Here for the past couple of months, we've been embroiled in a feud.
In one corner, we find Time-Warner cable, the people who provide me with a connection to the internet so that I can bore you with what I have to write. They also provide our home with basic cable and would love to provide me with a land line telephone, too, if only I would let them. T-W is a pretty darn big company which sometimes works well, and sometimes doesn't. I fired them as my cable provider for over a year after they apparently cut my cable service three days after paying their inflated bill.
In the other corner is the Columbia Broadcasting System, or, CBS, purveyors of a fairly decent set of television programs which I enjoy from time to time. CBS owns both television and radio stations throughout the country, including channel 11 and at least one radio station I listen to on a regular basis. Having worked for a CBS affiliated radio station at one point, I am partial to the way CBS handles their radio news.
So, there's this feud going on between T-W and CBS having to do with rebroadcasting rights. According to a third party (Belo, publisher of the Dallas Morning News), CBS wants a raise. Whatever it was that they were charging T-W for rebroadcasting their television programs, CBS decided that they wanted more.
Apparently much more.
So, that means that we've got a feud going on.
For the better part of a couple of months, CBS has been telling us that "mean old Time-Warner is threatening to take our shows off the air!" Time-Warner in the meantime has been telling us that CBS is the villain in this little drama. Well, finally, CBS has been yanked from Time-Warner cable. Time-Warner is telling us (in a crawl across the bottom of the screen of the replacement programming in half-hour intervals) that CBS will not allow rebroadcast of their signal. CBS, on the CBS owned and operated radio station is advertising that it's Time-Warner's fault and that we should be flooding T-W's switchboards with continual calls of protest over the unfair treatment.
Someone or the other is bullshitting. What we really need is for both sides to state their position so that we as consumers can make a rational decision as to what we want to do. What we have are two large companies arguing back and forth attempting to make the other side look like Hitler.
It's kind of like politics. Scratch that. It's exactly like politics.
The Dallas Morning news has been covering some of the pre-2014 elections hi-jinx going on here in the Lone Star State. Governor for Life Perry has decided that it's time for him to step down, creating a vacuum which seems to be sucking up every last Republican office holder into aspirations to move up a step on the totem pole. The leading contender for Mr. Goodhair's slot is the current Attorney General here in Texas, whose only credits seem to be that he's adept at suing the Federal Government (27 times at last count - and he's wondering why the State can't get more Federal aid) and that he's so far to the right that there are feathers coming out of his right coat sleeve. According to the Dallas Morning News, the current Attorney General has millions in his campaign chest and is intimidating any other potential candidate with the fear that if they run against him, he'll dig up something to use against any other contender to cast him or her in a negative light.
Uh, yeah. I can see a really high-brow campaign coming up. As high brow as The Three Stooges, that is.
This same crap is going on in Washington, too. Let's see what we can do to put down the other guy instead of coming up with viable alternative solutions, or, paying attention to facts which just might get in the way of getting elected.
I'm tired of the bullshit from Time-Warner, from CBS, from Austin, from Washington, and from the local representatives right on down to (and including) the board of education.
Let's be honest, shall we? Sure, life would be a little less interesting, perhaps, but I believe I'd appreciate the break.
Be Seeing You!
bdharrell
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Fix the Problem, not the Blame
(Saturday)
I did my thousand words for the day, so, now I get to play a little and that means a walk through Facebook.
Ah, Facebook. For amusement, it can't be beat. Where else can you see pictures of pies with tops looking like an octopus, re-engineered blister packs of products which had never been sold and photos of friends enjoying a beer in this awful Dallas heat? Lots of inspiration there, too - I am hooked on Radio Free Babylon's cartoon series "Coffee With Jesus" and the occasional story about singing nurses and Marines helping kids finish up a 5k race.
There are certain aspects I love about Facebook and one I particularly despise.
It's a game I call "Let's fix the blame".
Just a few minutes ago I was perusing a post stating that the reason we have poverty, hunger and veterans who receive less than adequate care is because we send billions of dollars overseas. Now, it's intuitively obvious to me (I love using the term "intuitively obvious" in part because it drives the ex a little crazy) that we have a problem which needs to be solved, so, let's solve the problem instead of spending our time trying to figure out who's responsible.
I saw the same being said about the problems in Detroit earlier this week. Someone came up with a brilliant post positing that Detroit's problems were the result of years of Democratic politics. Great finger pointing, guys - now - how do you propose getting the people and the city out of the mess they are in? More political jingoism?
It really doesn't matter how Detroit got into trouble, what matters is how the trouble can be fixed before the hole gets any deeper. All that political jingoism gets us is nowhere. The jingoists either need to lead, follow, or get out of the way.
When I worked for a well-known retailer, I saw the same thing happen over and over again. Something would go wrong with a customer's project, then there would be an intensive hunt to pin the blame on someone for causing the problem before actually addressing the problem itself. While it's nice to have a scapegoat it's slightly dishonest, especially if the person(s) who have access to the tools to solve the problem elect to find a scapegoat instead of solving the problem at hand.
Part of the reason people are so anxious to fix blame instead of fixing the problem has to do with a desire to be rid of the person or persons the blame fixers want to be gone. In the case of Detroit, there are teabaggers and ardent Republicans who seem to want to pull out the stops to discredit the Democratic Party and/or Barak Obama. My former employer used the tactic to be rid of employees that they didn't particularly care for (the same holds true with other large, well-known retailers as well).
*****
That written above was from last Saturday. I didn't release the blog thinking that perhaps another shoe would drop in the near future. Here it is, Tuesday night and I was right.
Earlier today, word came that former President George W. Bush had undergone some minor surgery to put a stent in a clogged artery. I found out not from the news, but from a Facebook share of a social media site called Mr. Conservative which was claiming that the former President was being tweeted death threats from those dreaded liberals.
Egad!
There were on display several tweets, all very uncomplimentary and/or downright rude. I scrolled down further to see replies to the story which were just about as bad as the original tweets themselves. It appeared as if civilization had broken down and that the bullets would be flying at almost any moment.
Now, for the most part, most of the people I know from the left side of the political spectrum disliked "W", rather, disliked "W"'s policies. My take is that while I disliked the policies, I'm not going to wish any ill will on Mr. Bush and neither do the people I know. Now, it doesn't mean that I'll be sending him flowers or a card any time soon, but by the same token, I'm not going to belittle the man, either, much less send him a death threat. He was, for better or for worse, our President and I will respect that office.
That being said, I began to wonder if perhaps the initial fuss - the death threats - were generated from within the Republican party to rile up the virulent opposing commentary from people hating Democrats or the current sitting President. There are lots of people who dislike President Obama and who don't hesitate telling people multiple times how much they hate the man.
I wouldn't put it past some of the operatives I've known about over the years to plant phony death threats just to make the opposition look like a bunch of uncouth Barbarians, but, there I go. Fixing the blame instead of fixing the problem.
*****
There was this old joke about the fellow applying for a job: The prospective employer asks if the applicant is responsible. The applicant replies "Oh yes. Whenever something bad happened at my last job, one of the supervisors would tell everyone that I was responsible!"
I threw that joke in there just for the heck of it.
Be Seeing You!
bdharrell
I did my thousand words for the day, so, now I get to play a little and that means a walk through Facebook.
Ah, Facebook. For amusement, it can't be beat. Where else can you see pictures of pies with tops looking like an octopus, re-engineered blister packs of products which had never been sold and photos of friends enjoying a beer in this awful Dallas heat? Lots of inspiration there, too - I am hooked on Radio Free Babylon's cartoon series "Coffee With Jesus" and the occasional story about singing nurses and Marines helping kids finish up a 5k race.
There are certain aspects I love about Facebook and one I particularly despise.
It's a game I call "Let's fix the blame".
Just a few minutes ago I was perusing a post stating that the reason we have poverty, hunger and veterans who receive less than adequate care is because we send billions of dollars overseas. Now, it's intuitively obvious to me (I love using the term "intuitively obvious" in part because it drives the ex a little crazy) that we have a problem which needs to be solved, so, let's solve the problem instead of spending our time trying to figure out who's responsible.
I saw the same being said about the problems in Detroit earlier this week. Someone came up with a brilliant post positing that Detroit's problems were the result of years of Democratic politics. Great finger pointing, guys - now - how do you propose getting the people and the city out of the mess they are in? More political jingoism?
It really doesn't matter how Detroit got into trouble, what matters is how the trouble can be fixed before the hole gets any deeper. All that political jingoism gets us is nowhere. The jingoists either need to lead, follow, or get out of the way.
When I worked for a well-known retailer, I saw the same thing happen over and over again. Something would go wrong with a customer's project, then there would be an intensive hunt to pin the blame on someone for causing the problem before actually addressing the problem itself. While it's nice to have a scapegoat it's slightly dishonest, especially if the person(s) who have access to the tools to solve the problem elect to find a scapegoat instead of solving the problem at hand.
Part of the reason people are so anxious to fix blame instead of fixing the problem has to do with a desire to be rid of the person or persons the blame fixers want to be gone. In the case of Detroit, there are teabaggers and ardent Republicans who seem to want to pull out the stops to discredit the Democratic Party and/or Barak Obama. My former employer used the tactic to be rid of employees that they didn't particularly care for (the same holds true with other large, well-known retailers as well).
*****
That written above was from last Saturday. I didn't release the blog thinking that perhaps another shoe would drop in the near future. Here it is, Tuesday night and I was right.
Earlier today, word came that former President George W. Bush had undergone some minor surgery to put a stent in a clogged artery. I found out not from the news, but from a Facebook share of a social media site called Mr. Conservative which was claiming that the former President was being tweeted death threats from those dreaded liberals.
Egad!
There were on display several tweets, all very uncomplimentary and/or downright rude. I scrolled down further to see replies to the story which were just about as bad as the original tweets themselves. It appeared as if civilization had broken down and that the bullets would be flying at almost any moment.
Now, for the most part, most of the people I know from the left side of the political spectrum disliked "W", rather, disliked "W"'s policies. My take is that while I disliked the policies, I'm not going to wish any ill will on Mr. Bush and neither do the people I know. Now, it doesn't mean that I'll be sending him flowers or a card any time soon, but by the same token, I'm not going to belittle the man, either, much less send him a death threat. He was, for better or for worse, our President and I will respect that office.
That being said, I began to wonder if perhaps the initial fuss - the death threats - were generated from within the Republican party to rile up the virulent opposing commentary from people hating Democrats or the current sitting President. There are lots of people who dislike President Obama and who don't hesitate telling people multiple times how much they hate the man.
I wouldn't put it past some of the operatives I've known about over the years to plant phony death threats just to make the opposition look like a bunch of uncouth Barbarians, but, there I go. Fixing the blame instead of fixing the problem.
*****
There was this old joke about the fellow applying for a job: The prospective employer asks if the applicant is responsible. The applicant replies "Oh yes. Whenever something bad happened at my last job, one of the supervisors would tell everyone that I was responsible!"
I threw that joke in there just for the heck of it.
Be Seeing You!
bdharrell
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