Morning News

It has become my habit since buying a Google Nexus 7 Tablet a year ago to begin the day by making my coffee and breakfast, then settling at the kitchen table to read the news on one of the news apps available to Android.  I usually with start with the Fox News app, which might make you think I’m a staunch conservative.  Politically these days, I’m not a staunch anything but I’m a stauncher libertarian than anything else and the right seems a bit more libertarian than the left.  Worry not … I read a variety of pages in search of a balanced view.  I like to have a sense of what’s going on in popular culture, too, even if I choose not to participate in most of it, so I usually check out the Yahoo Home Page.  All you have to do is scan the Yahoo headlines to realize that their so-called news department has mostly abandoned serious news for Entertainment-Tonight-on-steroids fluff.  Examples from this morning?  How about Mila Kunis and Aston Kutcher Attend Her Brother’s Wedding?  Meet Ryan Seacrest’s nerdy older brother?  Pregnant Megan Fox’s Baby Bump Peeks Out From Fitted T-shirt?   Jeez.

Friday Favorites 4/5/2013

When I need a plumber, I don’t go out of my way to learn what kind of life he’s lead.  I don’t hire from the Most Wanted List but I don’t do background checks either.  If I need an accountant, I don’t feel the need to inquire about her political philosophy or party affiliation.   In seeking out a new auto mechanic, I don’t feel a need to know his religion or even whether he has one.  OK, OK, I admit it.  If his advertising features the Itcthys … or Christian Fish Symbol … I may take my business elsewhere.  After all, if he features a Christian symbol in his advertising, he wants only Christian customers, right?  But I digress.  The point is when I hire someone to do a job, what I want to know is that they are very good at their trade or profession.  So, it only seems logical that when it comes to films, I would put the philosophies and persona of the actors aside when deciding whether to like a film.  And I do try.   But if you’ve been coming around here for a while you know that celebrities in general … and actors in particular … frequently annoy the crap out of me.   I don’t have to research their personal lives or their own peculiar choice of spirituality or their opinions on political issues they know nothing about.  Our modern celebrity-driven media continually throws it all in my face on a daily basis.  I suppose if my accountant was hawking a fringe religion involving aliens on TV and claiming that mental illness is a myth, I’d sack him and find a new one.

Celebrity

This week, my favorite morning sports talk show guy, Colin Cowherd, was commenting on the interview of Lance Armstrong by Oprah Winfrey that will air later today.  The media publicity machine has been working overtime to leak just enough information to draw in the rubes (he confesses to doping) without giving away the whole story (how complete is his confession?).   This is, of course, the Feeding Frenzy Phase of the Celebrity Adulation Cycle, where we lionize a flawed human being, building him into a larger than human figure, then tear him apart when we discover he’s human after all.    Cowherd is a realist.  He’s not surprised when an athlete, particularly one in a sport known for cheating, cheats then lies about it.  His biggest criticism of Armstrong is that he ruined the lives of other cyclists to protect his legend and, in the end, he says we should never be surprised when the human beings we adulate turn out to be human.   As a person who’s followed Armstrong from the beginning, I’m not surprised but disappointed.  The man was a genuine inspiration to cancer survivors and raised millions through LiveStrong.  At least he did something to earn his celebrity.   What have people like Paris Hilton and Brody Jenner done to deserve the public’s adulation except provide sure fodder for the Feeding Frenzy Phase?

Experts

I am an expert. Really.  Through a company, ORC International, I am available as an expert in sensing systems, particularly sonar, and signal processing.  I’ve been an expert on product designs, technology and legal cases.  My expertise is based on a lot of very specialized education and over forty years of experience.  If you need to know how to use adaptive noise cancellation, I’m your guy.  I’ve even published 12 refereed papers in my field, refereed meaning they were checked by other experts before being approved for publication.  I’m not bragging, just trying to make a point.  Here on Bud’s Blog, I post on variety of subjects: family, marriage, art, theater, music, movies, writing, the interesting process of getting older … and, on Sundays … spirituality.  I am an expert in none of the above.  Thus, most of what I post is experience and opinion.

Little Curmudgeons

I am both a night owl and a morning person, which means if I’m not careful, I end up with some very tired afternoons.   Just yesterday, I stopped off at the park after lunch to keep my New Year resolution to meditate every day … and woke up an hour and a half later, chin on chest, the result of staying up too late blogging.    When I say I’m a morning person, though, I mean I have energy in the morning, not that I wake up happy.   On the contrary, I seem to have a family of grumpy Little Curmudgeons who sneak out from where I’ve carefully tucked them during the day, intent on filling my mind with grumbles of Oh, No and What if …? To get my day off to a positive start, I don’t lie around in bed thinking.   With cobwebs filling my brain , it’s up right away to distract the little buggers  until I have the resources to herd them back where they belong.

The Celebrity Bubble

‘Cause when you’re a celebrity, It’s adios reality… –  Brad Paisley

This morning, while driving to a client’s office, I was listening to Colin Cowherd, the morning sports talk guy on ESPN radio.    As I said in Nobody’s Demographic, I know I’m not the target audience of any of these shows, but in general, Cowherd’s opinions – and he has lots of them – make a lot of sense to me, as long as he sticks to sports, that is.  When he wanders off into social or cultural commentary, I usually end up changing the station.   Today was such a day.    His topic was David Letterman’s recent revelation that he had been having sex with women on his staff and his point of view was that it was no big deal.