Blaming The Web Site

I know we in the United States are lawsuit happy, but news of a woman's suit against her husband may  be one of the more novel attempts to extract money from others with the frivolous lawsuit. The suit involves a woman only identified as "Mary" and a web site called Persopo.com that is a resource for people to check arrest records, marriage records, contract info etc. that is public record. Persopo not only pulls from public records but many different social and dating web sites around the internet.  Mary's husband checked to see if Mary was cheating with another person and hit the jackpot.

"When I searched her name it came up. She had accounts matching her name and email on cheating wives.com an many others. I just couldn't believe that this was the woman that i married," husband Frank said. The husband found enough evidence on Mary to fueled his divorce suit against her. Her match.com profile, for example, where stated she is “never married” for relationship status. Mary said it was unfair and wants Persoco to pay for providing information on her cheating. Nowhere in the lawsuit does it dispute if the information is accurate or not. Nor that she was having an affair on her husband with multiple men.


Mary is now stating that, “Persopo.com ruined my life by revealing private information about me.” She is currently seeking unspecified damages from Persoco. Apparently, for Mary, cheating is fine as long as you are not caught. If you do get caught, blame it on  the technology that nabbed you. It also reflects another instance of how technology is winning over humans. Using background check services is becoming increasingly commonplace. It seems logically that spouses might use it to check on a questionable husband or wife.

Too often human beings become so enthralled with their technology they forget that it can be an enemy as well as a friend. It should be noted that we live in a digital age in which technology allows us to both hide and seek.

Hacksaw Ridge

I happened upon a movie on TV the other day. That shouldn't be news, but for me it is. I rarely watch movies on TV and even more rarely would I go to a movie theater to see one. My view of film today is that most of it is shallow, mere special effects and shock, little substance and poorly written. But when I am bored and in front of a TV I will sometimes turn it on an d peruse the listings. I saw that 'Hacksaw Ridge' was just about to begin and, having read good things about it as being an "adult film" in genre that has become a world for pre teens and teens, I found the station in time to watch.

What a powerful film it is. It is the story of Desmond Doss, a poor farm boy from Virginia and practitioner of the Seventh Day Adventist religion, one that does not allow its members to kill other human beings. In 1942 Doss had a military deferment, but after the United States entered W.W. II, Doss felt patriotic and decide to enlist in the army as a medical corpsman. Joining an army during a war as an avowed conscientious objector is about as appropriate as a Hollywood star making sense (about anything remotely complicated). But Doss wanted to save lives, not kill. He joined the army was harassed in boot camp and labeled a coward by all.

The movie is complicated, as good movies are, and I do not want to tell you the outcome. Instead, I urge you to see the film and learn why Doss became America's greatest war hero, without ever firing a shot or perpetrating a single violent act against another human being. I think you will be inspired by the film and perhaps will see humans as having greater potential for good than evil after watching. Imagine, a so called "war film" doing all that? But it does. The critics say the actor who played Doss and the film itself will win the Oscar for best actor and best film of 2017.

The film is popular with many people of all ages and demographics, a good sign I think, that there is still a market for serious film. In our superficial, throw-a-way culture we need more substance and less. 'Hacksaw Ridge' provides a little of that.

In Media, We Don't Trust

I have long believed that an impartial media on the U.S. is a thing of the past. Most of our mediums are slanted left or right, with the TV and newspaper mediums almost entirely left wing agenda oriented and the radio medium right wing directed. That's probably why few Americans believe what they read or see in the news media. A 2017 Gallop poll on the subject disclosed that 62% of Americans say news media favors one political party over the other, that more believe media favors Democrats than Republicans and that a clear majority of Americans say media is "often inaccurate". Too, Gallup asked those who perceive political bias in the news media to say which party the news media favors. Almost two thirds (64%) of those who believe the media favors a political party say it is the now leftist Democratic Party.

In a climate of bitter political partisanship, anti media rhetoric and diversified media options where any nut can find a web site that agrees with his or her view, just 32% of Americans now say they trust the media. The media attempt to destroy Trump and remove him from office, for example, is so obvious and unfair that news outlets are losing viewers and readers at a rapid pace. It used to be a "mistake" was a costly penalty for the journalist or outlet. Now, factual errors are seen as necessary it promoting the media narrative presented.

The old belief about the news media used to be that journalists make fewer mistakes than people in most businesses because they're being watched more closely and they know it. A journalist's mistakes are out in the open, they used to say. But no more. Most readers and viewers like the lies and half truths told when they suit the viewer or reader agenda. Fake news, particularly about the right wing and about Trump is fun, but most important news isn't interesting, many say. It used to be we wanted the truth, especially if it hurt. Today we want partisanship. Slants and lies are good when they support our own agenda.

Instead of the media reporting what we should know, it now publishes almost exclusively to giving us what we or they want to pretend is true. After all, agendas need that. It's sad because news mediums are supposed to be the guardians of democracy, unbiased reporters of fact. What we have today is journalism by agenda, mistake or deliberate lie. No wonder so many, particularly the young, pay more attention to triviality like 'The Game of Thrones' than to educating themselves about real world events that affect their real lives.

PEW Research this year found that only 18% of viewers or readers trust the media in any of its reporting. It didn't indicate if any of the 18% had working brains.

Hello Mr. Chips

It was inevitable. What is more obvious that a world addicted to technology, particularly communication devices, would decide to have microchips into their bodies to "improve" the effectiveness of machines. Perhaps it may be the first step to become robots, but surely it is an a minimum an astounding degradation of humankind. What has happened is that a Wisconsin business A local firm is embedding some of its employees with microchips.  Forty employees of Three Square Market, a firm that makes cafeteria kiosks aimed at replacing vending machines, voluntarily got tiny rice sized microchips embedded in their hands.

Company officials said it was for convenience, a way for them to bypass using company badges and corporate log-ons to computers. Now, they can just have their hands read by a reader, similar to using a cell phone to pay for goods. Hmmmm When humans make excuses to expand their toys capability at the expense of common sense and utility I see a loss of perspective about the old adage that man must control the machines, not be controlled by them.

The chip is not a tracker nor does it have GPS in it, so the boss can't track the movements of employees, company officials say. Not yet anyway! And to those  like me who worry about Big Brother having more control over our lives, Three Square Market President Patrick McMullan says you should, "take your cell phone and throw it away." Well, Mr. Mc McMullan I don't have a cell phone. Call me an un robot and non addict for making that decisions, but I am happy to not be  what you want your employees to be. In overuse, misuse of technology we lose some of our humanity.

The chips come from Biohax Sweden, a company that says it has nearly 3,000 people using it in Europe. The founder of that company, Jowan Osterlund, has struck alliances with companies to pay to have the chips installed in employees or pass them out at tech fairs. It's coming..... not Godzilla, but the microchip monster who wants to push humanity aside. Three Square Market employees say they were having the chip installed to be part of the larger team, and help develop the technology. Given that the employees are all geeks, I am not stunned about the implants. I would find it disturbing and surprising if non geeks bought into this idea.

A chip installation ceremony was held in the company's cafeteria, where Osterlund, a former tattoo artist, was on hand to perform the installation.  The entire process took about a minute. It started with Osterlund cleaning the skin, finding a spot in the hand to pinch, then asking the employee to inhale and exhale as he inserted a syringe, install the chip, and place a band aid over the spot.  It was done, a sort of funeral for humans and birth for microchip beings.

Calming The Body And Soul

The world in which we live becomes more and more dreary, contentious and unpleasant each day as humans who think they can remodel it with their technology or social planning ideas simply give many of us headaches instead. I feel one coming on just writing about this subject. But Alas! BBC network has a therapy for us to calm down those  anxious moments we experience in modernity. It's a web site that shows nothing but beautiful photography and sounds of nature, in several long installments that are said to calm us. Here is a sample, a 10 minute view of sights and sounds of the jungle.

http://televisions.reviewed.com/news/want-to-relax-the-bbc-just-released-40-hours-of-soothing-planet-earth-footage-for-free?utm_source=usat&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=collab

Did that do anything for you? Hmmm I honesty say that beyond a minute or two it didn't calm me. It more reminded me that technology can even intrude on nature to the degree that it makes it seem ordinary. Therefore I have a few calming mechanisms to pass on to you, things that work for me allowing me to escape a world I increasing find disingenuous and unpleasant. Here are some of the things that calm me.

1) any video showing a cell phone user falling down a street drain due to the obsession of looking at one's phone , even when crossing a street.
2) skinny fitness gurus who tell us that we are fat, lazy and doomed to a short life span, who have massive heart attacks at age 30 simply because their "healthy regime" is in fact a stress on a body that a would prefer donuts to jogging at 4 am
3) health alerts that advise against being a vegan or eating trendy grains like quinoa instead of rice and whole wheat
4) any of those rare news reports that say that police are not evil, hate segments of the population and should all be fired from their jobs
5) a day without more phony anti Trump stories
6) eating a greasy hamburger, french fries and a thick whole milk shake..while sitting next to a heath nut who pretends his salad is "better for him" than my meal
7) naps, retirement and financial security
8) watching another empty headed celebrity caught in an act of hypocrisy after reports that he or she took their private jet to deliver a global warming speech to a gullible audience of equally empty headed, trendy worshippers
9) proudly using plastic bags at a store that is "environmentally sensible"
10) slapping the next person who says he or she is "saving the planet"

Gee, just thinking about those things is already making me feel better.

Free Me From Anti Glutenism

Something on the nutritional front hacks me off.  It's this gluten free craze that is based on lies and trendiness. Very few people have problems metabolizing gluten. A tiny percentage of people are allergic to it, and another tiny percentage have Celiac disease. We are talking about 1 % of the population with celiac disease and .4 % with any kind of allergy to wheat. Yet go to a grocery store and you'll see a huge number of products, frequently a non gluten section that offers "gluten free".. Roughly one third of Americans say they want to cut down on gluten or not eat any gluten products? But why?

Though some people might have non Celiac gluten sensitivity, gluten free diets are a fad. By the way, gluten is nothing more than a  natural protein found in wheat, barley, rye and many processed foods. But marketers and producers are in love with trendy left wing fads,.. They sell. I suspect if it became trendy to drink water for the toilet bowl there would be enough people mindlessly doing it to make it profitable for  producers to make toilet water food and drink additives.

Sadly, the more addicted the population is to cell phones and social media sites the more crazes like gluten free advance from the tiny number of people who really are allergic to gluten to a huge base of people who think they are. Today, almost 30% of people who shop in the United States buy gluten free food products. Amazingly, 41 percent of U.S. adults believe "gluten free" foods are beneficial for everyone, That's 29% wasting money on nonsense. But then humans can be easily brainwashed.

There are quite a few mindless myths about the necessity to not eat gluten. They include the theory that one loses weight when eating gluten free, that celebrities endorse it so it must be true, that if you feel bad it must be because of your diet, that not eating wheat means you'll be gluten free (Among other foods, gluten is in certain supplements or medications, in salad dressing, even in those awful veggie burgers), and that abstaining from gluten will make the skin  clear and problem free.

So they waste their money buying expensive gluten free products and harass people who don't (me). It's the "I'm going to save the planet by not using plastic bags" syndrome.  Fact is the anti gluten craze has been fueled by lack of education and by people who report that their health is improved after going gluten free. In fact, if they feel better it is mostly a placebo effect of thinking they will or perhaps because they eliminate excess carbohydrates from their diets that make them feel sluggish. Eating a gluten free isn't necessarily healthier, nor is it  a method for losing weight. Many gluten free products are higher in calories, fat, sodium and sugar because they need to enhance the flavor and texture to make up for the lack of gluten

A balanced diet is the best diet, and if you eat what tastes good and it does not cause an allergic reaction you are probably miles ahead of the gluten free nuts.

Homelessness

In the United States we are living in the "Age of the Homeless". There is a tolerance today for so called homelessness that has legitimized homelessness as a state of being that is a person's right. What a change from the days when a person who had no home and lived on the streets was called a "hobo" or "bum", arrested by police on site and removed from public view. Often they disappeared to short term prison cells , followed by family or public institutional (churches, for example) assistance in treating the condition that encouraged the homelessness. The sheer volume of homelessness today should disgrace society enough to finally motivate it to help end it. It does not.

Homelessness was never sanitized and legitimized, until ti became an almost trendy alternative lifestyle for those who fell into it. Most homeless people are victims of a number of  causes of the condition, whether it be alcohol or drug abuse, mental issues, economic hardship, family problems or tragedy. Society still thinks all homeless are living in an undesirable way, and it wants to help, but the political leaders seem uninterested in investing in the cost of a solution. Instead, the numbers of homeless keep rising, and the number of social problems the homeless create rises in proportion to the numbers.

Perhaps the biggest reason so many are choosing or are forced into the homeless path is government. In the pre entitlement era, when individuals were responsible for their own welfare, there was no government intervention to assist the homeless. Now there is, but it is the worst kind of assistance imaginable, an enabling and ignoring assistance that only encourages more homelessness. Family and private institutions used to deal with most homelessness, and did it well. Today government creates a ridiculous number of unsuitable programs that pretend to help homeless population, a kind of "give the homeless guy a sandwich and forget about it" approach.

Homeless people have no money to pay for the few bare necessities needed for survival on the streets. Thus, the homeless turn to begging, stealing and other crime to assist in survival. Most Americans accept it with a shake of the head and a "It's sad' refrain. I wonder if our indifference to homelessness, or rather how we pretend to care about the homeless but do little to help, is a reflection of our detachment for m reality that our technology so often encourages.

I have no idea hoe to help the homeless other than insisting some responsibility be thrust into the homeless themselves as part of the solution. Perhaps ending the entitlement and  pseudo sympathy, the "just go away" approach would be a start. But I do know the acceptance of the condition of  homelessness and other social deviancy's is an indication that we as a society have some serious problems too.