Thursday, 9.11.2008
Archives:
Forgive yourself. Love others.
Kramer
In 2006, 7% of people online downloaded a podcast. In the year 2008, that number has risen to a whopping 17%. Only 3% do it everyday, but still that's a hell of an amount of people when you actually think about it. With technology comes an ease to do things on our own time, rather than say make an appointment. Although I embrace technology and adore its benefits, there's something in me that kind of fights part of it. Its weird that something like listening to a favorite talk show on the radio is old fashioned. It is though, and although many radio people try to fight it, its only going ot get worse and worse. (Depending on how you look at it.) Fact: People MUST have human communication. Fact: We're getting less and less of it, and with technology, human communication is coming at us triple fold, but within a non human communication capacity. We're not truly talking to each other. We're sending out and recieving messages that may or may not correlate correctly with and to our true emotions. I've really given all of this some thought. The less people who broadcast shows truly communicate with someone and to someone in PERSON, the less capable they will be to communicate on a show. It doesn't matter if its on the net, radio, or CB radio. (Google it young farts.)
A few weeks ago I was sitting on the porch with my neighbor, talking, communicating, bouncing back ideas and thoughts. It occured to me that what we were doing wasn't something people practice anymore. Talking with people in the true sense of the word has become practically extinct as something we do. Sure, you may talk for 30 seconds in the kitchen at work to someone about something insignificant like the weather, but rarely do we sit down, relax, and crank up a 45 minute conversation.
Many times while listening to talk shows, I get overly critical of the host talking TO an audience instead of COMMUNICATING WITH them. I'm not trying to push some radio GODness on you. (That's a joke btw!) I'm saying this from both a radio person and someone who loves to listen to talk shows; a fan. When someone is announcing a football game, they are talking TO you. Often times they can make it sound like you're part of that conversation in a way, which is good, but for the most part they'rer just relaying information to you. Its nothing intimate. A talk show, and a good talk show HOST should be able to reign you in by talking WITH you whether they're actually talking with you or not. It should be conversational. Many times its missed though by some idiot preaching AT you. I'm guilty of the same thing, don't get me wrong. I do think its getting worse and worse because people use REAL people-to-people conversations less and less. We live in such a fast paced World that we don't even like talking on the phone anymore. We're used to texting and email. I love it, and I admit, I HATE THE PHONE! I would MUCH rather communicate via email. Flaw? You decide.
Talk
Talk about a circus. That's been stated, stated again, and stated with some whip cream on top, but still, its fitting. A three year old girl's DEATH, and yes I said DEATH, has been turned into something a movie released at the Box Office would PAY to have! There are so many other missing children in this Country and World, that if they spread out the coverage of this one circus, many would have been found by now. I would have the utmost respect for some news channel to boycott the circus and use the time to show hundreds of pictures of other little precious baby boys and girls that are missing. The media has become nothing but a 1985 glam fest complete with up to the minute pics and videos.
Nancy Grace, everynight dupes women into thinking she's some kind of Goddess. Mainly its Southern women. They eat her up. I fell into the trap of the Casey and Caylee Anthony case. Still am following it, because its like a soap opera and I have the brain the size of Mini Me's left nut. Outside of Keith Olbermann, I've neveer seen a shittier broadcaster with a major show. She's awful. She thinks she knows everything, and from day one has cast Casey Anthony in the electric chair, all with her heir of elitist snobbery. She will bill someone as an expert, lawyer, forensic pathologist, etc. and then after their first comment, rip them a new belly button. When someone knows what they're actually talking about, she will cut them off and go to another guest or piece of audio, video, etc. She may be a good lawyer, but a TV broadcaster she is not. The smug look on her face when one of the Southern Belle's call the show makes me projectile vomit. Her eyes get dim, a small dumb smile appears on her face, and almost breathless, "Thank you, dear." SHOOT ME! "Nayn See, uh jess luuuv yu dayewn hayear in meess eepee!" I can just see the fried cheese entering the pregnant mouths of her most devoted fans.
Why so bitter?
I've had to watch this wannabe to get my updates on Casey Anthony lately because the media is consumed NOT with Obama/McCain/Palin - but with silly shit like Pig Gate 2008. Nancy Grace is the only one giving it any real time, and yes, I am contradicting myself in about 50 ways, or at least it sounds like it. I digress.
First of all, Obama should be ignoring everything about Sarah Palin. He should be distancing himself from any of the noise about her, because she's an even mightier lightning rod for controversy than HE is. People are already upset that the media has seemingly ripped into her because she's a woman anyway, so one minute thing can get over exposed like a Pam Anderson genital wart at a Motley Crue sun bathing party! It seemed like the media was WAITING for something like this. I mean they POUNCED on that comment about the lipstick. Obama, since McCain picked Palin has fallen. His mistake, say most, that was he didn't pick Hillary. Frankly, I am amazed at how many people have embraced Palin. She's an unknown hillbilly from Alaska, yet people love her.
A Tear Rolled Down Her Cheek
Even before Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska had appeared on the stage to introduce Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, the chant went up around the hall: "We want Sarah!"
A tear rolled down the cheek of a middle-aged woman volunteer who moments earlier had been barking orders to keep the exits clear.
A mother clutched the hand of her 11-year-old daughter, whose face was made up like a clown with stars and the letters P-A-L-I-N painted across her face.
Outside, queues which began six hours earlier snaked around the sports hall as more than 9,000 people filed in. Hundreds would be left outside.
They held home-made signs with slogans like "God, guns, lipstick" and "Read my lipstick - Palin."
One beaming woman wearing a "USA" baseball cap had scrawled a on a piece of cardboard: "A Real Woman = Governor, mom, CEO, pro-Life, God fearing, happy. GO SARAH!"
A vendor had run out of badges with Mrs Palin's picture and the legend: "Coldest State, Hottest Governor."
"I've never seen anything like it," said G. Edward LeFevre, a local Republican committee member. "The crowd, the enthusiasm, the upbeat feel and the emotion is unprecedented. Sarah Palin is quite a lady."
Then the 44-year-old mother of five appeared, with her husband Todd, also 44, and Mr McCain, 72, alongside her.
The crowd went wild, the screaming and cheering eventually subsiding into a steady cry in unison of: "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah!"
The Arizona senator, who just weeks ago was being greeted by crowds in the low hundreds, beamed like a father of the bride at the handsome young couple beside him, basking in the reflected glory of the woman he has brought into the world of presidential politics.
Mrs Palin spoke for 15 minutes, every sentence read from the teleprompter. The words were familiar because she gives the same similar speech at every stop.
She described how she "stood up to the special interests, the lobbyists, big oil companies and the good old boys network" as mayor of the small town of Wasilla and as Alaska governor.
She hailed Mr McCain as a selfless hero, someone who "would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war".
"In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain who use their careers to promote change," she said.
If Mr McCain was worried about being overshadowed by his number two, he did not show it. "Thank you," he said five times. "Thank you to each and every one of you. I can't tell you how happy I am to be introduced by Governor Palin today and I can't wait to introduce her to Washington DC.
"We are the ones who will change Washington. She is the one who's changed Alaska. She is the one that took on the old bulls in the Republican Party that cleaned up the state of Alaska and she'll clean up Washington and we'll restore trust and confidence in government and again on the part of the American people."
Luke Hertzog, 53, said that McCain's choice of Mrs Palin as his running mate was a "stroke of genius – she brings a new life, a vigour and energy and spine" to the campaign.
Mr LeFevre pronounced it a "clever chess move" that could upturn the conventional wisdom that a vice-presidential choice never really affects the outcome of the White House race.
Almost every woman asked about Mrs Palin used the word "real" to describe her.
"We can relate to her," said Lori Ciarrocca, 40. "She's like other moms out there. She's a real person who speaks her mind and tells you how it is."
Tom Bross, 62, a Vietnam veteran who was twice wounded in combat, said that it was not just women she appealed to.
"She's going to get a lot of the women who went for Hillary Clinton," he said.
"There are old rednecks who would have thrown me out of the local restaurant two weeks ago if I'd said they'd ever vote for a woman
"Now Sarah Palin comes along and they're like a bunch of school kids tripping over themselves to listen to her."
