HUMOR - How The Media Will Report The Apocalypse

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/how-the-media-will-report-the-apocalypse

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

Tom PhillipsBuzzFeed Staff

In early 2014, a series of devastating catastrophes bring about Armageddon. Papers of record like the New York Times soberly report this news.

The Guardian tries to provide comprehensive live coverage of the end of days.

Of course, there’s still plenty of celebrity news to keep people occupied.

Others look for a positive message amidst the gloom.

…and naturally, NPR goes on a pledge drive.

For more: http://www.buzzfeed.com/tomphillips/how-the-media-will-report-the-apocalypse

HUMOR: Brian Williams Raps "Rapper's Delight"

MY LIFE - My personal JFK experience

MY LIFE - Yeah, I'm NOT so limited!

SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY: War Of The Worlds!! Why people believed it 75 years ago. And STILL keep believing it!

This hour of Radiolab: an examination of the power of mass media to create panic.

In our very first live hour, we take a deep dive into one of the most controversial moments in broadcasting history: Orson Welles' 1938 radio play about Martians invading New Jersey. "The War of the Worlds" is believed to have fooled over a million people when it originally aired, and it's continued to fool people since--from Santiago, Chile to Buffalo, New York to a particularly disastrous evening in Quito, Ecuador.

http://www.radiolab.org/2008/mar/24/

CULTURE/SOCIETY: Lies about transgender people (and how to spot a rubbish journalist)

Ever been kicked in the face? I have. Violence is common towards children who display gender difference. Poofter, they used to call me. AIDS victim, they’d whisper. Walk like a man, boy, or get a clip ’round the earhole. That last one came from my father. Still, as one matures, so does the nature of the bullying. Instead of gossip and ciggies behind bike-sheds, badmouthing is done by respectable journalists in national newspapers. Take the Telegraph’s Ed West, for example, who seems perfectly comfortable belittling the existence of “transphobia” (hatred towards transgender people). His quotation marks, not mine. Guess he’s never had a kick in the head. In fact, I doubt he has any subjective experience of being trans, and nor will many of his readers. That’s the trouble.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/08/31/lies-about-transgender-people-and-how-to-spot-a-rubbish-journalist/

CULTURE/SOCIETY: The G-word: Is it an insult or an honor?

http://m.wired.com/geekdad/2012/05/the-g-word-insult-or-honor/

HUMOR: Panorama - April Fool's Day Hoax - Spaghetti Harvest

ENTERTAINMENT: May The Fourth Be With You!

ENTERTAINMENT: George Carlin Died

This is from me, NOT some reprinted from somewhere else. - OlderMusicGeek

Some people have said George Carlin has passed on or that we lost him. Well, neither are true. He's dead, maybe even screaming up at us.


I have to admit I haven't listen or watched George Carlin much in the last 20 years.

And that's unfortunate, because from what I have seen and read, he was still putting out some very good and funny material.


I guess in some ways, I had felt I had outgrown George Carlin. George said, "I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately." And that was great in my teens and 20's.

But as you get older, you find rebelling for it's own sake doesn't seem that fun. I remember an interview with Jon Waters, a director who did many gross films in his youth. The interviewer asked him about how his movies weren't the same now that he is older. I don't remember his exact words, but he said something along the lines of making wild films that are gross in your 20's is fun - doing it in your 40's is pathetic.

That's kind the way I felt about listening to George Carlin. I thought I'm willing to stand up for what I believe in and take the heat, but I'm not interested in just shocking people.

And that's what my friends and I used George for, shocking people. "Hey, listen to this." "Listen to this comedian rattle off these cuss words." George Carlin and Cheech and Chong were our mild, white, midwestern way of rebelling! We loved it because we knew our parents and teachers didn't!

Well, when I didn't need to shock anybody anymore, I thought there was no need for George. Unfortunately, what I didn't realize - was that George wasn't shocking people just for shock's sake either. George was also standing up for what he believed in and taking whatever heat came with it.

So then after a few interviews and a couple of HBO specials, I finally realized that. But I still never watched him much. "Ehh, I catch it later. I don't have the time now." Unfortunately, now that there will be no new material, I might be able to catch up on his stuff.

George Carlin didn't believe in an afterlife. Hopefully, he's wrong, because he deserves a good place in it.

George Carlin’s Secret News from ‘When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops’
Announcer: Good Evening ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for the secret news.
Ssshhh.
Here’s the secret news:
All people are afraid.
No one knows what they’re doing.
Everything is getting worse.
Some people deserve to die.
Your money is worthless.
No one is properly dressed.
At least one of your children will disappoint you.
The system is rigged.
Your house will never be completely clean.
All teachers are incompetent.
There are people who really dislike you.
Nothing is as good as it seems.
Things don’t last.
No one is paying attention.
The country is dying.
God doesn’t care.
Ssshhh.

A link to George Carlin's home page
An interview with George Carlin from NPR's Fresh Air

CULTURE/SOCIETY: Which Is Taller? The Flood Waters Or The Tales?

This is from me, not reprinted from somewhere else.

What?! A new blog from me?! Sorry folks, I'm busy. Don't expect too many blogs from me for a while. - OlderMusicGeek

Well, it looks like it's flood times here in my home town.

My first clue was when my daughter woke me up one in the morning, cus someone was pounding on our apartment door. When I got to the door, I felt a wet squish under my feet.

And when I opened the door, there was a neighbor in shorts and a t-shirt, telling we're flooding.

I look around and there's two inches of water in an apartment hallway!


My daughter and I grabbed all the towels we can find and lay them by our apartment door to try to keep more water from leaking in. We run around like maniacs taking everything off the floor, including our computer and all the plugs and wires to it!

Then I check to see if anyone called the management company that owns our building. The maintenance man is there fairly quickly, but the wet vac he has ain't doing much good. Fortunately, a pump is brought over quickly.

Other people in the basement are talking about their bathtubs backing up. I go look and sure enough, brown water is coming up and water is leaking from the bottom of my toilet!

Eventually, the storm passes our town and I sleep. Well, cus of the overflow, some of the sewer pipes were closed. Soon as they're opened, we start flooding again.

And I had put all our wet towel in the bathtub - which has backed up again, covering them with brownish water!

Fortunately, our maintenance man has things under control this time.

And they bring a wet vac later to help dry the carpet. And in a couple of days, it dries out.


But then a bit later, I wake up from a nap to a storm. I quickly get and look out the door!

Yep, two inches of water in the hallway. I call the management company. Then put on my rain poncho and head to our maintenance man's apartment. He meets me on the way, driving with the stuff in his truck.


And today, they are sandbagging downtown, cus they are releasing a bunch of water from our dammed lake.

This makes rumours run wild!

Fifteen years ago, floods overran our water treatment center and the city didn't have water for two weeks! (A link to an article in my home town paper about the flood.)

So anyway, this the downtown river cresting, bridges being sandbagged, downtown worker being sent home, people began to panic.

My cubicle row at work spent the last hour talking about how the heard from someone who heard from someone that the water was being turned off for 24 hours. There was, of course, nothing on the news on the radio. So I continued doing my overtime.

At 4:40 pm, I got an email saying the water was being turned off - in capital letters - "NOW". Four and a half hours later, the city's water is still running!


I have to admit that I probably take these things easier than others in my hometown, because when they were going 2 weeks without water and a while without electricity, I was living in a 2-room building made of sandstone bricks with a tin roof that had no electricity or indoor plumbing, and did so for 2 years. - I was teaching in Africa. - And part of this was during a drought when water was low.

So no water or electricity is a nuisance to me, but not something to panic about!


You know, I used to feel upset about missing an important part of history in my home town and my home state. But if this is the way people were acting 15 years ago, I'm kinda glad I was in Africa.

I can assure you, they weren't going this crazy about the drought. They just did what they had to do, and that was that. Maybe we need to send some southern Africans over here to help out!

SCIENCE, CULTURE/SOCIETY and SPIRITUALITY/RELIGION: Suicide: Holidays' Darkest Myth

This is an article from The L.A. Times that I found with Netvibes.com. I shortened to make it read more quickly. Here's a link to the complete article. - OlderMusicGeek

Suicide: holidays' darkest myth
Contrary to past reports, depression and suicide rates actually fall during the holidays.

By Susan Brink (susan.brink@latimes.com), Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 17, 2007

It was Christmas Eve when George Bailey stared into the black depths of the river beneath the bridge in Bedford Falls, convinced that the world would be better off without him. That scene from the 1946 movie classic "It's a Wonderful Life" could well have given birth to the media myth that Christmas is a trigger for increased suicides and episodes of depression.

It is a baseless notion, according to a body of published studies by statisticians who have examined hundreds of thousands of suicides in the United States and around the world. The number of suicides goes down, not up, over the holiday season, by as much as 40%.

In one of the most thorough examinations of what researchers call acts of deliberate self-harm, which can be an indication of depression, Helen Bergen, research scientist at the University of Oxford, found that Christmas, for most people, is protective.

Bergen and colleagues reached this conclusion after examining emergency room admission records of 19,346 people in England and looking at daily rates of self-induced injury from 1976 to 2003.

Drug or alcohol overdoses, self-poisoning with gas or other harmful substances and self-inflicted injuries-- with or without the deliberate intention to die -- all decreased from average levels during the week of Dec. 19-26, Bergen and colleagues found, and these lowered levels held through New Year's Day.

The decrease in rates of self-inflicted damage before, on and immediately after Christmas and into the New Year was found regardless of age, family connections or social isolation, the researchers reported in the September issue of the journal Social Science & Medicine.

Even people with family relationship problems were less inclined to attempt to hurt themselves during the holidays. "These findings are contrary to the popular view that Christmas is a time of stress and arguments," Bergen says. Perhaps, she says, problems within the nuclear family ease up instead of intensify when the extended family is around.

Another possible reason why depression and suicide rates fall this time of year is that the season, more than other times, is one of giving. "People tend to reach out over the holidays," says Dr. Douglas Jacobs, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School. Elderly people in nursing homes might suddenly get visitors. People who haven't heard from friends all year might get a card or a phone call.

It's only in the last year that the majority of news stories reflected the fact versus the myth about seasonal suicide rates, says Romer, who since 2000 has been tracking trends in media interpretations of the link between holidays and suicide. In a national search of news stories linking the holidays with suicide, he says, 9% of news organizations supported the myth in 2006, compared with 57% in 2005 and 77% in 1999.

An extra dose of caring probably adds to the psychological protection of a season that seems to insist on happiness. No matter how bad it may seem, holiday rituals add up to more good than bad, buffering adults and children against depression and anxiety.

Barbara Fiese, chairwoman of psychology at Syracuse University, reviewed 32 studies done over 50 years and concluded that holiday family rituals may be annoying, but they're good for us. People with strong family routines and rituals at holiday time reported more marital satisfaction, better academic achievement among children and better overall health among family members, she found. Even in families in which there has been a divorce, the continuation of family rituals improves the children's ability to adapt and increases their stability.

A link to the complete article

A link to all my Christmas and holiday posts

Happy Christmas and/or Boxing Day and/or Kwanzaa and/or Hannakah and/or Bodhi Day and/or Sanghamitta Day and/or Shabe Cheleh and/or Makara Sankranti and/or Junkanoo and/or Dong Zhi and/or Toji and/or Soyal and/or Yule and/or Seva Zistane and/or Alban Arthan and/or Long Night and/or Mean Geimrech and/or Brumalia and/or Dies Natalis Solis Invicti and/or Saturnalia and/or Lenaea and/or Wren Day and/or Tekufah Tevet and/or Winter Solstice and/or ChriFSMas and/or any other December or winter solstice holidays i missed!

Oh, and Bah Humbug to those who don't celebrate the holidays! :)