Month: October 2016

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Why “Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind”?

Because they tend to all “report” the same flat-out lies and skewing of truth into lies, I refer to news media as a hivemind and its minions as podpeople. Oh, and the MEdia” thing with a capital “ME”? Because the real “news” is how it’s all about themselves to themselves and their tribe, and the importance, FIRST and FOREMOST, of their lying tongues. . .

I stopped believing that “network” news (and major “news” papers and magazines, etc.) really reported news when I realized that Walter Cronkite was skewing (lying about, really) reports on the Tet Offensive. . . and that the rest of the media was happily following his distortions. So, since then, the Hivemind has been relegated to the “propaganda folder” for me.

Before the growth of the Internet, that mostly left me with conversations with primary sources, where I could get such. Fortunately, I used to have a wide array of primary sources in the military, business, and politics available in those long ago days of yore . . .

Now, when the Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind “reports” something “shocking” that someone has said or done, there is often a video of the actual words/deeds that can be relied on to put the Hivemind lies in perspective. Most people still don’t do their own homework, though, so the weight of the Hivemind lies still has a strong effect on society.

If one follows the narrative of hivemind “reporting” on any given topic, and compares it to what one can determine of the real world, one might be left with the impression that American media gets a daily download from an alien mothership orbiting Uranus. . .

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A Note About Book Blurbs

If you read a book blurb that includes comments like,

“absolutely suspenseful” and “an ending you’ll never see coming!”

. . . just know that the normative translation into words reflecting reality for those phrases is “utterly boring” and “entirely predictable.”

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A Musing: Driving

I’ve observed changes* in my driving over the past couple of decades–maybe “few” would be more like–mostly for the better.

For one thing, I’m more conservative in my driving now than in previous decades. Part of that–a large part–is due to conscious changes to my habitual driving behaviors. For example, while I never had my first car (1953 Chevy Bel Air, 6 cylinder, 3 on the column manual transmission) above 110 mph (to my knowledge; the speedometer pegged at 110 😉 ), I did, of olden days *heh*, regularly and habitually travel at whatever speeds I thought I could handle in whatever vehicle I was driving. . . without getting caught. Yeh, I did get a speeding ticket one time, but that’s a long story.

Now, I habitually travel at posted speeds, only exceeding the speed limits for passing, or when keeping to the posted speed would seriously impede traffic, or a few times when I zone out, as it were, and do not maintain conscious control of my lead foot.

And “more conservative”? Yeh, I just noticed this morning that a turn-off on a 55 mph-posted highway that has a 25 mph posted “recommended speed” cautionary sign that I used to take at the posted 55, I now, apparently, have a “new normal” 45 mph turn-off speed. *shrugs* That one seems to have happened all on its own.

Or perhaps it was just an effect of a coffee deficiency. *shrugs* It felt “right” though.

Some old patterns remain, of course, and some older things I was taught when I first started driving are reasserting themselves, or I have decided they are worthwhile patterns to re-engage. For example, I do still have problems with some slowly-moving roadblocks. Oh, I don’t so much mind slowing down for horse-drawn carriages or farm or road maintenance equipment that are occasional “slowly-moving roadblocks,” and especially the school buses on two lane roads and highways here in America’s Third World County™, but folks who cannot even manage a double nickel on roads that were originally designed and built for faster travel, simply because “Hills! Curves! Scary!” or other mental handicaps really irk me.

And it does take some serious self-control, still, to not answer some asshat’s high beams with the same.

But overall, less agressive driving is my new norm. The old “one car length for every 10 mph when following another car” does make passing “slow-moving roadblocks” a bit more challenging when on two-lane highways, but it’s my renewed norm, and, in fact, on some roads here in America’s Third World County™ where I know I can expect some “slowly-moving roadblocks,” I tend to drive even more conservatively than my ancient “Driver’s Ed” instructions dictated.

But more gripes still abound. The aforementioned “slowly-moving roadblocks,” folks who think the ONLY setting for their headlights is high beam, wanderers (“Hey, doofus! Find your lane and stay in it! That double yellow line before that blind hill/corner is there for a reason. I don’t want to have to avoid your head-on collision with someone in oncoming traffic!” *sigh*), people performing a “GHETTO STOP” on two lane highways (in 55 or 60 mph posted speeds) having conversations between their cars blocking the highway, etc., have convinced me that Lovely Daughter’s dream of taking the cars away from 80% of the drivers on the road is a worthy dream. *heh*

Other things: I used to find cruise control to be useful. No longer, not even on Interstate highway driving. I find it a barrier between me and the road. I want to have to think about what I’m doing a bit more than just pointing the car in this direction or that.

All our current vehicles have automatic transmissions. I really miss manual transmission driving. The engagement factor, again. I may address that lack sometime in the coming year. . . or not. Something to think about.

I simply cannot understand folks who apparently drive no further ahead of themselves than their noses. IMO, folks who do not “drive” at least a quarter mile ahead of their own position (while maintaining observation to everything between their position and the distance they drive ahead) should have automatic “dope slap” mechanisms installed in their head rests. Really. Continue reading “A Musing: Driving”

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Power and Corruption

A small war of words between Lord Acton and Frank Herbert:

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” ~Sir John Dalberg-Acton

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: it is not that power corrupts, but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.” ~ Frank Herbert, Dune.

My own take, in brief:

Actually, it is both. Most folks can be corrupted by the ability to exercise power over others. For some, it is after the fact: they seek power because they are corrupt; for others it is a very small step; for still others it is a process that proceeds at snail’s pace, so that the longer they exercise power–even intending that exercise to be for the good of their charges–the more corrupt they become.

A minor example of this is parenthood. A parent exercises just power in raising their children within sensible boundaries so that they can lead (generally) happy, productive, and safe lives (within whatever areas are under their control). That authority/power should phase out as the children achieve maturity. It is when children either eschew the responsibilities of maturity and continue to rely on their parents for support or when parents continue to exert controlling “influence” over their grown children that the process–and the individuals involved–either become corrupt or reveal their corrupt nature.

And so with government: exercising controlling power over a supposedly free people is corrupt and illegitimate. Those who want to be a part of that control are corrupt to begin with. Those who become a part of that process with the goal of ameliorating the effects of such illegitimate power inevitably either become corrupt themselves or are purged by the system.

(Long version: The Revolt of the Masses (Ortega) and Suicide of the West (Burnham), et al)

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Something Old, Something New. . .

I read. A lot. But lately, many of the books I’ve been reading have been. . . blah.

So, a changeup (the “something new”)

Re-read old favs

Great Books of the Western World. I have a nearly worn out set, and another, in “library binding,” that I’ve read in very little. So, re-read the set over the next year or so.

A different Bible reading plan: chronological. Yeh, read the books/passages in a close approximation of when they were written, with an eye to also reconciling chronology of events, when possible (“chronology of events” hardly applies to the books of poetry. . . for the most part. . . sorta). That’s an approach I’ve not taken before. It’ll work well with re-reading the GBWW.

Something new: I have a couple of different versions/formats of The Harvard Classics in ebook formats now. I can read that set, too, reading around the books included in the GBWW–or even reading some of those in ebook format, if that proves to be more convenient.

Slack off on buying new books. Just buy the “must-haves,” and let the rest go. I’ve spent more time writing reviews of books that fall into the category of “A note to the writer: JUST STOP! Quit writing until you’ve at least passed a remedial English course, AND are willing to pay competent, literate sopy and line editors to fix your crap, mmmK?”

All in all, I think the reading goals outline above will make for a much better experience over the next few months/year.