MAD MEN - A Show About "Nothing"?

I have finished watching the season opener for MAD MEN on my DVR and I give it a solid three thumbs up. :)

A friend posted on Facebook tonight that the show "is about nothing and nothing ever happens". Really? Have we been watching the same TV series for all of these years?

Gosh, MAD MEN is a social commentary on an era gone by, a time when Madison Avenue created things that didn't exist, a time contrasting so much from today when anything goes, there are few social or cultural standards and people once dressed up just to leave the house.

It's about people and their foibles and watching this we know we haven't changed much in 50 years.

The show is about secrets and betrayal and love and lust and all of those things that have made good drama since "cave men" told stories around a camp fire and made hand puppet shadows on a cave rock wall.

MAN MEN is brilliantly written, directed and full of nuance. SEINFELD is a show "about nothing". ;)

http://www.amctv.com/shows/mad-men

Living The Data Intense Life, Or Hardly Living?

It is Saturday night and my wife and I are babysitting two of our grandchildren, so I don't have time to write a full and well-reasoned blog post. That is why I give you this link to an excellent essay on modern-day data distraction, with more personal commentary to come later.

http://blog.commonflame.org/battling-distraction/


We all are increasingly accosted by data and information via smart phones, TV, Internet web site advertising, blogs, news stories, radio, movies, tweets, text messages, IM's, etc. I am a huge consumer of information and love the Internet for that purpose. I am very guilty of consuming information most of the time. I did the same before the Internet as an avid (and continue to be ) book and magazine reader. But we can go too far in our consumption and I am learning that my life and work are much more creative, productive and less stressful by controlling that data stream into my brain better.

This is why so many Americans have sleeping problems and frequent headaches. We are always (or nearly so) consuming data during a typical day, even on weekends.

I urge you to take stock of your life and think about what you value most. I vote for God, family and friends in that order. News and information have their places, but in smaller, better-organized and scheduled chunks than we have now.

I don't stand around with my face glued to a smart phone when idle in public - say, in a grocery store checkout line or waiting between meetings - or when visiting family. I know so many people who do this. I find it rude, and sad. I think about what those folks are missing.

I talk to people, have conversations, watch the birds and the clouds, laugh at children playing and learning. The world God gave us is the most entertaining and informative data there is. I have found enjoying that first, and taking in electronic-distributed information in smaller, controlled doses, is the best pathway to a longer, less-stressed and happier life, both professional and personal.

This has been on my mind this afternoon and evening as I have played with toddlers and dogs outdoors in the beautiful Spring weather. Feeling the breeze on my skin, laughing at childhood discovery, having a conversation with my three year old granddaughter sitting on my lap. This is what life is all about. There is plenty of time to pack our brains with even more data. Times and experiences like these come first.

Links to writing about data overload and distraction as cited in the Common Flame blog:

Sharon Begley writing for Newsweek ... http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/02/27/i-can-t-think.html

Jimi Jones on productivity and setting deadlines in order to relieve stress: http://jimijones.com/productivity/productivity-the-importance-of-setting-deadlines/

Finally, this Bible passage which is among my favourite guides for living life. In essence, there is a right time for doing everything in our lives, just not all at once. :)

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

1 There's an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:

2 -8 A right time for birth and another for death,
A right time to plant and another to reap,
A right time to kill and another to heal,
A right time to destroy and another to construct,
A right time to cry and another to laugh,
A right time to lament and another to cheer,
A right time to make love and another to abstain,
A right time to embrace and another to part,
A right time to search and another to count your losses,
A right time to hold on and another to let go,
A right time to rip out and another to mend,
A right time to shut up and another to speak up,
A right time to love and another to hate,
A right time to wage war and another to make peace.

Now I Have Made It To The Big Time!

Well, I have finally made the big time in the Twitterverse. A prominent Reuters news service financial writer has mentioned me on his official Reuters blog. This is exciting!

Felix Salmon writes about financial news for a global audience via the famed and venerable British news service Reuters. In his 22 March 2012 blog he wrote about Twitter becoming more annoying and mentioned me as the poster boy for those who are both annoyed by Twitter tweeters and, apparenty, also annoying. To him at any rate.

Here is the blog:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/03/22/why-twitter-will-get-more-annoying/#comment-37238

And this was Mr. Salmon's reference to me:

"And then there are people like Porter Versfelt III, who will get annoyed if I dare to express a personal opinion on Twitter. For Mr Versfelt, I have a “core purpose” on Twitter, which is to provide him with financial news, and anything I do outside that purpose is annoying.

Going forwards, all of us are going to find Twitter increasingly annoying. "

This was the tweet I made in reference to Felix Salmon at 12:07 AM on 22 March and what he was responding to on his blog:

"@felixsalmon What does Trayvon Martin have to do with financial news? Can you plz stick to your core purpose here?"

Mr. Salmon had tweeted this:

"Prosecute the killer of our son, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin http://www.change.org/petitions/prosecute-the-killer-of-our-son-17-year-old-trayvon-martin?share_id=zRMaJTMMzv&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter I'm signature 960,458. Let's make it a million."

This was my reply in the comments section of his blog that mentioned me:

"Hey Felix, thanks so much for mentioning me in your blog.

The reason that I tweeted Wednesday evening about your "core purpose" being '... to provide him (me) with financial news ...' was because the public description of your Twitter account is this:

'Felix Salmon is the finance blogger at Reuters.'

Your tweets about the Trayvon Martin shooting incident in Florida had absolutely nothing to do with the financial world in my opinion. As a journalist of some 30 years of experience, I DO find journalists who interject personal editorialization into their work as, yes ... annoying. ;)

I never tweeted that YOU were 'annoying', by the way, as your blog here hints at. :)

So thanks for the free publicity sir. This is a first in my brief Twitterverse career. I now consider myself a Twitter "professional" now that a Reuters reporter has taken the time and effort to present me to the world as someone who annoys him. :)

Sincerely,
Porter Versfelt III
Versfelt Communications Group
Atlanta, Georgia - USA"

Now, back to tweeting. Let's see who I can annoy next. ;)

Gulfstream's Aviation Career Day Is A Good Flight Path

I am so glad to see that Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation in Savannah, Georgia have changed their attitude about communicating with the general public.

Back in 1995, working as a freelance TV producer for Georgia Public Television on the education TV series GEORGIA STORIES, I contacted Gulfstream's head of public relations about doing a show about them and their excellent aircraft.

The focus was on teaching 8th graders about economics with a history bent. I thought Gulfstream would be a perfect Georgia success story to showcase in our show.

Instead, I was told that Georgia 8th graders were not in their client demographic and that Gulfstream was not interested in working with GPTV on a documentary about their company.

http://savannahnow.com/exchange/2012-03-16/high-flying-experience-local-high-school-students-gulfstreams-aviation-career

CNN's Soledad O'Brien - "Social Change" Journalist?

This is an interesting examination of one well-known CNN news anchor and her supposed objectivity.

Michelle Malkin's analysis here rings true, as I have witnessed and experienced this same kind of behaviour among TV anchors and journalists whom I have worked with over the years - from Missouri to Miami and Abilene (Texas) to Atlanta, including at CNN.

Anecdotally, it is interesting to note that many TV photojournalists (TV news cameramen) are often much more conservative than their in-front-of-the-camera, hair-sprayed colleagues.

Malkin writes in her piece (see full article link below):

" ... If you don’t accept the left-leaning agenda of “social change” journalism, you’re enabling racism. If you don’t support the pursuit of racial hiring goals as a primary journalistic and academic goal, you’re selling out."

"Now you know the reason for O’Brien’s thin-skinned reaction to Obama’s critics. When you vet the president, you vet the media. And they don’t like the narrative table-turning one bit."

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/03/14/whats-the-matter-with-soledad-obrien/

It is mind-blowing to me that so many in TV news - both on the network and local levels - cannot see that their on-air advocacy hurts their brand, their credibility and ultimately, the reputation of journalism overall in the United States of America.

Update @ 1413 14 March 2012:

Upon reading this blog, a colleague reminds me not to paint ALL TV journalists with the same broad brush and that many are "moderate" rather than liberal.

I respectfully disagree.

In my 30 years of professional experience in news and regular media, and observing them to present-day, I see that on-air TV journalists - anchors and reporters - are more often than not liberal, especially on the network level. The "system" and corporate culture seems to weed the conservatives out of high-profile, decision-making and public positions.

I have met many, many closet conservatives while working at CNN, NBC and ABC News, local TV news in Miami and Atlanta, and in "Hollywood". I am often approached on the "down-low" by them, eager to speak to a kindred conservative soul in such a liberal profession where they dare not reveal their true beliefs without risking their jobs. In my view it is the new McCarthyism.

One of the reasons I chose to leave regular TV news employment was because of its inherent and pervasive liberality. Off-air comments and discussions among newsroom staff were often disparaging and jaded about anyone or any group who didn't agree with their world-view.

While objectivity isn't an absolute of course, one CAN try, and in my experience, many (not most) TV news reporters and producers don't try very hard today.

SHOULD WE WORRY ABOUT SOLAR STORMS?

Most of you are probably not aware that the biggest solar flare or CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) of solar particles since a least 2000 left the sun Tuesday night and is en route to Earthy as we speak.

The peak of this solar storm will be around 7AM ET Thursday 08 March 2012. Nothing to wish for.

What could happen? Massive loss of communications satellites, terrestrial cell phone service and electrical power outages. This isn't unprecedented. Look up the "Super Storm of 1859 when a similar CME event knocked out American telegraph service nationwide.

Geologic studies have found multiple past solar storms have hit the Earth before humans roamed it in the geologic record. It was not a good outcome for the life that existed then.

I'm not saying this event is a civilization-killer, but one must keep in mind that an X5 solar flare is nothing to cheer or look forward to, unless you are an astronomy nerd. :).

Also, satellite owners will literally put their birds into protection mode, turning their backs on the on-coming solar wind. Some services may shut down while the storm passes, others close shields over vulnerable electronics. There is no 100% protection for anything manmade in space. Also, the ISS astronauts will have to go into their radiation-proof safe room on the space station. The Earth's magnetic field should shield us from the radiation here on the Earth's surface.

What can you do about it? Nothing. Perhaps if you have very valuable shortwave or other electronic gear you might want to unplug all electrical, cable/sat TV, telephone landline cables and DSL/Internet cables connecting to the outside world to prevent damage.

On a positive note, if you live in the northern Hemisphere tonight, look up. You may have your only chance to see an Aurora (Northern Lights) in the mid-western/upper mid-western USA. Canada and Alaska? Definitely.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_SOLAR_STORM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-03-07-13-10-48

You can keep closer tabs on the latest solar news at www.spaceweather.com

This web site is also a great place for solar watchers ... http://www.space.com/14818-solar-flare-magnetic-storm-satellites.html

From Wikipedia about past big solar storms:

"The most powerful flare ever observed was the first one to be observed, on September 1, 1859, and was reported by British astronomer Richard Carrington and independently by an observer named Richard Hodgson. The event is named the Solar storm of 1859, or the "Carrington event". The flare was visible to a naked-eye (in white light), and produced stunning auroras down to tropical latitudes such as Cuba or Hawaii, and set telegraph systems on fire.[11] The flare left a trace in Greenland ice in the form of nitrates and beryllium-10, which allow its strength to be measured today (New Scientist, 2005). Cliver & Salvgaard (2004) reconstructed the effects of this flare and compared with other events of the last 150 years. In their words: While the 1859 event has close rivals or superiors in each of the above categories of space weather activity, it is the only documented event of the last ∼150 years that appears at or near the top of all of the lists."

"In modern times, the largest solar flare measured with instruments occurred on November 4, 2003. This event saturated the GOES detectors, and because of this its classification is only approximate. Initially, extrapolating the GOES curve, it was pegged at X28.[12] Later analysis of the ionospheric effects suggested increasing this estimate to X45.[13] This event produced the first clear evidence of a new spectral component above 100 GHz.[14] Other large solar flares also occurred on April 2, 2001 (X20),[15] October 28, 2003 (X17.2 & X10),[16] September 7, 2005 (X17),[17] February 17, 2011 (X2).[18][19][20] and August 10, 2011 (X6.9).[21] In 1989, during solar cycle 22 two large flares occurred on March 6 (X15) (see: March 1989 geomagnetic storm) and August 16 (X20) causing disruptions in electric grids and computer systems.[22]"

See more about this at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

See and particIpate in the on-going discussion of this solar storm here on my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/VCGTV/posts/383105948384231?notif_t=share_comment

More So-Called Blogosphere "Journalism" Hurts The Real Deal

With a juvenile, crude and amateurish headline like this one, writer Kyle Whitmire, Second Front" and WELD Birmingham (www.weldbham.com)can't be seen as any kind of credible source for news.

"Poll: Santorum comes from behind in Alabama three-way"

http://weldbham.com/secondfront/2012/02/24/poll-santorum-comes-from-behind-in-alabama-three-way/