News feeds and other fairy tales

 I get news alerts on my cell phone and my iPad. I don't know what set me up to receive them. On my computer I get news links from Pocket. I did not sign up for that either. Usually those links come from Slate, the New York Times, the BBC,  and similar unbiased news sources.

Today on my iPad I received an alert to an article entitled "Why Trump is losing." I had no interest in reading the article. I notice that the articles and links that come from these services all seem to run in a certain vein.

 "Why Trump is losing" strikes me as news analysis.  I spell news analysis o-p-i-n-i-o-n. I would say that even if it said "Why Trump is winning" -- but these stories newer seem to say anything remotely like "Why Trump is winning." It is not "news."

Perhaps the title should have been "Why Trump appears to be losing." That would make more sense. 

First, we need to look at how the questions on the survey were worded. "Would you vote for Joe Biden if voting for Trump would mean that everyone in the world would die a long, painful death?" Maybe they don't go that far, but that is probably closer to the truth than it is to fiction.

Second, we need to consider these surveys tend to over sample Democrats and under represent Republicans. Surveys have a problem now. Many people have no time with survey takers.  Survey takers have resorted to voluntary participation -- "Have your voice heard. Take this survey." That defeats the randomness of surveys. You can probably find surveys in Cosmopolitan that show that 3 out of 5 married American women have three male and two female lovers. Is it true? Maybe for the readers of  Cosmopolitan, but not for the population at large. Even the groundbreaking study into human sexuality in the 1940's, the Kinsey Report, was found to have conducted many of its surveys with prison inmates -- not exactly a representation of public morals.

Third, we need to consider that people who express support for the President legitimately will be in fear of losing their jobs, being assaulted, or worse.

I do not agree with the infatuation of public opinion polls in the news media. The only poll that should be widely covered is the poll taken on a particular Tuesday in November. Everything else is manipulation.

Facing the inevitible

In the film, I Remember Mama, Oscar Homolka plays the curmudgeonly Uncle Chris. Later in the movie Chris's nieces are called to say their last good byes before he dies. After he dies, his niece Marta, the Mama of the title played by Irene Dunne, wants her daughter Katrin, played by Barbara Bel Geddes, to see the the now deceased Uncle Chris. Marta tells Katrin,

I like you to know what death looks like. Then you are not frightened of it, ever.

Mama (Irene Dunne), Uncle Chris (Oscar Homolka), Katrin (Barbara Bel Geddes)
photo: ReelSF.com

Musical Meanderings but with a Conclusion.

In the summer of 1969, KJR Seattle played the latest single from Simon and Garfunkel. It was an opus of over five minutes long. Frankly, I don't recall what I thought of the song at the time.

Now I live in Canada. Canada has what is known as the Can(adian )Con(tent) regulations. That means that there is a requirement that so much of a radio station's playlist has to be performed or written or produced by a Canadian or recorded in Canada. It is on a point system. The more categories it satisfies, the more points it gets.

Yes, that mean there is a bunch of crap on the radio. (TV also has similar requirements. TV production is, by and large, underwritten by the government. Most of it stinks. I was once listening to a news-talk station from Vancouver. A caller phoned in and was talking about a program that had been canceled by its Canadian network but was going to be picked up by a U.S. cable network. The caller said, "I know this won't sound right, but it does not look Canadian." In other words, it was not crap.)

But anyway: the CanCon regulations were put in place in the early '70's to combat -- not the American music, but rather the music from the UK that was dominating the airways.

That takes us to 2009. Fay and I were in the UK. After a few days I finally found the radio in our rental car. It was a Mercedes -- which in Europe is probably looked at as is a Ford Fusion in the U.S. I found an oldies station that I had previously discovered on the internet.

I was somewhat surprised. it was almost as though they were required to AVOID playing music from the U.K. Most of it was American. I think I heard two U.K. song per hour. That is not to say they had a large playlist. One song that they tended to play a great deal (I don't know how many times I heard it there) was one that never got too much airplay in the U.S. It was the song I heard on KJR in 1969.

I have grown to really appreciate the song. If anything could be said to be one of Paul Simon's shining hours, it would be this song.



This song is cinematic to me. It builds on a story with its lyrics. However, I think it continues to build on the picture painted by the lyrics even after the "words" have finished.

I know someone who thinks that the end of this song is just as boring and redundant as the end of Hey Jude. I disagree.

While Hey Jude continues doing the same old thing over and over (radio in the U.K. pays by "needle time" -- how long the song is played on the radio), The Boxer builds to a climax. To me it represents the pain and hurt the boxer goes through in his life. More and more instruments come in. More voices come in. Finally, all of that goes away and soft guitars play with soft percussion, then the song ends.

That is just not the end of the song. It is the end of the boxer's life. He had found peace at last.

May we all.

Days of Rules

Barby Droll