1591 Jazeera- Bel

1591 Jazeera- Bel

The news company Al Jazeera America announced it would close up shop later this year.  Or to put it another way, Qatar’s failed attack on American news viewers is ending and so is the con game they played with the staff.

The Doha- based parent company which is a kingdom of two million people, dazzling beaches and garish nouveau riche tinfoil skyscrapers built on sand makes its money from oil.  Oil prices are crashing, and even in this Hollywood-like fairy land, money has become tight.

So they’re closing their biggest loser which is in a close race with PBS in seeking the Emmy for boring.  And in the process, they’re firing an army sized staff of American journalists who got suckered into believing that they could do real news and be paid well for doing it.

Al has been wrongheaded from the getgo.  

They:

--Spent half a billion dollars to buy Al Gore’s failed “Current TV” which almost no one watched, especially after Keith Olbermann threw his eighth consecutive tantrum and quit or was fired and then built a channel that absolutely no one watched.

--Opened themselves to suits charging antisemitism and sexism.  (Could there be an element of truth in those? Heavens!)

--Hired a lawyer who evidently is not licensed to practice law.

--Ran an iffy story about the family of a major sports figure in which human growth hormone sales were prominently mentioned.

--Picked the wrong CEO at the start and replaced him with the right one but too late.

--Couldn’t raise clearances, the number of homes in which the channel was carried.

--Couldn’t sell advertising that came even close to paying the bills.

--Gave what little of the viewing public they reached nothing close to anything worth watching.

AJA is a clunky, amateurish presenter of news that no one wants to watch.  Even though it originates in New York, it has the same creepy, oily plastic look and 1950s feel of a foreign news service or a televangelist channel, something Russia’s and China’s American channels are starting to climb away from.

They promised us news with sobriety. They gave us news with Sominex.  They promised fact based reporting and gave us propaganda.  They promised their staff -- mostly excellent journalists -- the tools and atmosphere to “do the job right” and gave them sledgehammers, rocks to break and corrections officers to watch over them.

Before long, the staff will have a Facebook Page “AJA Vets,” if they don’t already.  And they’ll hold reunions and reminisce about the good old days … all 700 or so of them.   They’ll break confidentiality agreements by disclosing their severance pay.  They’ll drink a lot.

And some day in the distant future, when oil prices rebound and the skyscrapers of Doha pass inspection, maybe Jazeera-Bel will try again. For the sake of the fired staff… a fond hope.  For the rest of us, we won’t watch then, either.

Meantime, Al Gore is laughing all the way to the bank, assuming the Emir’s payment checks don’t bounce.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1590 The PIC and the PAC

1590 The PIC and the PAC

It’s time to form a Political Inaction Committee.  This would be a group to pay candidates to not run or to drop out.

The Supreme Court cleared the way for us when it ruled in the Citizens United case.  Unlimited money. Technically, a political action committee must have a firewall between itself and a candidate’s campaign.  But we all know it’s a firewall made of Saran Wrap… clear and easily burned, melted or ignored.

In its most pristine form, the PIC could simply place ads and hold rallies supporting a would be candidate's decision not to run.

PICs could commission polls that would show members of congress in such bad standing that it would be in their interest to take early retirement and disappear.

PICs could slime incompetent and corrupt politicians who use their office for personal gain. (Are you listening Shelly and Dean?)  They could spread rumors.  They could hire hitmen.

In reality, the PIC could just collect and distribute bribes.  By the time a case against these organizations reached the Supreme Court there would be so much chaos -- financial and ideological -- that it could take decades to resolve.  Nothing like a little chaos to perpetuate our resolve.

While it’s unlikely that many -- or even any -- of the current justices will still be serving decades from now, if the court carries on the Rehnquist/Roberts tradition, the final ruling could favor us.

The only people who can take care of bad guys with too much money are good guys with too much money.

PACs are like shooting sprees.  You don’t have a chance once they start.  So if the Klock Brothers’ Political Action Committee invades, say, the Republican Party, we need equally funded law abiding citizens to counter spend the PACs.

But always remember, dirty money doesn’t elect people, people elect people.  And until all of us are sufficiently rich, it’s necessary for ordinary citizens to pack greenbacks.

While at home, please be sure you keep them locked up in a greenback safe. And for heaven’s sake, keep them away from children.

And remember… if a rich guy invades your house, the only thing that will stop him is outspending him.

Shrapnel:

--We recently missed mentioning the recently observed the 95th anniversary of women’s suffrage. Congratulations.  And be thankful that the 19th Amendment came before some cliche writer thought up “another all male bastion has fallen” a phrase worked to death but refuses to die.

--We are dispatching Uncle Ralphie of the Rego Park Social Club to interview actor Sean Penn who hasn’t been seen since his escape from a high security soundstage in Burbank.  Come to think of it, no one’s seen Uncle Ralphie lately either.  But we’ve sent him the only kind of message guys like Ralph understand, and we’re sure he’ll get the job done… or else.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1589 Orphan States

1589 Orphan States

Nevada, Utah, Mississippi, Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii. The states that don’t participate in Powerball.

Alaska and Hawaii are orphan states because they are nowhere near the rest of the country.  

Nevada?  If they allowed the almost-national lottery, the casinos would suffer.  If the casinos suffer, the whole state suffers.  And given the water problems and the presence first of Howard Hughes and now Sheldon Addlebrain, Nevada suffers enough.  At least Hughes kept to himself.

Plus how would you like to see all those showgirls, washed up club acts and hookers panhandling on the streets of cities in adjacent states?  Can you imagine Wayne Newton sitting on a streetcorner in Arizona holding a sign that says “Will Croon for Food?”

Mississippi, Alabama and Utah?  Well… that’s Mississippi, Alabama and Utah.  

Easy enough to cross state lines to buy tickets.  Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, Arizona, Colorado, California, Oregon and Idaho don’t send cops around taking down numbers from out of state license plates.

So the country’s first lottery billionaire could come from anywhere.

Americans need to go nuts about something.  How American is it to get nuts about money!  Especially about really really big money.

Many states, even though they allow the game realize that lotteries are a de facto tax on the poor.  Not as bad as a flat income tax would be, though bad enough.

But it’s not the Bill Gateses that buy the tickets.  Well, we don’t know for sure what Gates or anyone else on the Forbes 400 List buys, but no one has ever spotted a Koch brother on line at a 7-11.

Who buys these tickets?  Poor and what’s left of the middle class.  How much do they cost?  Two bucks. But people who buy Powerball also buy state lottery tickets and play the slots, the horses, fantasy football, and on and on.  None of these games cost much if you play once or twice.  But as more people play, your chances of winning diminish.

This is not a diatribe against gambling.  Some of us have played a horse or two and even won a few bucks, maybe lunch money. But never enough to cover the month’s rent.

Old saw: Patience is a virtue.

Not always so. When you’re on the line that leads to the lottery machine, patience is a vice.  The real winners are those of us who don’t have the patience to wait our turn and leave.

Shrapnel (On a Cruz edition):

--Where are the birthers? If Cruz is a “natural born American citizen” because his mother was, what about Obama? Even if he had been born in Kenya -- which he wasn’t -- his mother was an American citizen and what was all the fuss about.

--Cruz’s mother was born in Delaware, Obama’s in Kansas.  Cruz’s father wasn’t a citizen at the time and neither was Obama’s. You can’t have it both ways so parental citizenship either is or isn’t the standard and birth in a state either is or isn’t, but not both.

--Somewhere along the line the constitutional definition of “natural born citizen” has to be determined.  No one wants to give it to the current Supreme Court. The apoplectic responses would probably kill all the justices… an act of cruelty or an act of kindness depending on your view of them… but not both.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1588 Macy's

1588 Macy’s

Macy’s probably is the country’s most recognized store of its kind.  And when it announced it was closing 40 of its 770 branches and cutting 3% of its workforce on one of the worst trading days in recent memory, its stock price was one of the few that rose.

It wasn’t much of a rise, about 2%. But by that logic, it could have boosted its stock higher by firing a larger percentage of its employees.

And to continue that train of thought, it could have made a killing by simply closing all of its stores.

Such is the logic of Wall Street.

Macy’s is your old Aunt.  Someone you rarely think about and rarely call or visit, but always is kind of hovering in the margins of your life.

Macy’s is the can of soup that’s been in your kitchen cabinet since the Bronze Age, the one you stumble over when you’re cleaning and decide to cook only to discover it expired before Ronald Reagan was sworn in for his second term.

Macy’s is the largest snail mail spammer that pours a cascade of confusing coupons into your mailbox and your life each month.  And like that can of soup, many of them expire before you can figure out how to use them.  Or whether to.

They had a lousy 2015 winter season this year.  As did most everyone who tries to sell anything from a physical building and in person.  Hence, the closings.

Actually, there are two kinds of Macy’s: the Miracle on 34th Street and all the rest.  The “main” store is a tourist attraction in the heart of midtown Manhattan where crowds gather, where everything sparkles, where the best merchandise and the most of it is placed.  You know.  Thanksgiving Day parade. July 4th fireworks.

In most of the rest you can bowl in the aisles without fear of injuring yourself or anyone else.

The magic doesn’t carry into the rest of the country from that “main” location.

Why is main in quotes?  Because the headquarters is misplaced in Cincinnati.  You can run almost any kind of a national anything from anywhere in the midwest. But not something so New York as Macy’s.

Why is it in Cincinnati? Because that’s where Federated Department Stores comes from. Federated bought the chain years ago and tried to figure out what to do with it.  They’re still working on that one.

No dissing of the Midwest meant here.  But you can’t run a mid-price NYC department store from anywhere else in the world but NYC.  

That concept works in reverse too.  The Cadillac division of General Motors wrote its own obituary when it moved its headquarters but not its factories out of greater Detroit and into lower Manhattan. It’s just a matter of time.

And look what happened to the New York Jets when they moved to New Jersey. Almost the same with the New York Giants.

Shrapnel:

--Anyone catch Obama’s town hall meeting on guns last night?  If you didn’t here’s the essence:  “I’m spending my final year in office going door to door across this great land of ours and personally confiscating all your guns while Joe Biden handles the day to day chores at the White House.”

Grapeshot:

-The President also said “Michelle doesn’t want me to leave Biden at the White House because he snores and tosses around a lot in his sleep.”

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®  

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1587 Sandbagged

1587 Sandbagged

The problem is sand.  Yes, sand.  Plain old ordinary stuff you find at the beach.  And at the beach, it’s not a problem.  Elsewhere, it’s a different story.

Here are some examples:

Suffolk County, Long Island’s former top non- appointed or elected law enforcer, police chief James Burke has been arrested and charged with obstruction and civil rights offenses.  Other cops may follow.  And the district attorney may have some questions to answer.  What is Long Island?  It’s a glacial deposit, a giant sandbar. To use the strongest form of criticism short of libel or (heaven forbid!) assuming guilt before conviction Sand must impede enforcement.

In the south and midwest, rivers are overflowing their banks and what is failing to keep them under control?  Sand bags.  Tens of thousands of tons of sand unable or unwilling to stem the rivers’ tides. (No, rivers don’t have tides, but you get the idea.)  Sand must be weak.

In the high desert of Oregon, armed militiamen took over a federal wildlife refuge in the ongoing war between “sovereign citizen” ranchers who want to use federal lands and the federal government.  The leaders have used social media to recruit followers.  They’re “willing to kill and be killed” to get their way.  If the feds come in and start shooting, it’ll be Ruby Ridge all over again.  People who say they know the situation from the inside quote those soft spoken good ole boys saying they want to be martyrs.

What’s the high desert of Oregon made of?  Sand.  Sand can make you cuckoo or at least increase your cuckoo-osity.

And then there’s the Middle East.  Syria, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Libya and Jordan.  There, everyone’s doing battle with everyone else.  ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah,  the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Taliban.

What’s the Middle East made of? Sand. Sand can make you crazier than a bunch of American gun nuts because the gun nuts, one way or another will go away.

So here’s the evidence:  Sand impedes proper and effective law enforcement.  Sand doesn’t impede floods.  Sand attracts people who don’t believe the government governs them.  Sand causes wars.

What more evidence do you need?  We must build a wall against sand on the southern border. We must seek covering topsoil for Long Island, the Oregon high desert, and the Middle East.  Only then will we be free of this terrorist substance.

The people rest.

Shrapnel (sand edition):

--Sand apologists say it’s not all bad.  They point to Silicon Valley as a wellspring of goodness.  They don’t yet have Windows 10.

--Sand pacifists say it’s just nature and we can’t and shouldn’t try to tame it. But we always fool with nature. Check out your car’s exhaust pipe.

--Kirk Sand builds guitars that work like a Rolls Royce and sound like a chorus of angels.  But they’re so expensive, almost no one can afford one or live long enough for one to be completed.

Grapeshot:

-The Sands Hotel attracted Sheldon Adleson and turned him into a misguided political influencer.

-Tommy Sands turned popular music into maple syrup.

-Sand in your gas tank will kill your car.

-Sand paper hurts when you sit on it, especially if you’re not wearing pants.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1586 Kale, Kale, the Gang's All Here

1586 Kale, Kale the Gang’s All Here

Uh oh.  Kale can make you sick.  It says so right in Woman’s Day Magazine so it has to be true.  (Bet you didn’t know there still is a Woman’s Day Magazine.)

A news guy with impeccable credentials and excellent reputation posted the article on Facebook.  Two more reasons to say it has to be true. (Name on request.)

But wait.  Isn’t kale supposed to be the miracle veggie that cures everything from iron deficiency anemia to beriberi, to ingrown toenails and dental cavities?

Doesn’t it help lower your cholesterol, ease digestion, maybe even lower the risk of some cancers?  The website World's Healthiest Foods says all this and more.

But here’s part of the article in Woman’s Day:  

In a recent study, molecular biologist Ernie Hubbard found that kale—along with cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and collard greens—is a hyper-accumulator of heavy metals like thallium and cesium. What's more, traces of nickel, lead, cadmium, aluminum, and arsenic are also common in greens, and this contamination affected both organic and standard produce samples.

Plus it tastes awful and it looks and chews like a green Brillo Pad soaked in Angostura Bitters.  So now what do we do?  

No more “cleansing” juices, kale/broccoli/cauliflower and fruit juices in which we sneak in kale?  Do we decommission our Ninja blenders and Nutribullets?  Send Fred Waring back his Waring Blendor?  (That’s how they spelled “blender” when they first came out.  Honest.)

How much arsenic really is in a handful of kale?  Or Aluminum? Or Cadmium?  Has anyone actually died from kale poisoning?

Broccoli, sure.  But kale?  No one uses enough at a time to do any real harm, right?  Cabbage?  Sure.  Especially when it’s made into coleslaw.

When someone in a TV mystery drama kills someone with arsenic, they slip small quantities into food and drink. It builds up.  Voila! Murder.  But as anyone who watches the daily Forensic Files marathon can tell you with PhD level authority that crime labs can find that stuff in a corpse.

Since the marathon went on the air (it seems like ten years ago but it wasn’t) arsenic and antifreeze poisonings have plunged.  Who would willingly eat enough kale to die?

Where are the nanny-staters who want you to stop smoking, drinking, having coffee, pot, sugared beverages, fried chicken and gluten?  Has one single charity been formed?  Why is there no Mothers Against Kale?  People for the Ethical Treatment of Edibles (Peta.) Where are the FTC, the FDA, the CDC?

Where are the supermarkets with a buyback program?

C’mon gang, here’s something unworthy that’s easy to give up.  You don’t even have to make a New Year’s resolution to break later.

Shrapnel:

--Fred Waring lived and died in State College, PA and was born in nearby Tyrone.  Appliance dealers and departments were so shaken by his passing in 1984 that they removed anything with his company name on it from their shelves.  And you still can’t buy one anywhere in either town.

--If low pay isn’t a good enough reason, here’s another one to keep you from a career in journalism.  The Business Insider website reports that the stress level is 95 out of a possible 100 points in a report from the Labor Department.  On the other hand, that’s a lot lower than urologists (100%,) Police, fire and ambulance dispatchers (99) and acute care nurses (97.)  Oddly enough, air traffic controllers didn’t make the list, which casts suspicion on the whole study.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016

1585 Happy New Year 2016

1585 Happy New Year 2016

May your dreams come true at a greater rate than your resolutions succeed.  After all, today a .300 hitter is considered a batting savant. Winning half your games is considered a “winning season.” And whether you say the glass is half empty or half full, it’s still at 50% of capacity.

Resolutions are kind of like Soviet five year plans.  They sure sound good when you hear them. They look good on paper.  Rarely do they turn out as expected.  Or wanted.

In at least one respect, they were better than the resolutions you made for 2016.  Everyone knew and accepted they were unrealistic, maybe even fakes.  Really, in 1928 did anyone expect the USSR to achieve full industrialization by 1932?  Of course not.  The dopes in Washington may have.  But no Russian worth a ruble did.

So what makes you think you’ll be able to fit into that bikini, graduation suit or your Smart-For-Two “car” at some point this year? Face it. If you take up 1 and ½ of the two seats now, you’re unlikely to take up less than 1 ⅓ by January 2017. You still won’t have room for a passenger. And in fact, you may even take up 1 and 9/10.

Which brings us to negative resolutions. Long time listeners or readers of these pieces are familiar with this radical concept.  Resolve to gain ten pounds, drink more coffee and bourbon, smoke more than the usual pack a day and be kind to animals.  Since resolutions almost always fail, so will these and you’ll be better off for it.  Added bonus:  no guilt when you fall short.

How did we get into the resolution trap?  Far as we can tell it started with the Babylonians who promised things to their gods a little over 2,000 years ago.  The Romans did much the same. It didn’t really become a big deal in America until the great depression.

Sometimes we’re slow to pick up on things.

But “new” is a big deal here.  So making resolutions or fresh starts at the beginning of a new year is completely in character for us.

If you don’t believe “new” is a magnet for Americans, test yourself.  Monitor your reaction the next time you hear the word.

Shrapnel:

--Times Square got through the annual New Year celebration with the feared terrorist attack.  Six thousand additional cops on hand.  That’s a good number but no one’s saying how many more than usual that was, if any.

--Assuming the hotel fire in Dubai was not arson, and considering the number of high rise fires there this past year teaches us an important lesson.  Safety rules make sense and Dubai’s may not be strong enough or enforced vigorously enough.  Remember that the next time you wander around a mall or a hotel or a supermarket closer to home.

Happy New Year from the entire staff and management of this blog.  That’s me. I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2016