what makes "good television" ... ?

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Television is inherently boring.

Have you ever watched a televised conversation between two people sitting talking with each other ?

The camera does not move, you see both faces - could you stay awake ?

Even with good speakers, you have to somehow dampen or block out other sounds - another person talking beside you, street noise, a dog barking, etc.

Otherwise, you miss part of the conversation, and the *meaning* of the conversation can get lost - unless you can "rewind"

In real life, in real time, you can ask a person to repeat what they said, but with television, either you get it or you miss it.


Imagine watching a waterfall on a television screen for an hour - could you stay awake ?

What if, while you are watching the water falling, suddenly a boat appears and glides over the edge into the air and down ...

Now your attention is focused and you are wide awake - the *unexpected* has happened !

That is what gets our (human) attention ... and that is what makes *good television*


Yet even what happens to the boat, and to the people in it, does not hold our attention for long - not "on television"

Soon, you are right back to watching water fall, or watching two people talking ... and soon you are asleep.

Your body was already inactive - only vision and hearing at work, and your conscious mind "shut off" having given up trying to process a constant series of tiny bursts of light which enter the eye three times as fast as the conscious mind can process them.

Boring, so you either sleep, or turn off the set and do something *real*


How often have you heard someone say, "Let's relax and watch TV" ... ?

What is considered by television producers as *good television* is a stream of technical effects which keep our attention.

Camera focuses on a face, switches to another face, pulls back so both faces are seen, then the image shifts to another room, printed words are imposed over the image, then you are "outside" followed by a scene of people who are on their way to see the people in the previous scenes ... and there is a pause for a "word from the sponsor"

Images with no aura, removed from context of time and space, events and persons reduced to the same "essence" as commodities, "action" we can do nothing about because it is not real, not here, not now.

Maddening, stressful, never sure what is coming next - the "unusual" and unexpected teasing us to "stay tuned" - illusion necessary to overcome what is boring by itself, technical tricks are used 10 or 12 times each minute to keep our attention focused on what is presented on the set, and we wonder why our children are hyperactive and have short attention spans ... and why we do not feel "relaxed" and why we are short-tempered when we have to be around other people.

Or do we already know, somewhere deep in our subconscious ... ?

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true meaning of Memorial Day ...

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- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO5tPf9LUC4

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Don't stand by my grave

Don't stand by my grave and weep,
For I am not there.
I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond's glint in the snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn's rain.
In the soft blush of the morning light
I am the swift bird in flight.
Don't stand by my grave and cry,
I am not there,
I did not die.

Unknown Native American Author

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Last Goodbye - Revised Version

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCKyfhJx-DU

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I have no respect for Jerry Springer ...

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Jerry Springer profited from people's stupidity.

Jerry Springer viewers enjoyed other people's stupidity, whether it matched or exceeded their own ...

... and that is how Springer profited - not just from his "guests" stupidity.


Exploiting people's weaknesses - their lack of knowledge, their emotions, their willingness to lower themselves for money ...

... is bad enough in itself, but to do it for profit, to profit from doing it - I have zero respect for the man, Jerry.

That fact is of very little relevance.


What is important, what goes by the way, it seems, to those who would market "The Secret" as if it were a secret ...

... is the Law of Attraction - to the society which is so sick it attracts to itself the very worst of itself, and does it again.

Remains blind to itself.


If you are Black or any "colour" other than white and disrespect whites for white oppression of Blacks, you have my respect.

If you are white and disrespect other whites for oppressing minorities or their individuals, you have my respect.

If you are white, please do not wait for me to eulogize you once you have disrespected other whites "just because you can"


If you are stupid, you have the right to remain stupid, and you have the right to be silent ...

... no matter how much some scumbag is willing to pay you to be, or to act, stupid - however economically anemic you are.

No one is improving the quality of anyone's life, regardless of *intention to do good* ... by performing like trained attack dogs.


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what is on your mind today ... ?

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Who decides what images enter our minds ... ?

A study of television has been my focus lately.

Once images enter our minds, they are there forever.

Images which are real, but not real-world experience.

Selected, pre-determined by someone, somewhere ...

... become our own, alone, in a darkened room.

Apart from others, separate from human interaction.

An artificial world of ... ?

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76BboyrEl48

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What Are You Worth ?

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If you are like most people, when asked, "What are you worth?", your answer is expressed as an amount of money. Even if you estimate your worth as the total of all the things you own, you still calculate that total by what those things cost, or what you think you could sell them for, right ?

In other words, the amount of money you would get, or that you gave, for those things. You might even have subtracted an amount you owe to someone to arrive at your "total worth." Bet you did. You are honest, I know.

Okay, so next I will ask what may seem at first a silly question:
"How much is your money worth?"

My questions go to the heart of how we think about people, about our country (any country), about our economy - about how we think of ourselves.

What if I said that were you to gather up all the money in the world - all of it yours, in your hands, right now - you would be worth nothing.

Think about it. What *would* you be worth ?

Most of the money we use today is paper money, and all that paper has value - sure - which is to say a dollar bill, or a Canadian hundred dollar bill, or a thousand pound sterling note, all have the same value, the same as any other piece of paper of similar size. They could be used to write a note to your lover, or perhaps some more utilitarian or immediate use - maybe find a bit of warmth on a cold night by burning them.

To explain what I mean about the "value" of money, it might be easier for you to imagine yourself and your family as the last people alive on planet earth, and in your family's possession is all the money in the world.

What would you purchase with all that money ?

Who would you purchase it from ?

Well, on the positive side, you would possess something of value - your family would never have any trouble starting a fire, never run out of toilet paper, and you would have an endless supply of love notes !

There are two fallacies at work when you calculate your *worth* as an amount of money. Oh, I realize it makes communication with others easier to talk about it that way. Nevertheless, money, in and of itself, has no value - the value of money exists in what is *done* with it, what it is exchanged for, the benefits received by both parties in transacting an exchange, and the satisfaction gained in receiving those benefits.

The second, and in my opinion larger, mistake in assuming your worth to be a sum of money, is that in following such "logic," if all money were to disappear, be outlawed, destroyed, then you would be worth the sum of all that money, which would be zero - nothing.

Now that makes absolutely no sense at all to me.

So from this day and for the rest of your life, I hope you will hold on to the images I have given you here, share them with other, and remember that no matter how much money you do not have, you are always worth more. You may be valued as a parent by a child, you may be a child who is adored by a grandparent. You are the light of someone's life and your smile delights others.

Maybe you entertain people, give them something to talk about or help them laugh, or maybe you simply listen as a trusted companion. You might be an able leader, or instead you are skilled at following instructions and making things happen. Your strength may be in learning, so that you may teach others. Whoever you are, you have a purpose and a place, even if you are still searching for it, and above all, you have great value just as you are - a great value that not all the money in the world could buy.

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Happy Mother's Day !

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A challenge we all face today few of us, I think, see - maybe we do not want to see.

We so easily talk of "others" - creating "ists" and "ers" and "ians" and "izers"

We easily attach a label to a group of people, then no longer see *people* themselves.

That division is partly self-induced, partly encouraged by forces outside our "society"


What any person does as personal choice in no way *includes* them in some group.

What any person does as personal choice has consequences that one must live with.

What any person does as a matter of personal choice is *judged* by natural laws ...

... the very same laws which result in consequences for each of us, for how we live.


-- How we love each other, care for each other, sustain each other - or not --


Perhaps today, this weekend, now and forward, you will stop and think - pause

Before you condemn any other person, before relegating someone so much like you ...

... to a *distant* group apart from you and yours, leaving you and yours apart as well.

I admit sometimes I must pause too - correct my words and actions for my own sake.


I grew up in the United States of America hearing daily admonitions about our enemy.

A primary warning given us then was that our *enemy* would divide us, conquer us.

Today, we all allow forces we neither see nor understand the existence or purpose of ...

... to divide us in so many ways, that we are now divided - vulnerable, conquerable.


Today, stop a minute and draw deeply on your own mother's love.

Ask yourself how Mom would love the one you set apart were that person her own child.

Ask how you will survive where you have allowed yourself to so coldly judge others ...

... those making choices so similar to your own - put yourself in their place each time.


We are caught up in spiritual war - in which we can lose our own souls in wrong action.

At the same time, we are caught in an economic war in this physical world of ours.

Both critical in their separate ways, and both having their "deceivers" at work among us.

Both are tied inseparably, and the Bible is not the only source of that particular truth.


JB