Oprah what were you thinking…

Oprah is certainly famous. She is a very rich person. It can’t be the money or fame. By most all accounts she is a very nice person so she didn’t do it to be purposefully sadistic. Unlike a lot of stars she has put her money where her mouth is.

Oprah’s Angel Network takes donations and gives 100% of that money out to charities. They can give away 100% because she covers all the administrative costs out of her own pocket. I won’t go into all the other charitable activities she has been involved with here it should suffice to say she has been named by Business Week as one of the countries top 50 most generous philanthropists.

So why would she do this? Most rape victim’s names are kept anonymous by the press and media to keep from making their personal violation worse. A very personal thing has been taken from them by force at the hands of a sadistic predator. To make that public deepens the wound. Why would she take a 15-year-old rape victim and parade him in front of the world a few days after his release from his tormentor?

His parents must have wanted the fame or money (I don’t know whether Oprah pays her guests) and I find that repulsive. But what did Oprah get? Did she need the rating? I am sure that she got big ratings, thought I didn’t watch personally.

So his parents got fame or money and Oprah got ratings and more money what did this kid get? He certainly got fame. What would it do, in the long run, to a young boys emotional state to be famous for being kidnapped and raped? I of course was once a 15-year-old boy and I have two young boys myself. I can’t for a moment image what this type of fame would do to them or would have done to me.

There is a lot of crap on TV, Tom Cruise jumping on the sofa and professing his new love is a good example. The sadistic aspects of Idol and the embarrassing lengths people in reality TV shows in general go through for their 15 minutes of fame are other great examples. But this is totally irresponsible. Oprah should be embarrassed to be a small part, let alone the instigator of this emotional train wreck.

What the hell was she thinking? What the hell was everyone involved thinking?

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The Demise Of Google – Just Call Me Nostradamus

Google won’t die with a bang. As a mater of fact, it won’t die at all, but it will fade, eventually into irrelevancy. That can happen quicker then you think.

Google had its purpose…OK…it has its purpose. It took a huge jumble of information and made it available. It did it cleaner, faster and better than those first “portals” and search engines of the early Internet era. But the web has evolved and our uses for it have too.

At first the Internet was just a storage area for information. It was like that drawer you have, in your kitchen, that has the telephone book and the menus of local restaurants and your address book and all the other bits information you pick up or write down on scraps of paper. We all hate sifting through that drawer and the web version of that drawer was enormous. Google sifted it for us and sorted it on the table so we could find the slip of paper we we’re looking for. It did it faster and without the clutter that other “portals” of the time had. But the web isn’t that drawer anymore.

The Internet grew from that drawer into a room full of info and now a town full of commerce and information and social functions and more. The web now holds retail stores and restaurants and libraries and meetings and parties and…well you name it. Google still sorts it fast and clean but it sorts it like that drawer. It sorts all those things the same way.

Google sorts by what it considers relevant. All of those who strive to be at the top of those sorts know what I mean. Google sorts the entire web by what it considers relevant content and votes. Votes being links into a site by sources that are graded for their relevancy and content being text or words in the pages of the site. Here lies the problem that will be Googles undoing. Maybe this quiz will help.

Which has more/better content? A) A Library B) A Supermarket C) A Cruise Ship D) A Hospital. It all depends, of course, on whether you’re bored, hungry or injured. Not to Google. It sorts this new landscape of the web…this town…as if it is that information stuffed into that drawer.

The more sites, representing different sectors of society, populate the web the more there will be the need for search engines that sort those site using data applicable to their sectors. Think about it this way, Google is looking for content, text on index pages. So shopping sites need to have a considerable amount of text high on the page to rank well in a search.

This means that when you are looking for a big screen TV, Google wants you to get a page of text. I will agree that they want it to be text about big screen TVs but personally I want to see TVs…lots of them…really big TVs…like movie screens…sorry…what was I talking about…oh yea. I would guess by the way retail store merchandise that they feel most people agree with me. I have never seen the front of a big screen TV section of a Best Buy sporting lots of text or flyers. The same holds true for sites from all sorts of other sectors of society. If you do find all products on the index page of a web site from a Google search, the web site was probably designed to trick its way around Google.

Google will be picked apart on all its flanks. Industry specific engines with creative industry specific algorithms will slowly take over the search industry. Think about it. Does it make any sense that we go to the same place to find information on printer drivers that we do to find where to buy rice noodles.

As it stands everyone is looking for some conglomeration of big companies to knock off Google. The model for search that is assumed today has already become outdated. A one size fits all approach fits the new web like…well…like one size fits all stuff usually fits. It is just fine if you don’t have ANYTHING else. When some innovative people among us stop chasing Google to catch their breath they will realize they are chasing an anachronism. The demise of Google will come as they start to develop creative niche search engines. And frankly I can’t wait…

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American Idol…Sadistic Crap

American Idol is a perverse cruel show. How can anyone who has ever been humiliated by some sadistic bastard watch that piece of crap show. They say themselves they do “Tens of thousands auditioned in the seven cities”. Out of all those they can’t find (only) good singers? I know…we all know…they pick some losers on purpose to make it interesting or funny or whatever. They convince some delusional nitwit that they have a shot and then humiliate them on national television. What kind of sick twisted bastards sit around their family rooms and laugh at this sadistic crap. Maybe the millions of people who get a kick out of these first episodes are the same shit heads who pulled peoples shorts down during gym or shoved nerds into lockers in high school. Now they take some time out of torturing their pets to laugh at some talentless dupes on national television.

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The Minimum Wage Myth

People generally believed that the minimum wage helps the poor but it may just hurt the people it is intended to help. We should all take a minute to think about it.

If we can simply require pay levels, why don’t we just make the minimum wage $20 an hour? Imagine that. No one in the country would earn less that $40,000 a year. The problem of course is some jobs are not worth $20 an hour. If the minimum wage were set at $20 an hour, millions of jobs would just go away. Any job that is only worth $5 an hour would be illuminated or automated. If the minimum wage were $20 an hour how much do you think a meal at McDonalds would cost. Would you pay $17.50 for a Big Mac Value Meal? Fast food would go away or the jobs would be automated. Either way the jobs would be gone. Do you think people are better off with a $5 an hour job or none at all. The same thing is also true, albeit to a lesser degree, when the minimum wage is moved to $7 an hour. If the job isn’t worth $7 an hour it goes away. If it can be automated for less than the equivalent $7 an hour the job will be gone.

Automation doesn’t just happen in big heartless companies. Many jobs are being automated now; bank tellers replaced with ATMs, Receptionists are replaced with automated phone systems. Lets take a look at automated grocery store checkouts. The bar code scanner has made checking out so much simpler that we can do it our selves. If the minimum wage goes to $7 an hour don’t be surprised to see those automated checkout lanes offer a discount (in truth it will be the rest of the prices going up to pay for the wage increase). Is it worth paying someone $7 an hour to swipe product by the scanner. The lanes that have people scanning your stuff will become more expansive. Wouldn’t you take a discount to scan your own groceries? Next time you see one of those self-help checkout lanes think about the minimum wage.

The worst part is it isn’t rich corporate head whose jobs would disappear, it is the very people the minimum wage is suppose to help. If they haven’t been fortunate enough or don’t have the capacity to get a good education then they can’t get a job for $10 or $15 an hour. Raising the minimum wage could mean eliminating the only job they can get. Say goodbye to many “first job” job opportunities.

The usual response to this is that the companies should have the compassion (or however you want to phrase it) to just pay these people more. But companies function just the way we do. You pay for what a product is worth not what the seller deserves. If you found out your gardener had a Doctorate in physics or had a heart rending hardship you wouldn’t just start paying them $40,000 a year to cut your grass. You can’t afford to live your life that way and companies can’t afford to function that way either.

Aaron Feuerstein became famous when he kept workers on the payroll after a 1995 fire destroyed his company, Malden Mills, main factory and they couldn’t produce product. The media loved it but the company of course couldn’t afford it and eventually declared bankruptcy…I know…you never heard that part on the news. Luckily for the workers the people who bought the company and brought it out of bankruptcy kept it in the area. His folly, however well intentioned, could easily have created an opportunity for competitors to gobble up the name and customer base and eliminate or move the production jobs over seas. Some people believe he did it for the positive media attention but even if he meant well his short-term compassion could have led to long-term hardship for the workers. They are very lucky they didn’t lose their jobs permanently.

The steel industry is another example of what happens when you force a company or industry to pay more for a job than it is worth. Steel unions forced high pay for even simple jobs. That forced the industry out of the country. Airline industry pension funds are now showing strains for the same reasons.

The same thing can happen on a much smaller scale. If you manage to talk a future boss into paying you a lot more than that position is worth don’t count on it being a long-term career move.

The impending minimum wage increase will be cause for celebration among affluent politicians but it will just end up hurting the youngest and least educated among us. If you can understand this, if this makes any sense to you, pass this blog along. Email it to friends and family or just explain it to them yourself. If we reward politicians for empty or even damaging legislation because it sounds good they will keep passing bad laws.

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Bush Lied About Social Security?

Virtually all the “Bush Lied” blogs and web site talk about how “Bush lied” about social security, just as the say he lied about WMDs, to create panic so he could enact his nefarious solutions. No one in the press takes the time to point out the problem with this so I am going to give a little quiz, as I did in the Bush Lied About WMDs blog. Both Bill Clinton and George Bush talked about the crisis in Social Security during their State of the Union speeches. Here are the main assertions by both about the point at which the system falls apart. Can you tell me which is which?

“Today, Social Security is strong. But by 2013, payroll taxes will no longer be sufficient to cover monthly payments. And by 2032, the trust fund will be exhausted…”

AND

“…in 2018, Social Security will be paying out more than it takes in. By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted…”

I understand the short-term advantages in convincing people that your political opposition is a liar. God knows republicans spent the entire Clinton presidency trying to convince people of his dishonesty. But in the information era the truth will come out eventually, for better or worse. Any of those who are willing to say Clinton lied about Social Security also, will at least be consistent. Otherwise whether you are cognizant or not you are a political pawn.

To avoid the “you took that out of context” claim, please read both of the Presidents’ speeches.

Bush’s State of the Union speech

Clinton’s State of the Union speech

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Free Speech 2.0 – Average Joe, Editor At Large

I hate using trendy catch phrases like 2.0 but we have definitely entered a new phase in news and information. We are at a tectonic shift in the way news is dealt with. I could get into a discussion of were I feel Free Speech 1.0 rose and fell but I think it is sufficient to say that the information age has changed the concept of freedom of speech. The ability of the average person to publish their thoughts on daily events where the world can read them has clearly unsettles those who feel their prowess with prose gives them the unique position of information interpreter.

Joseph Rago writes “The way we write affects both style and substance.” in an article titled “The Blog Mob – Written by fools to be read by imbeciles” in OpinionJournal.com. The way we write has nothing to do with substance. You can of course find significant substance in a mathematical formula. But he bemoans the lack of “loquacious formulations” by us imbecile bloggers, no wait we are fools, the readers are the imbeciles…anyway.

The press was once comfortable in their cultural uniformity, unfettered by internal political disagreement. That safe culture allowed them to believe in their self designated objectivity in spite of the clear desire to effect public opinion and policy. I have some good friends in the newspaper industry and they are sure they are very objective. But there is a phrase that you hear virtually every one of them say at one time or another. It goes something like “I got into this to make a difference” or “it feels good to know you have made a difference”. The problem is that “making a difference” is really for activists. Reporting is supposed to be objective. Someone who is determined to be objective should be saying something like “I am entirely unconcerned with whether my article affects public opinion or governmental action”. I have yet to hear anything like that from anyone I have known in journalism.

But this shift in the way news is dealt with means that those of us who are linguistically challenged now get a say. In the instantaneous back and forth that is the blogosphere, the logic of the argument, not the eloquence with which it is presented has become most important. While at one time the documents that Dan Rather has become infamous for presenting as facts would have passed through unquestioned by the majority of the country, they can now be logically ripped apart, perhaps ineloquently, by a few people for the whole world to see.

“…the bloggers, in all their variety, with all their different skills and abilities and interests and biases, are reshaping the world in which professional journalists operate just as much as the telephone shook up the profession in the first half of the 20th Century.” technology analyst Bill Thompson BBC News

Journalists are correct to point out that bloggers for the most part aren’t digging up news. I have to say I know a few journalists who “dig up news” by sitting at their desks waiting for press releases from interests groups or other “sources”. Maybe one day there will be a significant group of bloggers who do go out and dig up news, who knows, the fact is that no one believes newspapers are going away entirely. But their standing as objective and intellectual superiors who digest and disseminate “The News” for us to consume is over. They always pointed to their editorial process as proof that the information they pass on has been pre vetted for our convenience. Of course this all happens within the monolithic political culture of the newsroom. But their refrain of, “we have editors” while having always rung a little hollow, is now irrelevant.

Free Speech 2.0 means there is a new editor in town…Average Joe, Editor At Large.

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