Tag: Musings

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As I attempt to focus on the positive…

Joe Biden’s Presidency has a redeeming side.

I’m learning about dementia.

I have aging parents. They’re not showing dementia symptoms but to be honest, I really hadn’t considered it as a possibly.

Watching Biden, I’m getting to see first hand what this looks like and how debilitating it is.

I learned a new term today regarding dementia. “Sundowning.” Apparently it’s quite common. As someone with dementia progresses through the day, they experience cognitive decline.

I’d argue that we all experience some decline as the day wears on. I guess with dementia patients it’s much more pronounced.

So I’m thankful for Joe. I’ll perhaps be more understanding and patient when or if my parents develop this condition.

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Wow, Neil Young thought he was still a star…

I find it really amusing that Neil Young blew it so badly.

Let’s see, he’s been in the entertainment industry for decades. You’d think that in all that time he’d have learned something about that business model.

You know, a little thing like, “Cash talks, Bullshit walks”.

Anyone with half a brain would have seen which way Spotify was going to go.

Option A, fold to Young’s childish demands and loose a ton of money by cancelling a current star like Rogan.

Option B, cancel a has been rocker that a lot of younger folks have no clue about.

Clearly Young missed the lesson of “Follow the Money”.

Now, Neil Young is asking for other ancient has been rockers to join his little snit. Apparently some are, Peter Frampton and Joni Mitchell have sided with Young.

It took Spotify less than 24 hours to come to a decision and delete Neil Young’s catalog. I imagine that if it comes to it, Frampton and Mitchell’s, music will be gone in less time. Other “Artists” may find their catalogs removed in seconds, not hours.

That’s the funny part of computers. The first iteration of something is always the slowest, the second, third, or fourth iterations of a function go much quicker.

I’d have to check the history of rock but wasn’t there a reason that Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young, just became Crosby, Stills & Nash?

I could see Spotify getting to the point that they just present a message to the Artist;

“You are about to delete your entire music catalog from Spotify. This represents XXXX Dollars per week of income to you. This action cannot be undone.

Continue? Y / N”

Then we’d see who really had conviction and valued the “Moral High Ground”. I might even respect those who pressed “Y”.

Apple has chosen to take this opportunity to “Make Hay while the sun shines,” by featuring Neil Young on Apple Music.

If Neil Young thinks this is anything but Apple blatantly attempting to woo new subscribers to their service, he better think again. Once again, this is only about the Benjamins. Apple will move on as soon as the media hype drops off. It’s not personal, it’s simply business.

I find myself questioning Apple more and more these days, but that is another story.

Thankfully I have no need of new Apple products and therefore don’t find myself with the dilemma of choosing to confront my growing concern that Apple has become “Evil” like Google did, versus wanting something Apple makes. I know it’s a cheap way out, but I really don’t want to deal with mixed platforms again, this way I can delay feeling like I have to decide.

It’s bad enough that I’m cancelling Amazon Prime, and Hulu. While neither of them are watched or listened to in this household enough to justify their costs. I’ll miss those odd moments when I want to watch something mindless like, Ancient Aliens, for the hell of it but don’t want to actually “Buy” it.

Kinda like how Spotify fed the aging boomers Neil Young’s music, allowing them to relive their glory days without having to pay for the shitty “B” sides.

(That’s a reference a lot of younger folks won’t get. You used to be able to tell which side of a vinyl LP had the best songs when you pulled it out of the sleeve. One side was worn and slightly gray while the other was pristine and shiny black. )

Honestly, I wish the entertainers would just stick to entertaining. I’m tired of having my political awareness triggered when I hear some favorite song. I hate hearing something and then getting sucked down the rabbit hole of, “That’s a song by X, they’ve been demanding Y be cancelled and saying if you disagree you’re part of the problem.” It’s at this point that I hit skip on the music player.

I just want to enjoy the music or the movie without having that internal political discussion.

A couple of examples;

Hocus Pocus – Bette Midler completely destroyed that old favorite movie for me. Why? Because now when I see her being an overbearing nasty witch on screen, I kinda think she wan’t acting. If that’s the case, she’s not a very nice person.

Cher – I grew up on her music. She had a special place in my heart. The Sonny & Cher show wasn’t missed often when I was growing up. But now… Every time she opens her mouth I’m appalled.

Jane Fonda – I was too young to understand why my Father and Step Father would change the channel if she was on TV. It didn’t matter to them if she was being an actress or an activist. Neither of them would allow her to be on the TV in their homes. It wasn’t until I was an adult with my own home and TV that I got to see her films.

Now, as an older adult, I get it, because I’ve begun to feel the same way about a lot of my icons.

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I think the “He’s like Hitler” Trope has lost its value.

There was a time when invoking Hitler was the worst insult you could hurl at someone. This was particularly true in politics.

It was a shocking statement and conjured up some of the darkest images in recent history. There was a time when if someone called you Hitler, you were doing something very bad.

Trump was called Hitler, Ron DeSantis is being called Hitler by Nikki Fried (who is campaigning to take DeSantis’s position.)

Lately it seems as if that shocking insult is being leveled at anyone over simple political disagreement.

“Hitler” as an insult is rapidly becoming as commonplace as “racist”. Both are losing their shock value and their impact.

Now if someone calls you a racist in a discussion, it just means “You Win!” The person calling you a racist is declaring that they cannot win the discussion on merit, facts, or logic. This is the verbal equivalent of “The nipple crippler, or titty twister” in a fight. It’s a shameful and pointless move born out of desperation. It’s wholly ineffective and serves no purpose other than to show others what kind of poor loser you are.

Comparing someone to Hitler is rapidly becoming the same lame move.

One could similarly compare the Biden Administration to Nero fiddling while Rome burned. The story of Nero fiddling is not historically accurate but has entered into the collection of descriptive tropes we use as shorthand to describe things.

Nero isn’t nearly as insulting as Hitler these days, but in the sunset of The Roman Empire I’d bet calling someone “A Nero” was cause for a duel.

For me, when someone screams racist or Hitler I’m done. Nothing that person says after is of any importance. They came to a debate or a discussion unarmed and then got butt hurt when the weakness of their position was unmasked.

Nikki Fried has lost her election bid right from the start. She didn’t consider her audience.

Think about the age of most of the residents of Florida. A fair number of them would have been told stories of the horror of Hitler by their parents or grandparents. The images of the camps may still be in their memories. The fact that Hitler was so bad, we allied ourselves with Stalin to defeat him would also not be lost on those people.

A simple comparison of DeSantis today versus their memory of Hitler’s atrocities puts lie to Nikki Fried’s comparison.

Fried speaks for Miami. A lot of Florida doesn’t consider Miami part of Florida. Miami is where all the New Yorkers hang out, it’s a place where the prices are too high, the crime is too prevalent, the politics are too blue, and liberal progressive elites are thankfully mostly contained.

When I was a boy every hurricane season the “Normal” Florida secretly hoped a hurricane would scour Miami off into the Atlantic.

I’m wondering if DeSantis will address Fried directly. She’s handed DeSantis a great line. Fried calls him Hitler, he responds, “No, the trains still aren’t running on time.”

The majority of older Floridians would chuckle at the reference then watch in amusement as Fried tried to figure out what that meant or how it was relevant. A bunch of older Floridians would correct DeSantis by pointing out he’d gotten his dictators confused. Benito Mussolini, not Hitler, is the despot who insisted the trains run on time.

Unfortunately, the media would blast it as, “DeSantis admits he’s Hitler”

It’s a pity that sarcasm is lost on most people today.