And the Newspaper Editors Played On

How much influence did newspaper editors wield in the 1960s?  Let me tell you.  Right now I'm proudly holding in my hands a hardcover, 296-page book published just to document and commemorate "Problems of Journalism:  Proceedings of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, 1967." I bought this gem for $3.50 from the Society's treasurer in 1968.

This well-attended conference was held over three days in Washington, D.C. in April of '67 and the book seems to list pretty much every editor by name from almost every influential newspaper in the country, and believe me, this was one heck of a gala event, even attended by the likes of guest speaker NY Senator Robert F. Kennedy (who, tragically, would be assassinated the following year).

The domination of newspapers over all other media at that time resulted in an informed public which often learned of government corruption, rather than seeing it hidden or enhanced by current TV "journalism."  The sixties were an era on the edge of a spiral in which Americans slowly became dumbed down and almost incapable of reading newspapers or magazines as we accepted even more TV and accompanying shiny objects to supplant critical thinking.

In 1967, as Kennedy and a few other speakers delivered eloquent presentations in regard to government, science and policy on a Saturday, the final day, a topic usually about as welcome as a skunk at a dinner party plopped itself comfortably into the mix, but darned if there wasn't a willing audience of newspaper editors ready to take on the odor.  UFOs.  UFOs?  UFOs.

The sixties overflowed with intellectually enticing UFO cases, highlighted perhaps most famously by the Socorro, NM incident in 1964 where patrolman Lonnie Zamora reportedly observed a landed UFO in the desert with little figures near it until they disappeared and the object took off with a roar.  After Hillsdale, Michigan got into the act with extensive major magazine coverage of its reports in 1966, in addition to a drip, drip, drip of reports claiming close encounters with UFOs -- not to mention congressional concern by Gerald Ford and others as constituents clamored for answers -- the UFO subject was ripe for journalistic picking by 1967.

And so it was, a panel discussion entitled, "The UFOs:  What Goes on Here?" took place as veteran newspaper editors watched with interest of varying degrees.  Among the participants were witnesses William Powell and Muriel McClave; then-active Project Blue Book chief and USAF Major Hector Quintanilla, Jr.; arch-skeptical astronomer Dr. Donald Menzel of Harvard U.; and Dr. James E. McDonald, Univ. of Arizona.

The discussion was quite spirited as those involved made their case, but the "star" during the session appears to have been Dr. McDonald, an atmospheric physicist who brought along for anybody wishing a copy his paper, "UFOs:  Greatest Scientific Problem of Our Times?"  Based on a year of intensive research into the UFO enigma, McDonald made numerous learned assertions:  "I think we have all missed the boat.  I think we have been misled.  I think the problem has been most seriously mishandled officially for 20 years.  The problem has been misrepresented by many interacting factors, including yourselves and scientists such as myself.

"I think," McDonald went on to warn, "the problem has been superficially and incompetently handled by the Air Force."

Continuing on, McDonald often criticized the government for a lack of response to UFO interest, and rises as prophetic when addressing anticipated flaws in the Colorado University UFO study, which ultimately turned out to be driven by lies.

"The heart of the problem is the 'ridicule lid,'" states McDonald, "and you're sitting on it.  You're sitting on it in a way that is very important.  Get off the lid!  That is, get your wire service people to take it seriously; look at the problem yourself; examine it for yourself and get off that lid, because that is a big part of the problem now."

So, where are we today?  First, you're lucky to find a local newspaper.  In the decades since 1967, to their credit, newspapers have carried plenty of UFO articles, and there seem to be occasions where editors tried to stay "off the lid."  But did it matter in the long run?  Reporters turned out quality journalism regarding UFOs, but editors weren't always in approval when it came time to put the edition in question "to bed."

I guess it's remarkable that the UFO/UAP issue has finally been awarded modern congressional hearing status (we've been here before, you know?) -- yet, I still find it equally "wow"-worthy to remember the 1967 session when the most influential newspaper editors on the planet got together and listened, and listened some more.

What do we get today when UFOs hit the press?  TV sound bites, half-assed tabloid articles and maybe a few lines in whatever newspaper pages survive as the educational dumb-down process continues.  Then it's on to the latest forgettable entertainer or athlete paid millions of dollars for playing with a ball like a dog.  Our government loves this stuff, because making us keep our eyes on THAT ball leaves us little opportunity to concentrate on matters that count.  And we all play on.

ABC -The Apologist for Black Crimes TV Network

(Sorry to be later than anticipated with this entry. Unfortunately, I was driving along a sparsely traveled highway one evening when I suddenly saw what appeared to be an infant in diapers walking along the shoulder.  Naturally, I called 9-1-1 and calmly explained the situation in detail -- MUCH detail. After following slowly in my vehicle, I exited and approached the child, who disappeared into the woods.  Of course I followed, intent upon saving the infant from harm.  After walking through near-darkness for maybe a quarter of a mile, I caught up with the infant, which to my utter shock was not a kid, but obviously a space alien with a large mushroom-like head reflected in the moonlight.  I wanted to turn and run away in the darkness, but stumbled and fell to the ground, after which I was immediately lifted off the ground by a giant hotdog creature from Neptune.  The giant hotdog dragged me across a field and immersed me into a giant vat of mustard, where I lingered helplessly for two days as another hotdog with orange hair continuously fed me potato chips, making sure not to leave any physical marks on me, as I was secured to the mustard vat with soft breadsticks. At last, my breadstick bonds were loosened and I made my hasty escape, having survived only on gulps of mustard for two days, never looking back as I returned to the highway and flagged down a cop.  Authorities don't seem to believe my story, because they could find no trace of the mustard vat or my strange captors.  Worse, I'm afraid they want to charge me with a crime.  My advice to you?  If you ever see an infant in diapers running down the road, don't stop!  It's not a child!  It's an enticement planted by hotdog people from outer space!)


ABC and its Disney corporate relationship are having their problems these days, but I'm not really the person to speak about such things as Disney facilities becoming too expensive for family vacations, or how the company is apparently strangling to death on its insistence to convert almost everything it touches into something LBGTQ-ish or just plain "woke."

Nor do I comprehend how an alleged network news division can spend precious minutes attacking Donald Trump night after day after night while uttering barely a word about the Biden family and frighteningly real possibilities that our President may have compromised national security in return for big money from foreign enemies -- thereby putting the word, treason in full play.  Foul play.

Aside from that, ABC -- and they aren't alone, of course, as members of the leftist media fraternity -- seems to have a propensity for swooning over terrible things happening to black people whose own actions were actually the impetus for disasters embracing them as a result.  To lighten this up, it's as if news directors choose stories which automatically send a bat signal into a murky evening sky to alert and summon attorney Benjamin Crump to another case worth millions of dollars.

Such is an incident in Ohio reported this week, when a black trucker driving a huge vehicle refused to stop when police officers attempted to pull him over for a missing mud flap during the day.  His refusal to stop and pull over (twice) allegedly escalated to the point where cops were forced to use stop sticks to puncture his tires.

Once apprehended and put into custody on the ground, an officer in control of a dog was reportedly told several times NOT to release the canine -- yet, did so anyway (whether the officer heard the demand not to do so may be in contention at the moment).  The dog viciously attacked the suspect, seriously injuring his arm.

Terrible?  Unforgivable?  Police misconduct?  Well, it doesn't sound good, and we suspect Ohio better prepare to cough up a significant amount of money which. . .

- - -in my opinion, should remain in the bank with not a penny given to the perp after his medical situation is alleviated by any means necessary.  If I, Mr. White Guy, refused to follow a lawful order as I was tooling down the highway with enough truck to kill lots of people and create tons of damage, I wouldn't expect things to go well at the end of the line.

Yet, thanks to all the chaos caused by one man's refusal to follow a lawful order, we end up with high emotions, heightened tensions and a dog on site which would not have been there at all, save for the actions of a lawbreaker who, in this instance, happened to be black and news-ready for the leftist race-baiting media.  No, the dog should not have been released -- and no, the human reason for all the trouble in the first place should not have attempted to escape.  After all, a runaway truck could conceal a host of dangerous weapons, drugs or human cargo.

Because I have no dog (sorry, not to be rude) in this fight, I'll raise the recurring question regarding such incidents:  Would ABC or co-conspiring leftist networks be as quick to bring this story to public attention if the driver were white?  We so tire of story after story where death or injury to the suspect is directly a result of their causing chaos in the first place.  Juries need to think twice and thrice before demanding multi-million dollar settlements to formerly grieving and now all-business families of idiots.

Don't expect much, for these are the same people who continue to misspell words on the TV screen and whose on-scene reporters at various tragedies still say that something was "completely destroyed," when the word "completely" is unnecessary and serves only to make the reporter appear an amateur.

Tearin' 'em up in Texas:  When you put colorful barriers in the river and then barbed wire, anybody attempting to cross from Mexico to the USA is going to get slashed, diced and bloody.  One would think only a fool would make the attempt, but just look at injuries sustained as illegal border crossers continue to make their way no matter what.  Network news shows proudly display border criminals sporting stitches which close wounds of their own making! Of course the Biden bunch, who seldom saw a federal law that didn't seem insurmountable, is taking Texas to court over the barriers.  Funny how the Democrats have no problem stepping over federal immigration laws at their whim, but make no mistake:  They're the only ones allowed to do so, in their minds.  The modern Democrat Party and its willing minions are the enemies within.
 

Ridiculous Climate czar John Kerry rolls into China:  And rolls right out again, without an agreement from China regarding his favorite and apparently only topic, climate change.  When will government leaders in the USA tell Kerry and his ilk to just go away?  We're sure that millions of people currently surviving only because they have air conditioners in the United States now realize the folly of our government "promising" to do away with such "luxuries" as air conditioning as new and useless energy avenues are developed.  In other words, too late the solution.

Anyway, why worry about climate change when the Democrats are working so feverishly to get us into World War III (hot version)?  Having been subject to the military draft during Vietnam, I wouldn't wish a new military draft campaign on anybody -- but, as they say, elections have consequences, and whether 18 and 19 year-olds will still be pleased they voted for Biden a few months from now remains to be seen, depending upon the unfolding of war-like circumstances.  Anybody who believes the Dems can't continue torturing Donald Trump while simultaneously balancing the political armaments of war just isn't woke enough.

Jason Aldean Fights Back:  As he should.  And how is it that Black Lives Matter is still in the picture and on the attack when BLM has totally discredited itself?  If musical artists have to play the cancel culture game when producing music videos, we can only suggest that a good publicly proclaimed dose of go f*** yourself is in order for those whose existence depends upon censoring others.

Educating Florida:  If our profoundly intellectual VP and the cackling TV network news shows can restrain themselves for just a minute, they might be surprised to learn that Florida's new school curriculum for black history includes black heroes and events not generally publicized by the left during decades of education dominance in the country.  Would critics prefer that the "1619 Project," roundly condemned by many academics for its errors, be used instead?  Obviously, teaching about racial history without injecting obligatory hatred from one race to another will be a new experience for leftist observers, and they won't like it because that interferes with the only subject they know -- activism and protests.

Jamie Foxx fixed?  Well, the beloved actor looks and sounds good, but still has not commented about what happened to him.  Were early reports that his health became critical right after having a Covid immunization accurate?  We need clarification, sooner rather than later.

Just in today:  The cardiac event of LeBron James' 18-year-old son is yet another mystery regarding the cardiac tragedies occurring all over the planet with young people.  Is it possible that a Covid immunization is responsible, as many suggest today?  I don't know, but you already know my feelings about the mRNA thing -- and when its inventor warns against giving it to anybody, particularly young folk, I cannot dismiss the possibility.  As I recall, LeBron James was as hot as a firecracker in dismissing those of us who refused the jab.  I wonder if his belief system will undergo a change in the months ahead.

And so it goes: If I've offended anybody by seeming to be overtly racially or socially insensitive with today's entry, I apologize.  Like hell.

Tinseltown's Tumbleweeds Roll Across the Vast Wasteland

(Breaking This Week:  YES Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and it seems pretty likely there's a stolen presidential election.  Wha. . .?!  All the stuff coming out now about keeping sordid details of the Biden family out of the news before the election clearly means the evil side of government wanted to deny Trump another term via censorship, denials and outright lies.  Whistleblowers have come forward and they seem to have more integrity than Garland himself could comprehend.  Please, will somebody clean out the prisons and get them ready for the people who actually belong there, many with a "D" in their political background?)  Onward. . .

When Newton Minow was chief of the FCC back in the sixties, he referred to the television industry's offerings as a "vast wasteland," a term he happily borrowed from a friend who happened to offer his own description of TV broadcasts.

Minow spoke those words during 1961 conference proceedings conducted by the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington, D.C.  While praising a slim number of programs then displayed upon national TV screens, Minow then said something not only indicative for his era, but almost prophetic for our own future:

"You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials --many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few."

WELL, here we are, 2023's TV -- and motion pictures -- is 1961 on steroids.

I thought of Minow because of the strike currently involving actors, writers and -- most unfortunately -- people who generally don't get paid much by the industry.  But there's more at stake for everybody here and it's called WOKE.

Hollywood and other places where TV shows and motion pictures are produced currently suffer from "Woke" silliness, the nonsense that somehow defies logic and gets away with it.

Trouble is, the mainstream TV and motion picture audience has reached a limit, tired to the hilt of the woke crowd -- likely a minority of strong voices -- and its lies.  But, no matter -- writers and actors who climbed upon the woke bullshit wagon and ate from it ravenously now wouldn't know reality or GOOD writing and acting if either was explained in a simple nursery rhyme.

Or, to spell it out, mainstream people aren't interested in TV shows about transgender angst, same-sex people kissing one another passionately or stories dripping with males fluffed with estrogen emotions as tears and endlessly monotonous talk carry on from one scene to the next.  

We hoped not to sound too critical, but the truth is that the wonderful TV and motion picture writers who often cut their creative teeth on events of World War II, Korea and even Vietnam are disappearing one by one, leaving behind a clueless mishmash of young writers whose life experiences frequently reach no further than the ski trips they took with college or high school friends, or maybe with books they scanned for only minutes because of their attention deficit disorders.

One thing these striker folk seem to agree upon is artificial intelligence, which they fear could take over much of the industry.  They are quite right to be in fear, because AI is ready, willing and able.  I don't know how its influence can be avoided, even if one writes a bad TV script sending AI to some other planet.  Beware, because the day will come when AI even outsmarts the big unions -- though I'm not sure that will be a bad thing for the real America.

Anybody in the TV and film industry who isn't paying attention to the "why" of Disney's current decline along with, apparently, the entire Anheuser-Busch beer industry, may be self-punished in the long run.  The malady is called "woke" and its less-regarded overseer is known as E.S.G.

MEANWHILE, as the TV industry (commercial, cable, and satellite) searches for a reason to remain relevant, can't you just imagine intense meetings among TV bosses to make sure that every LENGTHY commercial break happens at almost exactly the same times on every network?  Like prison, there shall be no escape.  The other thing is, particularly among smaller networks, the tendency to chop up old TV episodes and movies and throw commercial breaks in at the whim of management appears suicidal in the long run.  Not to mention that a lot of oldies seen on TV cost very little to procure for a showing or two or three or 500.

AND THE HELL CONTINUES:  Both TV and radio changed for the worst when digital timing equipment took over, dictating the importance of bowing down to exact fractions of a second over relaxed activities.  Now we have dead air, programs bleeding over one another and programs cut off before their time is up because the digital monster insists upon it as one commercial after another after 'nother is paraded before our apprehensive eyes and ears, often with no end in sight.

Aside from increasingly pedestrian scripts churned out by the "entertainment" (read as:  dumbed down) industry, the cherry on the top of this dog pile of vast wasteland is TV network news -- you know, the broadcasts sponsored by drug pushers.  No, wait, better make that pharmaceutical companies.  Anyway, day after night after day the network anchors and other on-air personalities pretending to be fair journalists feed us lies disguised as balanced reporting, whilst totally leaving out things qualifying as real, legitimate stories.

TV industry veterans still around to declare they've seen it all sometimes openly say that the television is on its way out, replaced by streaming and other forms of communication -- yet, even streaming services, to their amazement, are losing money big time, with Netflix the only current player showing a clear profit.

As the writers and actors continue their strike, whether justified or not, maybe they don't see -- or maybe they do -- those bouncing weed-like objects blowing with the wind and dust in the background.  Tumbleweeds?  Tumbleweeds.  But it's a special variety of Tumbleweeds, cutting a path to make the vast wasteland even more vast.

OH Canada!  Hundreds of "wildfires" spewing smoke down into the states?  I'm not ready to accept the wildness of so many fires -- but will certainly entertain the word, arson. . .by people with a climate change agenda, perhaps.  Crackpot activists will usually do anything to create chaos for their cause -- and the fact that so many intellectually impaired U.S. politicians are mouthing the words CLIMATE CHANGE like parrots in relationship to forest fires (?!) would be exactly the result desired.

We must always remember, even as John Kerry and various celebs circumnavigate the globe (using polluting jets) with tales of climate change fantasies, that there is always precedent for climate activity, be it good or devastating.  Look to the sun, look to weather patterns -- and look to your friendly local meteorologist who knows what's real but is probably muzzled by his or her employers and therefore is unable to tell us it's really just another day in the history of a planet battered long before we or our SUVs arrived on the scene.

Climactic Climate Creepers

"I've seen fire and I've seen rain. . ." goes a song most famously recorded by James Taylor, who back in the seventies probably had no idea how newsworthy fire and rain (and high heat) would be as the current decade unfolded.

And here we are:  Scorching, unrelenting heat in the West, Southwest, South and Southeast, and flooding in areas of the Northeast and elsewhere rarely, if ever in recent times, known for water problems.

Predictably, oh hell, guaranteed are political voices screaming about climate change and the necessity to "do something."  Do something always seems to involve taking our money and the power of the individual far away.

I still wonder, not long before Covid hit the world, what happened to a lengthy list of scientists ready, willing and able to come forth and denounce man-made climate change as the reason for our disasters.

Fortunately, rare programs such as radio's Coast to Coast a.m. occasionally bring forth skeptical scientists whose expertise regarding climate rivals anything the federal government offered up in the past -- that is, while censoring opposing voices on the Internet.  Yes, thanks to the Biden Ministry of Truth, anything but truth is what we got.

What do we get?  John Kerry, zipping around the globe on his polluting jet aircraft.  Isn't it funny how the wealthiest and elitist-most are the ones determining our future under "climate change" governance?  Everybody looks upon "never in recorded history" and ignores the millennia of planetary upheaval always in play.

This week, I watched NY's Hochul and other political hacks stand on ground subject to flooding and other issues, spewing words about climate change and appearing all-knowing, as if doing tryouts as Klaatu for a remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.  Oh well, couldn't be any worse than Keanu.

When one side hugs its own version of science and ignores the opposition, their facts don't mean crap.

And now that Rep. Maxine Waters dared to actually say we'll all be living under ESG standards (just like China), no longer a conspiracy theory of the right, so one wonders who will fight to keep us free in the West.

Philadelphia Psycho-Tranny:  Yet another mentally blown tranny has killed multiple people in a setting where instant retaliation was almost impossible.  Does this make two or three tranny-imposed murder incidents?

Meanwhile. . .New York's governor Hochul has signed a bill so's assumed trans kids of all ages can come to NY and get the hormones AND the irreversible surgery.  No doubt, there are enough lunatic surgeons, psychologists and other so-called professionals in the state to do the dirty work. At some time in the future, lawsuits should run against these folks like water from a faucet.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for president?  There's much to like, but a considerable amount to be questioned (such as views on climate).  Years ago, we put up letters from his father's office, very skeptical about UFOs.

 In other news, Biden is still President.  I think the Democrats might plan to change that as they attempt to clean the horsesh** out of their barn before the next election.  Good luck.

College Biden-omics 101: The Art of Winning Votes

Not to start off like a hypocrite, but the U.S. government paid for a lot of my college courses, too -- though that was under the GI Bill, where one actually had to perform military service first in order to qualify.  It had nothing to do with signing one's name on a loan with the expectation that others would eventually pay for a significant percentage of that loan just because grandma thought you deserved it.

Here's what I don't get: In the firing line are some 43 million people who Biden promised 430 billion dollars in loan "forgiveness," and of course, as we now know, per a Supreme Court majority that rescue plan isn't happening.

Yet, he plans to try again with a work-around higher education bill of some sort -- with absolutely no guarantee that Congress will go for it, not by the hair of their chinie-chin chins, once the voters back home come forward with pitchforks and torches at election time.

But you -- you folks still slobbering over the prospect of getting big bucks from people who not only did not sign for your loan, but don't even know you -- aren't/weren't you all college students?  Sprinkled with plenty of master's degrees and Ph.Ds?  Did your professors, supposedly smarter than you, not teach you in some class that Congress, not the President, has dominion over the purse strings?  Did you learn nothing in the universities?

Did you learn nothing from that grand old lady of the House, Queen Nancy Pelosi, when she flat-out said Biden simply cannot offer up the money?

On the bright side, however, many of you were so orgasmic over the promise of thousands of dollars that you enthusiastically voted for Joseph Biden.

Mission accomplished. Thanks a lot.  Like what you got?

Biden can deny until the cows come home (or until the illegal aliens stop invading -- and YOU will pay for them for years to come) that his loan forgiveness promise was an election ploy to gain votes - but it probably helped him a lot.

So again we ask:  Did your professors teach you nothing about the workings of American government, or were some too wrapped up in extolling the virtues of living under communism whilst telling you a man is a woman?

Yes, blame Biden, but don't forget the people and institutions you trusted and paid handsomely to give you a good education.  As they say in the window-washing business, somebody missed a spot. 

And don't forget what just happened:  A federal judge issued quite a lengthy decision excoriating the Biden Democrats for censoring information and having their buddies holding power in social media assist with not telling you, me, us the truth about Covid "immunizations," election turmoil and other matters.  Anybody who votes Democrat next time around must enjoy a life of sadomasochism -- which, by coincidence or not, appears often to be the order of the day in that party's politics.  Anybody up for drag queen story time in the local nursery school?