like this one and sites like Antiwar.com, Counterpunch, Consortium News, Asia Times, and the like.
The rest I get from pro-RUSSIAN sources like The Saker, Russia Insider and The Duran, because if you weed out the click-bait headlines, the articles are pretty good (although Russia Insider loses it now and then.)
They had a joke on Crosstalk today where someone referred to "Morning Joke and Meager", which I cracked up over.
This is true. In addition, corporate media has been consolidated into five conglomerates. They repeat the same stories. They only diverge from government stenography if it is in their owners' best interest. Corporate news is diverging from the independent internet. Washington Post; an ongoing attack by the Russian government to publish the classified memo. ZeroHedge; the Democrats want to hide that the FBI used the Steele Dossier paid for by the Clinton Campaign to get a FISA warrant to surveil the Trump Campaign. What is true?
My sons and I don't text. Twitter and Facebook are alien to me. I gave up cable news but still watch NBC News and NewsHour and read SST everday. There are whole new ways to communicate. Still, I see burgeoning tribalism that breeds cognitive dissonance and segregation. We are separating into urban and rural; rich and poor; healthy and sick; male and female; white, black and mestizo; clueless or scared; face glued to a screen or not.
JohnH says:
I'm amazed anyone watches political speeches any more. They must be masochists…or have nothing better to do than watch a narcissist blow smoke, posture and grand stand. I mean, there's more wholesome entertainment at Netflix or at the library…
Moral of the story: watch what they do, not what they say.
AEL says:
Rush Limbaugh is lying about his audience size.
You can advertise on his network for pennies
($1000 on weekends, $8000 – 16,0000 during the week).
There is no way you can reach 26,000,000 people for that price.
Either his network is throwing away millions of dollars on missed advertising revenue (unlikely) or they grossly inflate their audience size.
Bandolero says:
I agree that Donald Trump is understanding the media reality of the 21st Century extraordinary well, and a lot better than most Democrats, and Republicans, and the Borg, and I also agree that there are shifts in what kind of media people consume. But I disagree with the idea that Trump is an internet driven star. His strength is understanding TV. TV, not internet, is what made Trump a star.
And I also disagree with a conclusion, that media shift factors were and are decisive for Trump winning. I think Trump won and wins, because he has a much better understanding than most Borgs, Democrat and Republican alike, about what important chunks of the electorate bother about.
Let me give an example. Hillary Clinton said in March 2016 when touring the northwest: "We Are Going To Put A Lot Of Coal Miners & Coal Companies Out Of Business." See it here:
https://youtu.be/ksIXqxpQNt0
That's while Trump supported coal.
About five months later team Clinton put out an old video of Trump saying "Grab her by the p*ssy." As seen for example here:
https://youtu.be/o21fXqguD7U
I think, though the world is clearly in the mid of a huge media change due to internet, most voters in the US presidential election 2016 had likely heard of both, Clinton's and Trump's, toxic word bits. And I think these, representative for their conflictive approach to the world, politics and the US electorate, have likely been decisive.
Clinton's and the Dem's calculus that Clinton will win the majority of votes after publishing Trump's "Grab her" word bit was basically correct. Clinton won the majority of the votes. However, in the rust belt, where, as I read, there are some people driving around with bumper stickers like "God, Guns & Coal" Clinton's and the Dems where out of touch not with understanding of the media, but with their should-be blue-collar voters.
Many of those blue-collar voters in the rust belt knew both statements, and the made a quite well-informed choice. Do we want someone to be President who promised she's "Going To Put A Lot Of Coal Miners & Coal Companies Out Of Business" or do we want someone to be President who made a couple of years ago a statement of "Grab her by the p*ssy?" Holding their nose many of those blue-collar voters in the rust belt voted for Trump.
So CLinton won the majority of the vote, but lost the Electoral College. I think that had not much to do with shifting media, but a lot to do with Dems being completely out of touch with their voters.
David E. Solomon says:
The world is infinitely worse off for every non-reader.
I cannot imagine a world without books.
I rely on SST first and foremost. I blame the 1996 Telecommunications Act for the current state of "mainstream news".
kooshy says:
Well, simply said, in this age of internet, and easy access to alternative media and information, if one no longer can legally and forcefully (FCC) control the only sources and pipelines of information and the narrative, then the next best thing is, to turn away public' interest on knowing the news and current affairs all together. IMO that is what has happened and is happening. That is, till something legal and serious can be done with the internet, and associated information and opinion sources like this site. God forbid, if sometime in future, RSH is called in to explain why his is only source of news is foreign media.
el sid says:
Ah, the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Under the Clinton admin, I understnd. Small world, innit?
And I believe it also scrubbed the meadia's legal duty and responsibility to accurately report the news.
No wonder viewrship is down. As is readership of the printed press.
Seems the Sheeps ain't as daft as they make us out to be.
True …Meanwhile the 1% continues to thrive. The more division there is on race, gender and sexuality etc, etc. The more they can keep control.
We will soon know if the Democrats get it or not.
I will be slightly controversial but the Democrats have there man for 2020 in Joseph Kennedy III and hopefully his running mate will be Tulsi Gabbard. I believe they have worked well together in the past and respect each other.
Trump would have no chance against that pair. But will the Dems grab it, probably not. However, one can dream.
johnf says:
I think this Death-of-Books trope among young people is a bit exaggerated.
The success of Harry Potter suggests that there is a real hunger for books among the young. The values it pushes – the solidarity of the weak against the violent and the oppressors – the importance of self sacrifice and of thinking of others – are hardly Borg-supportive values.
Again The Hunger Games – which a few years ago you couldn't get on a bus or tube train without seeing several youngsters devouring it – draws its heroes and warriors from amongst the red neck deplorables – and mercilessly satirizes and dissects the fashions and ruthless power-mongering of the coastal elites. It is reputedly written by a member of Catholic Worker.
Just as ever-fewer people follow the MSM for their information and are adapting to the many newer forms of media to get their news, so reading choices for the young are no longer decided by an elite in New York. Literary fiction is dying, much more critical political writing now centres around Sci Fi, Fantasy, and other genres. Similarly, at least in Britain, oppositional political ideas thrive on social media, and give immediate access to alternative media articles, videos, speeches and sources of information.
You are absolutely right PT – Trump's real skill is not in the art of dealing, but in the equally ancient art of Rhetoric.
Dialectic discourse presumes that the protagonists wish to establish 'the truth'. But in the age of alternative facts and subjective truth, Trump sees that this method of discourse is outmoded – logos is now of little use. Other politicians, HRC included, could not and still cannot comprehend the profound implications of the Balkanisation of news; that logical argument can now be largely defeated, simply by calling into question the veracity of a premise's source.
He also understands that Twitter perfectly suits the 21st century attention span of sub 5 seconds and 140 characters (those new tweets are just so looooonnng).
Those of us still foolish enough to seek out good old fashioned objective truths are vastly outnumbered by voters who have neither the time, nor inclination, to leave their info bubbles. I expect the trend of government activity moving from Legislative to the Judicial branch to increase – until, perhaps, such time as the Law itself ceases to be widely recognized as an objective source of binary truth. Then of course we are all in trouble.
Nancy K says:
Unfortunately voters have chosen a president who is as ignorant of the written word as they are. Maybe they deserve him but what about the rest of us.
Rhondda says:
I stopped watching TV news when I realized what Obama was — and wasn't. Not long after that I gave up TV altogether.
I watched the SOTU on YouTube. I think there is still information in the noisy pomp.
the media landscape is changing rapidly. so all numbers might be a bit misleading, i for example tossed my TV in 2005 and have not watched one since, yet still feel overloaded with media.
the rest of the numbers are pretty interesting.
i would say the biggest reason for the falloff of CNN/NBC etc was do to their behavior during the past election.
The ziocons have no decency: https://www.globalresearch.ca/oliver-stone-leads-tributes-to-robert-parry-as-shady-us-lobbyists-propornot-dance-on-his-grave/5627792
"The anonymous anti-Russia lobby group PropOrNot has stunned social media users with an outrageous attack on the memory of Robert Parry…" – The propornists are not anonymous anymore: https://thedailycoin.org/2018/01/29/unmasking-propornot-exposing-deep-state-crimes/
"Propornot is owned by Interpreter Mag… At the Interpreter Mag level, here are the people:
– Michael Weiss is the Editor-in-Chief at the InterpreterMag.com. He has been a Senior Editor at The Daily Beast since Jun 2015.
– Catherine A. Fitzpatrick is a Russian translator and analyst for the Interpreter. She has worked as an editor for EurasiaNet.org and RFE/RL.
– Pierre Vaux is an analyst and translator for the Interpreter. He is a contributor to the Daily Beast, Foreign Policy, RFE/RL and Left Foot Forward
– James Miller is a contributor at Reuters, The Daily Beast, Foreign Policy, and other publications.
The Interpreter is a product of the Atlantic Council. The Digital Forensics Research Lab has been carrying the weight in Ukrainian-Russian affairs for the Atlantic Council. Fellows working with the Atlantic Council in this area include:
– Eliot Higgins – This linked article shows how an underwear salesman became one of the most important faces of the deep state.
– Anne Applebaum [a "historian"]
– Irena Chalupa, the sister to the same Alexandra Chalupa that brought the term Russian hacking to worldwide attention. Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council, where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe.
– Dimitry Alperovich- CEO of Crowdstrike"
LeaNder says:
Fred, such speeches bore me to tears: Kennedy III. Could you give me a hint, what you consider the most significant part?
More arbitrarily: I once walked out impulsively on a discussion in what we Seminar in university over here. I do have this basic choleric core, and moving helps if it attacks you. 😉 The most funny thing was, in the identical larger context someone else followed my example a couple of weeks later. 😉 Is there any chance to get statistical evidence or numbers on the frequency of such a response? I am not aware of any other incident, and I spent many years in the larger setting in different places.
Thus Luis V. Gutiérrez, what's your point exactly?
sorry, I get sloppy, correction:
correct:I once walked out impulsively on a discussion in what we Seminar
walked out impulsively at one point during a discussion in what we call Seminar over here.
PT, I recall news as we dealt with it as topic over here in Television Science. At that point in time from my limited memory space one private channel seemed to relax the standards somewhat. It seemed to be an American influence.
What puzzles me slightly, that's an earlier technical question on my mind. How do you use "news shows". As more general expression covering diverse formats dealing with news? ….
Joe100 says:
Good points – for example, my grandson read all of the Harry Potter books last year when he was in third grade. I read extensively, but I think the best I was doing in third grade was reading Hardy Boy mysteries.
And his parents have both been serious readers, but my observation is that their current lifestyle leaves them almost no time to read.
Morongobill says:
Perhaps your side might get with the times and learn how to condense something to its selling points, as the Donald does with his tweets.
Even a long novel can be summarized.
This spoken by a longtime book lover, reading most on Kindle though nowadays.
great feedback, Bandolero.
AEL #9
Nice try. I love it when Canadian SJWs tell us all about America.
One reason advertising on the Rush show is so inexpensive is because liberal companies boycott advertising. Their SJW consumers, in typical PC fashion, demand that Rush be silenced and they use the typical leftist tactic of attempting to cut off the life blood ($).
In response, Rush lowered the cost, which makes it much more challenging for companies to pass up exposure to his tens of millions of listeners. This counter tactic has not been entirely successful as many loyal listeners now complain about the volume of ads on the show. Rush is making up for lower price by increasing volume.
shepherd says:
I agree and don't. Trump is super effective at using modern media, and Twitter in particular. But the data here has some problems.
Ok, modern media basics. Right now, American consumers are in a state of great flux when it comes to how and where they consumer television and other content—and not just across wealthy, young, or liberal demographics. In general, we're seeing a move away from traditional broadcast and cable towards more a la carte and OTT (Internet-delivered) options. This is happening for a wide range of reasons, most of them related to cost and convenience.
The numbers PT cites are likely Nielsen numbers. They are derived from people who allow a device to be installed on their televisions that enables Nielsen to see what shows they are watching. They only collect data for traditional cable and broadcast television, but they are valuable because they designate an audience which likely sits through commercials.
However, these numbers are not useful otherwise, because fewer and fewer Americans watch TV that way. Even demographics like seniors are cutting cords because cable is so expensive. As a result, you get things like the erroneous perception that viewership for American football is in major decline. Rather, broadcast TV is in decline, along with American football's share of it. Most of us who watch this sort of thing (i.e. the people who buy ads) do not believe that viewership is declining.
Why? Because we have clues. Super Bowl ads, which are priced by supply and demand, are projected to set a record this year for cost. More importantly, things like Amazon's Alexa measure the number and time people are spending on various websites, including streaming video from things like CNN on Internet TV services. Here we see a quite different picture from the one Nielsen paints. The top five news media outlets in the US by this measure are CNN, The New York Times, Washington Post, Yahoo, and MSN. CNN, in particular, is a monster.
In other words, CNN may not have many traditional TV viewers, but the overall consumption of its TV content remains very high. It's just done through other means not captured by traditional metrics.
Should you draw any conclusions from this? Not really. If I could tell you what's really happening in media, I'd be making $10 million a year. The only thing I'd advise is not looking too closely at any one metric, especially if it supports your biases.
You are kind of correct, but also wrong. Sales have been trending down a bit, but sometimes pop up. It is harder to track in some ways with he advent of E-books, but it looks to me like reading is now more concentrated into specific groups. The wife and I have done some volunteer work in our area up in coal country. Lots of poverty up there. The schools are often in bad shape. The libraries? Decimated. Talk with the teachers and principals, it is clear lots of these kids aren't reading very much at all. It certainly seems much different than the poor rural areas in which I grew up. Even at the worst schools 50 years ago, there were always books and reading was encouraged.
Greco says:
They're still finding a relatively large audience, but it's via the late night comics, e.g., fake newscasters like Stephen Colbert and John Oliver.
johnf,
"reading choices for the young are no longer decided by an elite in New York. Literary fiction is dying, much more critical political writing now centres around Sci Fi, Fantasy, and other genres. …critical political writing now centres around Sci Fi, Fantasy, and other genres." No. The gate keepers in publishing are overwhelmingly women, and mosttly young women. Guess what kind of collegiate educations they have and from where. Just what appeal are their selections going to have a US readership?
AndreL says:
Since we are looking at media statistics and also discussing the significance of books, "Fire and Fury" seems as proportionally popular among bookworms as Rush to the AM radio junkies.
I look forward to Luis V Gutierrez taking his proper place as a member of the Mexican Congress. pl
For a man who is "as ignorant of the written word as they are.",
here is a page of his published works. All of them incorporate the written word ( or at least the typeset word )
https://www.amazon.com/Donald-J.-Trump/e/B001H6O8M2/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1517498855&sr=1-2-ent
Flavius says:
I have been wrestling with the question "What is news?" for at least the last decade. The bout started in earnest when I realized I no longer needed to read the NYT, a habit of 40 years, because I already knew what the opinion pages were going to say and the magic wand of selection was tranforming the front pages into a facsimile of the back pages. I cancelled the paper.
A few later I cancelled the WSJ because I had tired of the relentless war mongering by neo-con stooges who were never held accountable for having gotten things wrong, which seemingly was always and about everything.
50 years ago we had Time and Newsweek in our house all the time. One day my older brother, the smartest person I have ever known, said to me "the more I know about something, the less Time seems to know."
I don't know how The Donald tunes his political fork. I suspect that it is not by listening to the NYT/WP/MSM crowd that has them all so apoplectic. He is neither of them or by them. I'm guessing that after more than a year and a half, he considers himself fortunate in having them as his enemies. They have about punched themselves out.
Whatever happens, Trump deserves much credit for having unmasked the partisan news celebrities and the more grotesque version of the same in the so called 'entertainment' industry, 'famous for being famous,' as has been said, for the bellowing self absorbed fools they are.
Whatever 'news' is, the news industry will never be the same and will never hold sway over big government the way it has in the recent past. At least I hope it doesn't.
Publius Tacitus says:
Shepherd,
Nice try. Deal with actual facts. I provided links. This was not my opinion. Let me point you to other metrics. The number of people employed by CNN and MSNBC and ABC and CBS and NBC has dropped dramatically over the last 20 years. We've seen the same with the print media. Their circulation is down and the number of reporters employed is down by as much as 50%. And you want to argue that more are watching and paying attention? Good luck with that.
One more point. The late Night Shows on ABC, CBS and NBC are equally irrelevant. Total viewers ? 9 million.
"The more division there is on race, gender and sexuality etc, etc." The Democratic Party calls it "identity politics."
Eric #28, I have seen to many ways to deal with measurements to support your assumptions on this.
But I would appreciate a link to Rush. Without guarantee that I will follow what might be one of your opinion leaders. That is.
Sid Finster says:
Nielsen/Arbitron – how does it work?
rjj says:
Thanks for the caveats, Shepherd.
Why the histrionics, PT??
LeaNder,
"Kennedy III. Could you give me a hint, what you consider the most significant part?"
Kennedy III. Personally I'm holding out for Kennedy XIV, who will really bring the sunshine to the Presidency.
AEL,
You're right. That would mean the $1,000 doesn't get an add on every radio station that broadcasts Rush. Which particular stations do you want to advertise on? Failure to understand micro-targeting is how the boy wonder Robby Mook blew threw a $billion running Hilary's campaign. Of course the politically connected who needed to be paid got their cut of that but then that's another objective of political spending entirely.
TimmyB says:
I get my news from many of the sites you listed. I also enjoy Naked Capitalism, Information Clearinghouse, and Zero Hedge.
Has anyone here actually watched their local news lately? I have, and it's awful. The stories are 25% car crashes, crimes and other accidents/fires of the "if it bleeds, it leads" variety. The rest is corporate public relations puff pieces, and Internet video clips. Oh, and local sports. The national news is the same, just a little better produced.
In sum, there is absolutely nothing in the local or national news that provides a voter with the necessary information they need so thay can exercise their right to vote in a responsible manner.
I really don't understand the response to Shepard. All I got from his or her long response is that clips from CNN and other tv news stations may be circulated via the Internet, which would be undetected by tv ratings services.
Here are some actual facts. Trump remains unpopular with a majority of Americans.
And people were first fired from newspaper and tv news departments 20-years ago so that shareholders could make a few more bucks. Newspapers were in trouble prior to the Internet boom because they decided to put out a worse product in search of higher profits. Instead of increasing profits, they drove customers away.
Here is the ultimate truth about our tv, radio and Internet news media. You and I are the product being sold. The money these media outlets make comes from capturing our eyeballs, ears and clicks and then selling our attention to advertisers. The actual product being sold is the audience. And we, the audience, are being sold to advertisers.
LeanNder,
I don't follow opinion leaders. I form my own perspectives.
I have listened to Rush maybe three times over the past 20 years or so. Each time when driving across country and when there was no good music on the radio – also out of curiosity. The last time I listened to him, it was maybe for an hour or more and he began to cause me to have a giant headache what with all the bombastic yelling and carrying on.
I only appreciate Rush (and Hannity) as allies in the war to preserve our country and freedom against leftists.
TV says:
Kennedy and Gabbard: the triumph of looks over brains.
Mourning a great man, Robert Parry: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/02/01/outpouring-of-support-honors-robert-parry/
Journalist Caitlin Johnstone wrote, "I would suggest that it is [an] underlying devotion to the plight of mankind which allowed Robert Parry to become Robert Parry. It wasn't his connections, his political opinions, his ideas, or even his raw talent; it was the fact that he cared so much. The fact that he couldn't dissociate himself from the horrors of this world, the evil things humans are doing to one another and the omnicidal trajectory we appear to be headed along. He saw it all, he felt it all, and he let it move him."
Walker says:
Mourning a great man, Robert Parry. . .
Robert Parry was a great man.
Alexander Mercouris over at The Duran follows up his piece yesterday with the revelation that there is a SECOND "Trump Dossier" – of equally disreputable sources – being floated to try to bolster the original Steele dossier.
As publication of GOP memo looms panic grips Washington
http://theduran.com/publication-of-gop-memo-approaches-panic-grips-washington/
The new dossier is revealed by The Guardian. But even Steele won't vouch for it, although he appears to have had a hand in the FBI's obtaining it. It's basically the same rehash of the Trump Moscow lewd acts story which immediately discredits it.
The production of this second dossier illustrates how panicked Washington is over the memo.
NancyK says:
You can read real literature on a kindle. It is really sad that we have a nation of citizens with zero attention span. Literature is not meant to be condensed to its selling points, not everything is a transaction.
If you want data, here's a partial set. If you have any additional areas of interest, let me know.
This is a major media spending study:
https://www.groupm.com/news-tags/403
It shows steady spending on TV as a share of a roughly 3% year-on-year growing ad market for the last decade. This is significant because the people spending the money are seeing results and, thus, continuing to spend.
This is Amazon data that shows CNN, NYT, et al. in the Top 50 US sites:
https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/US
Superbowl ad data, showing steady increase over time:
http://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/super-bowl-supersized-4-9-billion-ad-spending-51-years/307361/
CNN employment data:
http://www.cnn.com/services/opk/cnn25/cnn_newsgroup.htm
For late night, this is the Jimmy Kimmel YouTube page (10.8 million subscribers alone):
https://www.youtube.com/user/JimmyKimmelLive
Stephen Colbert Twitter (17.4 million followers):
https://twitter.com/StephenAtHome?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Failing New York Times stock quote
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/nyt?p=nyt
Long term employment in the newspaper and publishing industries (this does support your impression of the newspaper industry, which is correct and expected to contract a further 8% next year. But you'll also see a modest increase in TV and a huge increase in digital):
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2016/employment-trends-in-newspaper-publishing-and-other-media-1990-2016.htm
Seamus Padraig says:
Yeah, I'm surprised Tacitus didn't mention the internet at all. I'm sure that's a far bigger factor than talk radio. Me, personally, I almost never watch TV anymore, and when I do, it's strictly for entertainment. And I don't listen to talk radio either. For news and views, I go straight to the internet.
DianaLC says:
As a young person, I was always in trouble for bringing a book to the table. I read, read, read. But I chose classics. Harry Potter, Hunger Games? Really? If you read the first book of these, you know the plot line and how it will end each time you start the first chapter of the next book in the series.
I taught public school English and college and community college English. Believe me when I say that if you give a young person more than three paragraphs to read of content that is serious or loaded with information, he/she just can't handle it. The reading materials for my community college/college classes were so simple and the writing assignments were the same as those I gave to ninth-grade students when I first began to teach in 1970. (I had to follow a department curriculum.)
I keep suggesting that people read a book by the historian Leonard Shlain entitled The Alphabet vs. the Goddess. Some historians don't want to accept his work because he hasn't done much to fit into the academic community, I guess. But I found the premise of the book pretty interesting and quite possibly true. He contends that societies and periods of human history alternate between linear societies that are logical and word based (Alphabet) and thus rely on the written word and those that are more artistic and symbolic (Goddess).
I certainly do not find many young people now and even some my own age who can sit still to read more than a few sentences and who can listen to more than short sound bites. They seem to gather their information through common memes that are floating about on their social networks, on their computer screens (phone screens) and as they hear things in their daily lives at coffee shops, work, social events, etc.
I'm sitting here with my personal over 1,000 book library. These are books I kept because I just couldn't bear to give them up. I have them categorized and shelved according to the Library of Congress system. I'm leaving them to my own children as a burden since they won't know what in the world to do with them all. And they surely won't take time to read any of them. It's quite sad.
I do not have Harry Potter books or Hunger Game books in my collection, by the way.
Sadly, PT is absolutely correct in his analysis, I think, of the voting public nowadays. Quite frankly, I believe the Democrats like having a public of "useful idiots" while the Republicans like their home-town heroes and the common folk. These two types of people have totally different interests. Thus, the campaign rhetoric of each national party is so very different in what they choose to put forward as their platform issues. And in the current environment, Trump did have the advantage because the Democratic Party had such a much younger base in many regards, people still worried about what celebrities think and feel and still hearing the garbage put out by young wet-behind-the ears professors who have been trained in all the new ideologies and can spew them out. History and literature are just "lies told by old white guys," as the saying goes.
I also taught journalism and was the high school newspaper adviser for three years. It's quite sad for me to see the state of print journalism now and the broadcast journalism doesn't often deserve to be called "journalism."
Jimmy Fallon has 50 million Twitter followers and 15 million YouTube subscribers. https://twitter.com/jimmyfallon
The point is that lots of people like Fallon and watch him, they just aren't doing so on traditional TV.
Another point on newspapers. The problem with WaPo the NYT and even local papers is not readership. Both of them have large, digital audiences, even though they both have paywalls. The difficulty is in monetizing those audiences beyond subscriptions. Two factors are in play here. First, digital ads do not cost as much as print ads, nor can we put as many of them on a page. But what has truly crushed the newspaper industry is the near complete erosion of classified ad revenue, which used to account for 50% of the total revenue of any paper. That is due to the proliferation of free outlets for classified ads online. This can be seen obliquely from the Group M reports I already cited, but is a well known fact in the industry.
For another interesting data point, here's the print readership of the NYT going back about 10 years. It's roughly steady, not declining. https://www.statista.com/statistics/229984/readers-of-the-new-york-times-daily-edition-usa/
Lee A. Arnold says:
There is also a generational difference. Teens use Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube, more than Facebook and much more than Twitter. And they are tending to more use of smartphones and tablets for access. Facebook and Twitter are old geezer stuff.
And you believe that Fallon really has 50 million followers? I have a bridge to sell you. 20 years ago I did some work for Hollywood writer Stephen Cannell. He wrote books that became instant best sellers. Know how? He hired people like me and gave me funds to go out and bulk purchases of books. Within a week he was on the NY Times bestseller list (Oh yeah, we targeted particular bookstores).
Here is what we know for sure–fewer people are watching Fallon and Colbert today than was the case 20 years ago. The number of people employed in the electronic and print media has dropped precipitously. The current media world is basically a collection of obscure choirs singing to themselves.
Vive le Président Soleil.
TonyL says:
Your analysis is flawed without considering Internet viewers. Look at Youtube and other Internet streaming services. Peope in the younger demographic don't watch regular TV news or talk shows.
As the song goes "You took the words right out of my mouth…"
How the Trump campaign must have laughed!
SJW's and microtargeting have nothing to do with the basic advertising calculation.
You pay for the ad and then measure the sales impact it has.
If the impact was high enough, you buy another ad.
If you expect to reach 7% of the population, you will have a definite idea of how this will affect your sales. Next, the price of the ad is a trade off between the channel wanting to sell almost *all* the ad spots and advertisers wanting to get greatest impact for least price.
Advertisers clearly don't see enough impact to carry a higher price. Hence the price was reduced.
Therefore, Mr Limbaugh's audience size is nowhere near 26,000,000.
scott s. says:
I remember the "good old days" when we got the daily faxed "Early Bird" (a DoD-produced clipping service) and a few copies were made and passed around (when you saw it depended on how high up you were in the food chain).
I think you're spot on with your criticism of Jimmy Fallon's 50M Twitter followers. Just compare reactions to his Tweets with those of Donald Trump, who currently has 47M followers.
Here's a comparison of the last three tweets of Jimmy Fallon (aged between 12 and 14 hours) and Donald Trump (all 15 hours old):
Fallon:
Min Fav'd: 1,2k; Max Fav'd: 1,3k.
Min RT'd: 110; Max RT'd: 169.
Min Replies: 44; Max Replies: 64.
Trump:
Min Fav'd: 96k; Min Fav'd: 142k.
Min RT'd: 24k; Max RT'd: 29k.
Min Replies: 19k; Max Replies: 66k.
So, Trump has about 100 times more user interactions than Fallon, though Fallon claims to have more followers than Trump. Of course, that doesn't mean Trump has a 100 times more real followers than Fallon, but it's at the very least an indicator for vastly different attention paid by Twitter users to the Tweets of these Twitter personalities.
BillWade says:
Aren't CNN numbers skewed though as every TV in every waiting room of all types is tuned to them?
No, it is not flawed. If the internet numbers were actually that strong but, more importantly, generated income, then these various stations would not be 50% (in terms of staff/reporters) from what they were 20 years ago. But you go ahead and keep believing in what a powerful force they are. I'll keep an eye out for the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus for you.
Pay whom, precisely? What position in the broadcast other than weekend vs. weekday and just how much time are you getting for $1,000?
That seems like a dumb way to measure viewership/listenership. What if people were tuned into the station, but simply didn't buy what the advertisers were trying to sell for various reasons?
readerOfTeaLeaves says:
Data that I collected in the fall of 2016:
— Americans were spending $20,000,000,000 (yes, b-b-billion) per year on cable box top rentals alone. That is why Shepherd's point about people 'cutting cable' is an understatement.
— set-top costs had climbed 185% between 1994 -2016; basically, the cables jacked up the rent in order to stay lucrative
— costs of computers and mobiles declined +/- 90% between 1994 – 2016
— infrastructure and codecs to enable streaming emerged in the late 1990s, and matured around 2008.
Mobiles took off with the iPhone (2007+, which was based on cellular network improvements)
Tablets went mainstream starting in 2010 with the iPad, and if you need stats on adoption rates, leave a message and I'll post later.
Also in 2017, a newer, simpler way to stream video (HTML4) became possible, so that the ability to stream video was technically simpler – it just needed big pipes and faster networks.
In 2014, tv was a $170,000,000,000/year business.
HBO/Cinebax had 138,000,000 cable *subscribers*
As of 2014, Netflix had 59,000,000 subscribers — all of them streaming (40,000,000 in US) — but by 2017, growth had expanded to over 117,000,000 subscribers (almost 55,000,000 US).
Google [Alphabet] bought YouTube in 2006 (for less than 2,000,000,000 — a mere pittance of with the total US tv revenue, and raised a lot of eyebrows over their 'overpriced gamble'. Traditional tv gets *very little* of that ad revenue, unless it has: (1) app revenue (it's smarter to offer apps free and monetize ads), or else (b) licensing agreements to stream content.
(If anyone has other info, I'd be interested (!)).
The employment stats for MSNBC are a bit quirky, and I don't know all the details, but I have a hunch about what **appear** to be lower employment figures.. Originally, MSNBC was a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC. It was located on the main (Redmond) Microsoft campus, and I'm told that it had a 'push the envelope vibe' and a software context (because digital content delivery requires software). I'm told that is no longer the case; it was decoupled from Microsoft some years ago, the offices moved to a city location, and the supervision is now done by 'suits' from Back East. If those employees were previously booked on MSNBC's payroll accounts, they may now be booked on NBC's, or some other corporate entity. If I'm hearing astutely, you have a software mindset stuck in a 'corporate-media structure'.
My information is consistent with what Shepherd is reporting: what appear to be lower US football viewership rates are masking a move to digital media.
Consider that Comcast averages around $150/mo.
I pay for FIOS (Frontier $90/mo) and stream Netflix for $11.
I also subscribe to the NYT Digital, for around $15/mo (to appease my mother's ghost).
I stream ridiculous amounts of video, but what is most interesting is to see the growing range of voices. And most of the ad revenue that my views generate go to YouTube, because that's what I watch — as do many that I know.
Although I still watch 'too much' news (online, on an AppleTV), and I think that PT's point about Trump having a better 'audience sense' than the traditional press is probably accurate, I don't think that's nearly the whole story. Trump has a sense of drama, of 'reality tv' demands. His 'skill set' seems to be firing people; it's his modus operandi, and IMVHO part of why people voted for him – to 'fire' people. But at some point, people come to realize that maybe they need a few employees left on the job, so the 'firing everyone' role becomes stale.
I think we are very early into Act II of Trumpism.
But we are in the infancy of new media, and streaming video, and on-demand viewing.
Trump will not age well.
The media will have to adapt, but Trump will not be able to navigate the new, less-egocentric possibilities that await.
He should enjoy this moment; because his skill set is too limited, and his notions of tv reality show as politics, is too self-absorbed, to wear well over the longer term.
If you want to see a clever use of media, and one that the conventional pundits can't hope to match, watch a YouTube of Mexico's former president (Vincente Fox) rubbishing Donald Trump. It's witty, short, and informative. A new rhetoric, and much more in tune with Colbert, Trevor Noah, or Seth Meyers, who IMVHO, are our new press titans.
No doubt but probably the only way to save the Republic.
Sad news.
Parry was part of a small group of journalists, the last generation who could really use the title Journalist. Today's MsM hacks are either just shrill propagandists or lazy stenographers.
Mikee says:
PT I think you're right. According to Variety there were at least 14 internet sources that live streamed the SOTU. It is unclear if online viewership polling was included in the 46 million that Nielsen reported. Nielsen only recently began using data from Comcast and the satellite providers. The actual number of viewers may be much higher or lower when streaming is counted. Many Americans today are ditching satellite and cable due to the cost and using online streaming sources such as Roku and others.
That's is exactly my point. These various stations are now 50%, like you said, because they don't make much money from all those Internet viewing. Talk to young people, they just don't watch TV the traditional way anymore. I'm afraid you might be a little bit out of touch.
I can only counter your arguments by quoting bald and boring figures.
The publishers of The Hunger Games have said that their books have outsold the staggering sales of the Harry Potter series and quoted a figure of over 50 million copies sold (23 million copies of The Hunger Games, 14 million of Catching Fire, and 13 million of Mockingjay) just in the US. I don't think these figures include Kindle sales, and quite a lot of them will have been passed from hand to hand.
https://jezebel.com/5936436/the-hunger-games-trilogy-has-now-outsold-all-the-harry-potter-books
Elsewhere its calculated that a similar number of people have seen the films in the US.
https://www.quora.com/Have-more-people-seen-the-movie-or-read-the-first-book-of-The-Hunger-Games
I probably should mention that although I watch TV shows, I don't watch them on a TV. I download them from the Internet and watch them on the computer.
But I suspect it's just a fraction of TV show watchers who do that. Most people still watch TV on a TV.
I recall a few years ago when I was frequenting a site called TV By The Numbers that they kept pointing out that the claimed reduction in TV watchers and "cable cutting" was mostly a myth, according to the official TV surveys and statistics. But they weren't talking about the NEWS shows, just the overall TV viewership.
I can believe that TV news has gone down hill.
I recall many years ago that NBC had two hot babes reading the morning news. Then they stopped that because it was just too obvious that they were relying on sex appeal. Now every time I happen to see a local news show (I watched one yesterday in a medical clinic) that they usually have two hot babes reading the news. They may still rely on one woman, one man to anchor the evening news, but the rest of the day they rely on two women. So clearly the emphasis is on flash over substance for most news shows these days.
His books were ghost written.
Agree. Not many people could be as courageous as Robert Parry.
Oh, I do think even more of Sanders supporters than the Dems expected did show up for the general election, but quite many of them voted for Trump instead for Hillary.
Many may be a relative term here, but in elections where one or two percent of the vote swinging in some states can shift the whole election, what may seem to be a few when looking at raw numbers can be quite many.


The mini-map gives you additional information about the people and objects near you.
This is history now. But I remember when this technology was how we traveled the country.
This window shows people nearby who have voice turned on. These are people you can talk to in voice if you want. You can use this window to adjust speaking volume of the people on the list. Hover the cursor over a name, click on the green dot (with the letter i in it), move the slider to change volume.
Normally, you will automatically be connected to the voice system and may hear other people talking if you have loudspeakers or headphones on. A white dot over your head indicates that you are connected to voice. A similar dot over another head means that both of you are connected to the voice system and should be able to talk to each other in voice. Green waves show that the person is speaking or otherwise sending sound in the voice system.
With loudspeakers you need to turn your microphone off when others are speaking.
The best thing to use is headphones with a boom microphone attached.
A set like that will sell for about $25 USD at electronics stores in USA.
If you leave your microphone on, you are bringing everyone near you into your room. They hear your private conversions. They could even record your conversations.
In Dreams', by Sophia Yates is a musical machinima featuring Blue Tsuki's artwork of the same name.
This machinima is now part of MachinimUWA IV: Art of the Artists, which unites the powerhouses of virtual worlds, Artists and Machinimatographers!
Click the Save to My Computer button* to get picture options like those in the old snapshot window below. Note that you can send a picture to your MySL feed.
When you see something you want, click it.
Click the select button that appears after the click.
2012 Video: Duran Duran - Girl Panic!
2013 EDU: Stech: Empathy conference. Innovation in vivo.
How Can We Build a Culture of Empathy and Compassion?
What? A conference nearly a year long?
You can do that online, using Facebook and Skype.
They could add Virtual Worlds. Maybe they will. After all, a year-long conference leaves time for innovation in vivo.
These instructions apply to the standard SL viewer 3.5 and above. Other viewers may differ in details.
My friends. Message my friends.
The Nearby tab shows people nearby, information about them, and how to contact them.
Chat button toggles chat bar on and off.
Chat bar floats. Put it where you want it.
This button leads to much more than your profile!
Access and change any MySL page from your browser (using any device).
No need to open the viewer to see or edit your profile.
If you select a link in Second Life, the system will try to open your SL viewer.
The Preferences window controls the settings for many functions: graphics, sound, privacy, chat, moving, views.
2013 VIDEO: COMEDY:Fluffie 4.0. What's on TV?
Fluffie 4.0. What's on TV?
Gesture: A gesture produces a sequence of actions. The sequence may include animations, sounds, and text chat. You will have some gestures when you start. You can see them by pressing the gesture button, as shown above.
Friends at Selavy Oh's build at Interact.
The appearance button opens your avatar (outfit) closet. For beginners, it comes stocked with a small collection of avatar costumes. You can immediately wear any of these as shown in the Appearance window. Wearing your choice of these is the easiest way to change your appearance.
You can do a lot more with your appearance after you learn how. But don't try to do everything at once. Below are links to help with the things you can do.
2013 STAGE: THEATER: Through the Looking Glass.
From the last dress rehearsal for "Through the Looking Glass," I got a few pictures. I am not going to give away the plot. You will just have to come and see.
My customization. Yours may differ.
Left and right menu bars blank.
Selected buttons on bottom for 1-click access.
Icons leave enough space for many buttons.
2016 1stHELP: What do we do in Second Life?


Our Mastercraft series offers a variety of workshops and courses with experts from all disciplines to show you the fundamentals of design.
As the digital landscape evolves, humans have more fluid opportunities to intersect with physical and digital realms as they navigate the city and its experiences, creating a series of micro-interactions that occur across and throughout urban spaces. If we modify the definition of cities to encompass the experiences of the invisible cities that extend beyond physical infrastructure, the city can become a space of greater potential to support and facilitate new people-to-people and people-to-object interactions. Encouraging this new way of approaching interaction, policy and city building have the potential to develop more adaptive service delivery and relationships within the city in the future.
In this workshop, you will explore and experiment with the proposal of city building through experience design, imagining the experiences of the city first and then building the physical and digital city up from those experiences. Taking an interactive approach, you will participate in a collaborative timelining exercise, exploring how emotions and desires, and then products and services, have influenced the development of the city. The process of overlaying experiential emotions and feelings with products, systems, and services brings into focus the relationships—both new and known—through the specific lens of city building, allowing us to speculate in new futures and alternate storylines of the past.
Creativity, invention, and innovation are terms that are constantly confused in project development. How do we integrate our teams to bind together both proactive models and creative processes that lead to the successful development of projects?
In this Mastercraft workshop, designers Luis Angarita and Juan Camacho — innovators at CD&I Associates for over 23 years — will share success stories related to their business methodology surrounding the implementation of innovative projects and how teams can adopt these skills any organization. Participants are invited to understand the concept of innovation, the different types of values and principles related to the term, and begin to evaluate and implement innovation in an organization or project effectively.
The first hour will be devoted to theory, with reference to specific cases and examples, to explain the fundamental concepts of developing an innovation project. The designers will cover terminologies, as well as the types and evaluation criteria that exist in developing a project.
The second hour will be devoted to utilizing CD&I Associates' innovation formula and applying this to one of the seventeen global challenges proposed by the UNDP, as part of CD&I's current installation, We Think 2019. The Mastercraft workshop will conclude with participants presenting and discussing their proposed innovation solutions, as a team, to solve one of the seventeen global challenges.
Are you fully present? In a world of constant distractions, how do you achieve a state of flow? Join designers Hima Batavia and Negin Sairafi, co-founders of Reset – and part of the creative team behind 2017's Toronto for Everyone – and explore the conditions required for individual and collective flow, explore design case studies where the flow has been successful, and collaborate with participants to experiment and apply learnings to design an optimal week of flow.
Action Potential Lab is returning to Design Exchange with their new and improved colour-changing Screen Printing workshop! Combining science and art, learn about the scientific reaction that the screen printing ink undergoes. Using thermochromic dyes, this heat-sensitive ink changes your colours at different temperatures. Through the duration of a 2-hour workshop, you will have the opportunity to explore the effects of colour mixing, master screen printing techniques and design t-shirts inspired by plant biology organelles in science!
Learn the art of beading with Anishinaabekwe artist and Storyboot School instructor Sage Petahtegoose. While Petahtegoose teaches techniques, she will share her stories and share samples of her work, revealing many creative possibilities and inspirations. At the workshop's end, participants will walk away a beautiful piece of jewelry or keychain to wear with pride.


text:
Asilus trifarius är en tvåvingeart som beskrevs av Macquart 1838. Asilus trifarius ingår i släktet Asilus och familjen rovflugor. Inga underarter finns listade i Catalogue of Life.

Källor

Rovflugor
trifarius

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


My Postcrossing profile says I like cute cats, so am not sure why I received this deadly snake. But, it is good to have your horizons expanded.
Seek help immediately if you are ever bitten.
This guy is not a favorite of mine.
Hope only to come across one of these snakes in photos and on stamps.
well, here you go... no need for other sightings!
Tigers are cats. I guess that's the link with this fearsome looking creature.
Hmmm... well you'll know what to do if you ever encounter one!
Australia has a surprisingly high number of dangerous animals.


Hip Hop artist, Miles Glyphers brings to us an articulate and eerily romantic track that is sure to accompany you well after it ends.
Aussie rap keeps getting better and Miles Glyphers is no exception. His video, Perfect Task is a masterful combination of mature beats and sensual imagery.
Using the cityscape as its backdrop, the latest video from Glyphers accompanying Perfect Task is a touch of clean cut and well produced hip hop, dripping from head to toe in soulful female echoes. Perfect Task is a testament to lustful desire and youthful chemistry, yet is punctuated with adult beats and honesty, setting Glyphers apart from fresh faced, juvenile hip hop and into a realm of artistic maturity.
Hearing the track alone is exceedingly satisfying, but the video is stylishly indicative of classic angst-fuelled rap and definitely plays into wide city back drops and audience interaction. The absence of harshness and dark themes places this one as adolescent yet inspiring and positive.
What is so utterly delicious about Perfect Task is the chorus vocal, complementing the sharp narrative of love, loss and desire, the haunting melody that carries the video all the way through is nothing short of sensual.
A self-conscious and fresh Glyphers brings forth something truly engrossing and visually captivating. The images are sharp and his tongue even more so, Perfect Task encapsulates the best in a hip hop music video, edgy and raw with softer visual and melodic tones.
The song builds from acoustic guitar picking and ethereal moods to reveal something almost symphonic, blending bold reverb and big notes with the detail of an effervescent nature. Although I can never relate to when the girls are called 'shorty' (being tall kind of cancels this option out from the start), by the end I pretty much felt like a badass mermaid.
Perfect Task is a realistic and honest pendulum, swinging between the deeply sexual and intense to the vulnerable and affectionate. This, to me, made the track believable and connective, the realities of lust and love are often intertwined and Glyphers morphs the two in such a way that his audience will undoubtedly relate.
Definitely one to watch and not one for the weights room, more so the smoothest accompaniment to a relaxing bath, loving gaze or blazed solo dance in your room. Miles Glyphers takes sultry vibrations to the streets with this overwhelming and bold compilation of poetic spoken word and lilted, haunting female features.
Keep an eye out for Miles as he begins to bring his boundary pushing rap to the live scene in 2016.


text:
The Table-Top-Machine is suitable for an industrial continuous use and is particularly suitable for micro injection molding-applications.
BOY XXS table top injection molding machine at Kunststoffen
Neustadt-Fernthal, July 2017
BOY XXS Table Top Injection Molding Machine at the "Kunststoffen" in Veldhoven / NL
From September 27th to 28th 2017, the "Kunststoffen" takes place in the Netherlands - a trade fair for plastics processing. The BOY representative Plastima Breda BV presents the new BOY XXS table top machine. The production of snap hooks will be shown in these two days. For the production of parts printed metal mould inserts are used with a significantly longer durability than that of 3D plastic mould inserts.
The compact BOY XXS (63 kN clamping force) enhances the model range of BOY in the low clamping force range. The Table-Top-Machine is suitable for an industrial continuous use and is particularly suitable for micro injection molding-applications.
BOY also relies on the proven screw plasticizing, which works according to the "first in - first out" principle. For screw diameters between 8 and 18 mm, plasticizing volumes from 0.06 to 10.2 cm³ are possible. Also advantageous are the clamping plates of the
BOY XXS optimized for microforms of many standard manufacturers.
The BOY XXS is moveable on an optionally available base frame and with just one square meter of floor space the machine is flexibly useable. The BOY-mould- changing system is ideal for fast set-up times - especially for small batches. The cassette mould consists of a basic tool into which the 3D-printed mould plates with the integrated cavities are inserted (alternatively made of plastic or metal).
Dr. Boy GmbH & Co. KG is one of the leading worldwide manufacturers of injection moulding machines with clamping forces up to 1,000 kN. The very compact, durable machines work precise, energy-saving and therefore highly economical. BOY continually sets new standards in our industry with innovative concepts and solutions.
Since the company was founded in 1968, over 45,000 injection moulding machines have been delivered worldwide. The privately owned company continues to put special emphasis on engineered performance and high-class "made in Germany" workmanship.
For further information visit http://www.dr-boy.de/
Tel : +27 11 823-5840 / 41 and 823-4952 / 54
sam@pmsplastics.co.za
Go To PMS Plastics


Jonathan C. Estrada is a Technology Assistant, with expertise in graphics and computers. Jon earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering at the University of San Carlos in 2000. Jon has assisted the firm since 2006.


This may be the best week ever for freeloading albums and EPs off the interweb! Today sees NYC band, Dead Heart Bloom, being the latest to offer up free tunes for your enjoyment. The EP up for grabs is entitled Oh Mercy and is the second in a series of three planned EPs for 2008. You can download this EP along with the first EP and Dead Heart Bloom's first two albums all on the same page. All artists should be this generous! Check out my favorite track from the EP "I"m Going to go Meet Jesus" below.


To me, it doesn't matter. As long as the instructor is knowledgable, patient, and able to explain and demonstrate things well, I'm happy.
But I wonder if it matters to you.
Some people have told me that female instructors are more patient (if the instructor is a mother, could this be from dealing with kids?), while others have told me that male instructors push them harder.
Both are good traits to have. I like to be challenged, but I also like some understanding and patience, along the way.
What do you think? Any preference?
'06-'07 Ski Goals: A Look Back.