Marketing

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Lando Kalriz:

The Strength Of Being American

... and staying American.

We're all

"others"

So none of us

is "other"

In America

We deserve better - our kids deserve better.

Today's WTF

Boeing has been one of the truly great airplane makers for 100 years.

In WW2, the B17 brought air crews home safe with battle damage so bad there was nearly as much airplane missing as there was airplane.

In the 1950s, when a lot of people figured Lockheed had commercial air travel sewed up with their Constellation, boom - here comes the Boeing 707, and the Jet Set was born.

Meanwhile, Boeing's B52 has been in service since the mid-1950s, and is expected to keep flying for another 25 or 30 years.

I say all that because the company has been run pretty badly for the last 10 years or so. Badly enough to have killed about 350 passengers because of poor quality assurance measures - software glitches that took down 2 of their 737 MAX airplanes, and most recently, a door blew off another airplane in mid-flight, and various other little mishaps that make me very glad I almost never fly anywhere anymore.

Anyway, it's pretty indicative of a fucked up situation here in USAmerican Inc, when the business culture allows for a guy who's been runnin' the joint (kinda into the ground, so to speak) gets a nice fat paycheck on his way out the door.

Departing Boeing CEO gets nearly $33 million in 2023 total compensation

April 5 (Reuters) - The 2023 pay package of Boeing's CEO, who recently announced his departure in the midst of a safety crisis, rose about 45% to nearly $33 million, the U.S. planemaker said on Friday.

Boeing said much of CEO Dave Calhoun's compensation is in deferred stock that has fallen in value following a January mid-air panel blowout.

The adjusted value of Calhoun's total 2023 compensation is $24.8 million, the company said in a regulatory filing. Boeing shares have tumbled nearly 30% this year as the company wrestles with quality concerns from regulators and customers following the Jan. 5 blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 jet.

The proxy does not mention an exit package for Calhoun, who announced on March 25 that he will step down from the top job by year-end. In 2022, he received $22.6 million in total compensation, according to the filing.

Calhoun's potential retirement payouts were valued at more than $44 million as of year end 2023, the filing showed.

Production of Boeing's strong-selling 737 MAX has slipped in recent weeks as U.S. regulators step up factory checks and the planemaker seeks to boost quality. European rival Airbus has extended its lead in the market for single-aisle jets.

The crisis led to a broad management shakeup with Boeing board chair Larry Kellner and Stan Deal, head of the commercial planes business, also leaving. Chief Operating Officer Stephanie Pope has replaced Deal.

The board's new chair, Steve Mollenkopf, told shareholders in Friday's filing: "I promise that I personally, and we as a board will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to get this company to where it needs to be."

Calhoun took home $5 million in pay in 2023 after declining to be considered for his $2.8 million bonus, compared with $7 million in 2022. Earlier filings show Calhoun did not receive a bonus over the last three years.

Deal earned $2.6 million in actual pay in 2023 and his total compensation jumped 42% to $12.5 million, although Boeing estimates the current value at $9.7 million.

Boeing's board also decided this year that the value of long -term executive officer awards would be reduced by the percentage decline in the company's stock price since the blowout and the 2024 award date.

Due to that reduction, Calhoun will receive an award of $13.25 million in 2024, compared with a target of $17 million. A year earlier, the award was $21.25 million.

After two separate 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed a combined 346 people, Boeing had revamped its executive compensation policies to emphasize product safety and quality.

In 2024, for Boeing's commercial airplanes, safety and quality will be assigned a weighting of 60% when deciding annual incentives, compared with a 40% weighting for financial performance.

Yeah, hey - I'm sure all those dead people feel quite a bit better now that the company has been more or less forced to make the executive committee's bonuses dependent on whether or not THEIR AIRPLANES FALL OUT OF THE FUCKING SKY.

Long-term incentive awards for Boeing's executive officers will also include new metrics, such as mandating an employee culture survey to assess safety management.

In February, an expert panel reviewing safety management found a "disconnect" between Boeing's senior management and employees on safety culture.

Rosanna Weaver, director of wage justice & executive pay at shareholder advocacy organization As You Sow, said she thinks Boeing is doing the right thing in rewarding safety, although such efforts should have been there "in the first place."

Today's Today

On February 24, 1964, Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship.

I listened to it on the radio with my dad, who couldn't believe Liston lost.

My old man didn't like Ali because he was "always runnin' his mouth", and would insist "the fix was in". 

But then we got a chance to see the film of the Ali vs Cleveland Williams fight a few years later.

I could see the change in his attitude as he turned to me and said, "A heavyweight shouldn't be able to move like that - I guess it ain't braggin' if you can do it".

Today's Sign Of The Apocalypse

Just lemme say I'm sick to fucking death of this Shock Jock Culture, where it doesn't matter what your content is, as long you present it by screaming at the top of your lungs with a red-faced hysteria fit for a WWE promo.

This shit makes me less confident in a clear bright future for humankind.

ESPN knew Pat McAfee would bend the rules. Then he blew them up.

Before they hired Pat McAfee, ESPN executives made a decision: They couldn’t change the YouTube star.

The tank-top-wearing former punter would by definition need to be handled differently than anyone who had ever worked for the sports media giant. It was crucial, executives all the way up to Chairman Jimmy Pitaro thought, that McAfee help ESPN reestablish its cachet with younger sports fans.

The stunners. The cheers. The home runs, hat tricks and gameday magic. Don’t miss out with The Sports Moment, a newsletter for the biggest sports news.
So ESPN made concessions. They licensed McAfee’s show, which gave them less oversight of content; they allowed profanity; they blessed McAfee’s tank tops. Executives also discussed how they would deal with the fallout when McAfee inevitably said something that drew public scrutiny, including insulting a business partner like the NBA or NFL.

Some inside ESPN hoped to duplicate the sort of diplomatic immunity seemingly enjoyed by Charles Barkley, the face of TNT’s NBA coverage. McAfee, they thought, could eventually be like Barkley: loud and opinionated, but also granted a get-out-of-jail-free card to say things others couldn’t.

The network knew there would be some growing pains — a few news cycles that would test those limits. The past two weeks, though, went beyond anything the network troubleshooted.

One of his paid guests, star quarterback Aaron Rodgers, made inferences about Jimmy Kimmel’s connection to the serial abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Rodgers returned to the show and said he had not called Kimmel a pedophile but didn’t apologize — before launching into a 20-minute rant about vaccine efficacy. McAfee, meanwhile, called a longtime senior executive a “rat” on ESPN’s airwaves.

In between, there were cryptic tweets from McAfee with clips from “Scarface” and a seven-minute monologue by Kimmel — whose late-night ABC show, like ESPN, is part of the Disney family — in which he called Rodgers “too arrogant to know how ignorant he is.”

ESPN’s and Disney’s top executives were silent through it all, but on Wednesday, McAfee announced Rodgers would not return to his show this season, and McAfee later issued a long missive on social media. (Rodgers then made a brief football-focused appearance Thursday.)

“I certainly don’t love that I’ve found myself in political wars and public beefs because of something that a guest has said on our show or something that my dumb a-- has said,” McAfee wrote. “I think what I’ve come to realize is that it’s gonna come with the territory of this venture. We are much more aware of that now.”

The week-long episode was among the most fractious in the network’s history and has left plenty inside ESPN’s Bristol, Conn., campus thinking both about McAfee’s future, the network’s, and whether his ascension — and defiance — signals a new era for the TV behemoth. This story is based on interviews with nearly a dozen people in and around ESPN, including current and former employees and executives, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, fearing professional repercussions. ESPN declined to comment.

McAfee sits at the intersection of two fundamental questions for ESPN. The first is as old as the network: whether its power lies in its platform or the talent. The second is whether it is possible for ESPN to be both a TV network and a cutting-edge digital and streaming platform.

In one of his segments last week, McAfee lambasted an old guard at ESPN that he said is out to get his show, calling them “old hags.” He named a particular executive, Norby Williamson, publicly accusing him of “sabotaging” the show by playing a role in a story in the New York Post about his flagging linear TV ratings.

ESPN has a history of suspending talent who have spoken out against colleagues or the company, from Tony Kornheiser to Keith Olbermann to Bill Simmons. Williamson, a polarizing figure at ESPN, has never been shy about his belief that talent is subservient to the ESPN brand, and he famously clashed with stars Stuart Scott and Jemele Hill. Last week, former ESPN host Dan Le Batard suggested Williamson had played a role in his exit from ESPN, too.

ESPN president James Pitaro knew partnering with McAfee carried risks. But this would have been difficult to game plan for. (Celeste Sloman/For The Washington Post)
Several years ago, Williamson told The Washington Post: “The perception became that you could just roll a talent out there and it doesn’t matter what he or she is saying — that the content didn’t matter. I just never believed that.”

The current media landscape is more fractured, but the biggest stars at ESPN — most notably Stephen A. Smith — have been given higher and higher salaries, more latitude to pursue outside projects and to talk about whatever they want. Smith reportedly earns $12 million a year; McAfee reportedly is at $15 million with four and a half years left on the deal that began in the fall.

McAfee has gotten away with testing the limits, at least for now, because Pitaro and ESPN made an enormous bet on him. An ESPN executive with a digital background, Mike Foss, told The Post last week that the future of ESPN will be driven by people like McAfee. “As you turn to direct-to-consumer...it’s a personality-driven industry way more than a brand-driven industry,” he said.

Indeed, with cord-cutting eating into the company’s cable subscribers — and ending the decades-long gravy train that came with them — ESPN has spent the past several years orchestrating a pivot to its direct-to-consumer streaming platform, planned for next year. TV is still where profits are, while a leaner digital future awaits. McAfee, whose greatest success has been as a YouTuber, is a piece of that strategy. He, like ESPN, is trying to succeed on the internet and TV, where audiences and successful content don’t look the same and it’s difficult to master both mediums.

Consider Williamson and Foss.

“Let’s not overthink ‘SportsCenter.’ The goal is to get more people to watch today than watched yesterday,” Williamson once told his staff, as quoted in that Post story from 2018.

Foss, meanwhile, told The Post last week that the whole conception of success for a studio show is going to change because of streaming: “Mitigating churn is going to be the key,” he said. “People coming to ESPN-Plus for a live event and then keeping that subscription because of the other things available to them, like Stephen A. [Smith], [Mike] Greenberg and McAfee.”

McAfee will likely offer some glimpse into ESPN’s evolution, whether he remains at the network or not, and his colleagues will be watching closely. Some staffers this week wondered if the company’s muted response stemmed from a fear of the culture wars — not wanting to get called “too woke” by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). Others wondered how ESPN might ever discipline a talent again like it once did Simmons and Olbermann. Others wondered why McAfee couldn’t just appear on YouTube and ESPN-Plus. Still others, more sympathetic to McAfee, thought Rodgers had taken advantage of the segments.

(One executive said they would have tried for an opt-out in McAfee’s contract, given his history and the length. ESPN declined to comment on whether there is any such clause in McAfee’s deal.)

Olbermann, the former “SportsCenter” anchor who now hosts the “Countdown” podcast, wondered if McAfee cared at all about ESPN.

“I do not begrudge Pat McAfee his success, and I don’t dare to criticize his style that got him here,” Olbermann said. "But I don’t think he gives a damn about ESPN as an institution or what it has to maintain to be as successful as it is now, much less stave off the deterioration of cable. If that wasn’t obvious beforehand, it was obvious this week.”

But plenty of people around the industry also agreed that if it’s an ignominious moment for ESPN, it’s also dangerous for McAfee. He has worked for a number of media outlets in his brief career, some with their own contentious exits, and even if ESPN is less than it once was there is still no other platform that offers the same visibility and money.

“The network always outlasts the talent,” Olbermann said.

Money

... always money.

It’s hard to quantify the value of painter and all-around cultural icon Bob Ross, but $9.85 million is a good start.

The very first on-air painting from the very first episode of Ross’ beloved series “The Joy of Painting” is looking for a new owner after being kept safe for decades by one of the show’s early volunteers.

“A Walk in the Woods” was painted live on-air in January of 1983, and typifies everything the public came to love about Ross and his art-positive mission. It depicts a placid woodland scene in shades of gold and blue, painted with Ross’ preferred “wet on wet” technique, with deceptively complex-looking brushstrokes and, of course, an abundance of happy little trees. In the lower lefthand corner, Ross’ signature stands out in red.

The work was acquired by Minneapolis-based art gallery Modern Artifact earlier this year. Before that, it was owned by a one-time volunteer at the Falls Church, Virginia PBS station where the first season of “The Joy of Painting” was aired. The volunteer bought it in November of 1983 at a station fundraising auction, just months after it was painted. It has been verified as authentic by Bob Ross Inc.

Scary Shit

I can applaud media for trying to provide a public service.

I get a badly ookie feeling when they tell me how to survive a road rage incident - like it's just another life hack tip - like how to get more for my grocery money.

You are nine kinds of fucked up, America.

What to Do in a Road-Rage Situation: Life-Saving Colorado State Patrol Tips

A road-rage incident on Interstate 25 in Denver shortly before 3 p.m. yesterday, June 13, left two people dead and 25-year-old Stephen Long in police custody.

According to the Denver Police Department, two men were riding in one vehicle and Long was driving another behind them when they got into some kind of altercation heading north on I-25 around Alameda Avenue. The vehicle in front stopped in the right lane of traffic by the Sixth Avenue viaduct, and the two men got out. Long stopped, too, though he did not get out of his car.

When the passenger of the other car approached, Long reportedly pulled out a gun and shot him. He then drove away, onto the Eighth Avenue ramp; the driver of the other car followed, and Long allegedly fired multiple shots. The driver fell out of his car, and was later found dead by the exit.

An off-duty Denver officer alerted the department about the incident, and Long was arrested soon after in northwest Denver. He's being held on two counts of first-degree murder. I-25 was closed for several hours while officers studied the scene; the investigation is ongoing.

In the wake of this latest road-rage incident, plenty of drivers in the metro area have been wondering how they'd react in a similar situation. And the Colorado State Patrol has some potentially life-saving advice.

A few years go, we caught up with Trooper Joshua Lewis, the award-wining public information officer for the CSP, to talk about what to do during a road-rage incident. "Unfortunately, there's no black-and-white rule that will work for every single scenario," he told us, before offering best practices that can be applied in a wide variety of circumstances.

"The biggest thing is to get yourself away from the danger," Lewis said. "That obviously doesn't mean speeding away at 100 miles per hour. It means slow down, separate yourself, take an exit, get yourself out of it, and then, whenever possible, contact the proper authorities."

That may include dialing 911.

"If it's an emergency situation, 911 is appropriate," he noted. "Hopefully, you'll have the location, a description of the vehicle, the license plate and maybe even a description of the party, if possible."

Lewis stressed, however, that "the first thing to do is get away from danger. Don't put yourself in more harm's way in order to get that information."

Aggressive behavior on the part of one driver can inspire otherwise calm folks to fly off the handle, too — and that's definitely the wrong thing to do, he said: "This is where we have to fight our own human nature. We have to realize that most people are not intentionally driving poorly or cutting you off or not using a turn signal as a deliberate, specific offense to another person. It may simply be a matter of distraction — that they weren't paying attention for a few seconds. Or maybe they are a bad driver. But ultimately, drivers should try not to take it as a personal offense. Take a few deep breaths and make sure you're being as safe as possible."

Of course, many drivers who've unintentionally made someone mad will want to make amends. But according to Lewis,attempting to do so can actually cause more trouble than it avoids.

"There's nothing that says you need to get out of your vehicle and engage somebody who's coming up to you," he pointed out. "And what may be a simple way to indicate that you didn't mean to cut somebody else off may be taken as a sign of aggression. So the best recommendation is don't engage, period."

Lewis said that he understands the motivation of drivers who do otherwise: "We all understand what can take place. Maybe you cut somebody off or you weaved out of a lane and somebody took great offense. You want to apologize, to let them know you had no intention of doing that. So you give a little wave as a mea culpa. But if they're upset, they may take it as an aggressive kind of gesture. As much as we might want to engage or even apologize, it's typically best to just separate."

The same goes for shrugs, smiles or other facial expressions, according to Lewis. If another driver is already so overwhelmed by indignation that he's giving chase, he may interpret something meant kindly as sarcasm or ridicule.

When a furious person is following another driver, other options are available — but they should generally be choices of absolute last resort.

"If need be, you can drive to a law-enforcement office," he said. "But if you have a phone and you're having to look up how to get to that place, it's better to call 911, indicate that you're afraid for your life for whatever reason, and then follow what the dispatcher tells you. Then we and dispatch and officers responding will know where you are and what's going on at that moment, rather than you taking an exit and going someplace else.

"It's harder to find you even if you're coming toward an office of a law enforcement agency, because chances are they didn't receive that call and they have no idea you're coming," he added. "Most 911 centers aren't typically located in a lot of actual police departments, especially if they're smaller satellite stations. Driving to one may not mean they know what's going on in your case, especially if you're in the Denver metro area, where you may change jurisdictions ten times over the course of ten miles. So sticking to 911 is still the best course of action in that case."

For the most part, Lewis concluded, "It mostly boils down to either separating yourself from that situation if it's being caused by someone else or just letting things go and making sure you're as safe as possible."

Gun Worship

Gun Idolatry Is Destroying the Case for Guns

David French is a New York Times Opinion columnist. He is a lawyer, writer and veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is a former constitutional litigator, and his most recent book is “Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.”

On June 26, 2018, our family experienced one of the most terrifying nights of our lives. It began with a strange and chilling direct message to our son — an image of three Klan hoods. That was strange enough, but sadly not all that surprising. From the moment that I’d first expressed opposition to Donald Trump and Trumpism, our multiracial family (my youngest daughter, who is adopted, is Black) had faced an avalanche of threats, doxxing and vile racism.

Alt-right trolls had photoshopped images of my daughter into gas chambers and of her face onto old pictures of slaves. They had placed images of dead and mutilated Black Americans in the comments section of my wife’s blog. The threats had not stopped after Trump won. If anything, by 2018 they had escalated once again. So the Klan hoods sent to my son — which would have been chilling under any circumstances — were particularly ominous. What happened next was worse.

Within moments, my son received another message, a picture of a road several miles from our house. Then another picture arrived. A road sign. This one was closer. Someone seemed to be coming to our home.

This was not the first such incident. A few years earlier, a man had driven to our house, positioned his car to block our driveway, confronted my wife and kids and demanded to see me (I wasn’t home). He was later seen driving slowly around the parking lot of my kids’ school.

I was born in Alabama and grew up in Tennessee and Kentucky. As a son of the South, I was no stranger to firearms. We had a gun in our home. I learned to shoot at a young age. So did my wife. After the episode of the man demanding to see me, she not only bought a handgun, she attended multiple classes to train in armed self-defense.

So, yes, we had guns. And when my son received the Klan hood messages — as well as in other similar situations — we were glad we did. While we scrambled to determine whether the Klan hoods and street sign images were truly threatening or intended to be merely harassing, and while we considered whether to call the police (we did), I knew that we would not be defenseless if the threat were real and if our stalkers arrived before the police.

Thankfully, no one came to our house. It was likely just more harassment, but the presence of a police car outside our home may have deterred something more serious. I share this story to make two disclosures: Yes, we own guns. And yes, I support gun rights, not just for hunting or shooting sports, but for the purpose of self-defense. I’ve written in support of gun rights for years. I grew up in a culture that approached firearms responsibly, safely and with a sober mind. They were a tool — a dangerous tool, to be sure — but nothing more. In a fallen and dangerous world, a responsible, trained gun owner could help keep his or her family safe.

But the gun rights movement is changing. In many quarters of America, respect for firearms has turned into a form of reverence. As I wrote in 2022, there is now widespread gun idolatry. “Guns” have joined “God” and “Trump” in the hierarchy of right-wing values. At the edges, gun owners have gone from defending the rights of people to own semiautomatic rifles like AR-15s to openly brandishing them in protests, even to the point of, for example, staging an armed occupation of parts of the Michigan Capitol during anti-lockdown protests.

But we’re now facing something worse than gun idolatry. Too many armed citizens are jittery at best, spoiling for a fight at worst. In recent days we’ve seen a rash of terrible shootings by nervous, fearful or angry citizens. A young kid rings the bell on the wrong door and is shot. A young woman drives into the wrong driveway and is shot. A cheerleader accidentally tries to get in the wrong car and is pursued and shot, along with her friend. A basketball rolls into a man’s yard, and a neighboring 6-year-old girl and her father are shot.

All of these episodes occurred over the course of just six days.

Yet even worse than such shootings, which occurred because of fear or sudden rage is the phenomenon that begins with a person who seems to want to fight, who deliberately places himself in harm’s way, uses deadly force and then is celebrated for his bloody recklessness. Take Kyle Rittenhouse. At age 17, Rittenhouse took an AR-15-style weapon to a riot in Kenosha, Wis., to, he said, “protect” a Kenosha business.

When you travel, armed, to a riot, you’re courting violent conflict, and he found it. He used his semiautomatic weapon to kill two people who attacked him at the protest, and a jury acquitted him on grounds of self-defense. But the jury’s narrow inquiry into the moment of the shooting doesn’t excuse the young man’s eagerness to deliberately place himself in a situation where he might have cause to use lethal violence.

And what has been the right’s response? Rittenhouse has gone from defendant to folk hero, a minor celebrity in populist America.

Or take Daniel Perry, the Army sergeant who was just convicted of murdering an armed Black Lives Matter protester named Garrett Foster. Shortly after the conviction, Tucker Carlson effectively demanded a pardon. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas responded the next day, tweeting that “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney.”

Yet Abbott ignored — or did not care — about the facts exposed at trial. Perry had run a red light and driven straight into the protest, nearly striking Foster’s wife with his car. Witnesses said Foster never pointed his gun at Perry. Even Perry initially told the police he opened fire before Foster pointed his gun at him, saying, “I didn’t want to give him a chance to aim at me.”

But the story gets worse. In social media messages before the shooting, it was plain that Perry was spoiling for an opportunity to shoot someone. His messages included, “I might have to kill a few people on my way to work they are rioting outside my apartment complex” and “I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”

That is not a man you want anywhere near a gun. Kyle Rittenhouse is not a man you want anywhere near a gun.

Our nation’s gun debate is understandably dominated by discussions of gun rights. But it needs to feature more accountability for gun culture. Every single feasible and constitutional gun control proposal — including the red flag laws that I’ve long advocated (which allow law enforcement to remove weapons from people who broadcast deadly intent or profound instability) — will still leave hundreds of millions of American guns in tens of millions of American hands.

I shared the account at the beginning of this piece to help explain to opponents of gun rights that there are times when a firearm can be the only thing that stands between profound evil and the people you love. I also share it to tell my gun-owning friends that I get it. I understand. I’ve faced more threats in the last few years than they might experience in 10 lifetimes.

But this I also know: Gun rights carry with them grave responsibilities. They do not liberate you to intimidate. They must not empower your hate. They are certainly not objects of love or reverence. Every hair-trigger use, every angry or fearful or foolish decision, is likely to spill innocent blood.

Moreover, every one of these acts increases public revulsion of gun ownership generally. The cry for legal and moral reform will sweep the land. America will change and gun rights will diminish. And the gun owners and advocates who fail to grasp the moral weight of their responsibility will be to blame.

It's An Affectation

I don't really know if this bit is a real thing, or meant to satirize misogyny, or whatever. But I'm there for it.

Take it from someone who used to sound a lot like this - and is grateful that a friend finally called me on it - the vocal fry is annoying.

Ron Livingston as Loudermilk (on Amazon Prime)

Today's Silliness

As indicators of the decay of American culture go, there's nothing more telling than a billionaire movie maker who throws a pile of money at a forensic study in order to settle an argument about a fictionalized historical episode.

Considering our current situation - war in Europe, American democracy under existential threat, Climate Change, etc - which adds up to an increasing probability that we're ensuing the premature extinction of the human species - I wish this could actually be a topic on the list of priorities worthy of debate.

But c'mon, Jim - we've got nothing better to do?

James Cameron said a forensic analysis concluded that 'only one could survive' during the door scene between Jack and Rose in 'Titanic'

• James Cameron said he commissioned a scientific study on the famous door scene in "Titanic."
• Fans debated over the years whether Jack could have fit on the wooden debris with Rose.
• Cameron said the analysis concluded that only one of the fictional lovers could have survived.
• James Cameron said he wants to end the debate over the door scene from "Titanic" — and he has a scientific study to back him up.

In an interview with the Toronto Sun published Friday, the director of the 1997 film said he had a forensic analysis done on a replicated version of the famous moment, noting that he wanted to "put this whole thing to rest and drive a stake through its heart once and for all."

The scene features the movie's protagonists, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, floating in the ocean after the sinking of the Titanic. DiCaprio's character Jack Dawson dies from hypothermia in the icy water while Winslet's Rose DeWitt Bukater survives after lying on a piece of wooden debris.

Fans have debated for decades whether both of the characters could have survived on the raft. Cameron said the study, which was done with the help of a hypothermia expert, concluded only one person could make it out alive.

"We took two stunt people who were the same body mass of Kate and Leo and we put sensors all over them and inside them and we put them in ice water and we tested to see whether they could have survived through a variety of methods and the answer was, there was no way they both could have survived. Only one could survive," he said.

Cameron also said he still doesn't regret writing Jack's tragic death.

"No, he needed to die. It's like 'Romeo and Juliet.' It's a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality," the filmmaker said. "The love is measured by the sacrifice."

According to Entertainment Weekly, the experiment Cameron conducted will air on National Geographic next year. It will coincide with the restoration re-release of "Titanic" in theaters over Valentine's Day weekend.

Winslet also weighed in on the dispute recently. She told podcast host Josh Horowitz in an interview shared Friday that while she thinks both Jack and Rose could fit on the door, she doesn't think it would stay afloat.

"If you put two adults on a stand-up paddleboard, it becomes immediately extremely unstable," she said. "So the reality is, it was a door. I have to be honest, I actually don't believe that we would have survived if we had both gotten on that door. I think he would have fit but it would have tipped and it would not have been a sustainable idea."

Today's Radicalization

Carlson's commentary is another not-too-veiled threat.

He's saying it's wrong for women to criticize men, and that if they don't stop, young men will feel justified in murdering more people.

He is, in effect, encouraging the nutballs - it's basically a variation on Stochastic Terrorism.

This is far more than a hint. The Press Poodles need to get this shit straight, and start calling it what it is.

Newsweek:

Tucker Carlson Suggests Shootings Are Result of Lectures on Male Privilege

Tucker Carlson suggested on his Tuesday show that women lecturing men about male privilege is a contributing factor to mass shootings in the United States.

His comments came after the mass shooting at a July 4th parade in Highland Park, Illinois, that saw at least seven people killed and more than two dozen people injured. Following the shooting, police arrested 22-year-old Robert E. Crimo III as the main suspect and charged him with seven counts of first-degree murder.

During his show, Carlson also claimed that poor mental health is a significant facet of why mass shootings happened and said that there were many people like Crimo across America.

"Look at Robert 'Bobby' Crimo, would you sell a gun to that guy, does he seem like a nut case? Of course, he does," Carlson said. "So why didn't anyone raise an alarm? Maybe it is because he didn't stand out. Maybe it is because there are a lot of young men in America who suddenly look and act like this guy. That is not an attack, it is just true."

He added: "Like Crimo, they inhabit that solitary fantasy world of social media, porn and video games."

Carlson then went on to claim these same men may be high on drugs and angry because they believe their lives will be worse than their parents'.

"They are high on government-endorsed weed, 'smoke some more, it is good for you.' They are numbed by the endless psychotropic drugs that are handed out in every school in the country by crackpots posing as counselors. Of course, they are angry, they know that their lives will not be better than their parents', they will be worse. That is all but guaranteed, they know that. They are not that stupid." he said.

"And yet the authorities in their lives, mostly women, never stop lecturing them about their so-called privilege. 'You are male, you are privileged.' Imagine that, try and imagine an unhealthier, unhappier life than that. So a lot of young men in America are going nuts," Carlson continued.

"Are you surprised? By the way, a shockingly large number of them have been prescribed psychotropic drugs by their doctors, SSRIs or anti-depressants. That would include quite a few mass shooters."

Carlson also questioned why the authorities did not act more on the red flags they had seen from Crimo, prior to his alleged actions in the July 4 attack.

Carlson then played a snippet from a press conference held Tuesday regarding the shooting. Deputy Chief Christopher Covelli of the Lake County sheriff's office and the Lake County major crimes task force highlighted the instances where police encountered Crimo.

He said in April 2019, police were contacted by someone who had learned a week prior, Crimo had attempted to die by suicide. Police then spoke with Crimo and his parents and the matter was passed over to mental health professionals.

In the second instance, in September 2019, Crimo had a large collection of knives confiscated by the police after saying he "was going to kill everyone."

And also too:

It's not a stretch to see this as a pretty standard conflation of manipulative disinformation - an attempt to skew the issue in a way that gets people riled up and confused, and keeps them stuck in the boiler.

Carlson is taking the standard tropes, ie: "It's the mental health", together with "The doctors and the schools don't know what they're doing", together with "We should be enforcing the Red Flag Laws we have on the books instead of passing all these new laws" in order to get it all back to that comfortable stasis that makes it easy to sell dick pills and panty liners, so the rubes actually finance their own subjugation.

And that brings us back around to the point of the exercise, which is - as always - to tear down good government and keep people on edge until a critical mass is achieved, at which point it all explodes into an overwhelming popular demand for Daddy State rule. "We are ungovernable - save us, Daddy - please."

A Short Film

American Exceptionalism

It's mostly the self-image thing about being a rugged individualist. We like to think we are proudly independent - we're out there on our own - man against the wilderness - carving a life out of the bounties God himself has given us dominion over, with grit and an unrelenting thirst for self-determination - and blah blah fucking blah.

One thing - we also insist on making it a little easier for ourselves, mostly by taking steps to deny that freedom to others - especially to (eg) women.

see SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v Wade

Anyway, it's not all good and it's not all bad - Kite & Key Media

It's Confusing

I think the Super Bowl halftime show yesterday was pretty good - and not because "conservatives" hated it. That's a plus, but it's not the thing for me.

I'm not at all a fan of Rap or Hip Hop or whatever the specific genres and sub-genres are called these days, and even though I wasn't paying all that much attention to it - because I've never paid much attention to halftime shows - I managed to perceive some pretty decent musicality on stage. There was some music in that music.

But I'm confused because the consensus seems to be that if you liked it, then according to "conservatives" you're hedonistic and over-sexualized and you're the reason for the downfall of the empire.

But, according to the 18-34 gang, if you liked it, then you're old, and fossilized, and culturally ignorant because - c'mon man - Snoop Dogg?

So, being all typically American and shit, I'll go with that egocentric thing we usually pull out of our asses at times like these, and say I must be doing something right cuz everybody's telling me I'm wrong.

Besides, what do want? You wanna bring back the Rockettes? Elvis impersonators? Up With People?

How 'bout that Disney clusterfuck from 1977?

So get serious here. You're not watching the moon landing. It's the halftime show at a fuckin' football game. You're gonna turn down the TV, crank up the stereo, go take a piss and head outside to share a doobie or throw the frisbee or something.

The Fantasy Industrial Complex

Kurt Anderson - How America Went Haywire

Safe to say - there is no "Real America". This whole enterprise is built on a nebulous phrase in the preamble of our constitution.

"...in order to form a more perfect union..."

It's our great strength - we understand that while perfection is unattainable, we can always make it a little better "for ourselves and our posterity" if we can deal straight with each other, and just keep the thing moving forward.

At the same time, it can be our great weakness. Because evil men will always be looking for opportunities to pervert and twist the meaning of words, in order to take good people's desire simply to be treated fairly and to live in peace - and use it as a weapon against them.

Our History

The story of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings is one that speaks accurately and profoundly about America's original sin - the contradiction that continues to stab at the heart of our very existence.

Now we call it "paradox" because we like to think it's been mostly resolved, but when 30% of our population still believes in (or is sympathetic to) the notion of separation by class or by "race", then it has to be obvious that we haven't resolved much of anything - we've only changed the phrasing.

Remember your Ayn Rand: Contradiction exists, but it cannot prevail.

From right here in my own backyard - Monticello.org:

Like countless enslaved women, Sally Hemings bore children fathered by her owner. Female slaves had no legal right to refuse unwanted sexual advances. Sally Hemings was the child of an enslaved woman and her owner, as were five of her siblings. At least two of her sisters bore children fathered by white men. Mixed-race children were present at Monticello, in the surrounding county, across Virginia, and throughout the United States. Regardless of their white paternity, children born to enslaved women inherited their mothers’ status as slaves.

Unlike countless enslaved women, Sally Hemings was able to negotiate with her owner. In Paris, where she was free, the 16-year-old agreed to return to enslavement at Monticello in exchange for “extraordinary privileges” for herself and freedom for her unborn children. Over the next 32 years Hemings raised four children—Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston—and prepared them for their eventual emancipation. She did not negotiate for, or ever receive, legal freedom in Virginia.

- snip -

This is a painful and complicated American story. Thomas Jefferson was one of our most important founding fathers, and also a lifelong slave owner who held Sally Hemings and their children in bondage. Sally Hemings should be known today, not just as Jefferson’s concubine, but as an enslaved woman who – at the age of 16 – negotiated with one of the most powerful men in the nation to improve her own condition and achieve freedom for her children.

The Sage of Monticello & Shannon LaNier
Jefferson's 6th Great Grandson

Today's Tune

Kings Return - God Bless America.

The last chord is killer. It sounds just the right kind of tension. Because even though this America is a truly amazing and beautiful and majestic place, there's lots of work to do. Because there's always lots of work to do in a country founded on the basic premise of just moving the thing forward - towards "a more perfect union". Not perfect - more perfect.

We're never done with that work because we were never supposed to be done with it. There's always an expectation - it's always "OK, what's next?"

Our song is never done.

Revisiting

Here's a blast from the past. 

Jay Smooth, explaining the conversation we wanna have - the conversation we have to have.

Milestone Comin'

100,000 is a threshold number.

(paraphrasing):

Imagine an American city of a hundred thousand people. A city that was here celebrating New Year's Eve, and has since been wiped clean off the map.

An American Hiroshima.

About this time tomorrow, we'll pass that threshold.

NYT has done a good job trying to help us visualize the loss.

Scroll down thru the piece and get a sense of what's happening to us - to those around us.

As the Degrees Of Separation get narrower - as the disease gets closer to us personally - it should start to become more of a priority.

But let's not kid ourselves about who and what Americans have become. We've made Reality TV and Pro Wrestling the pinnacle of American popular culture. We love "real-life" drama and tragedy.  Especially when we can take some of it and rub it all over ourselves in order to attract the attention of a world we generally see as uncaring - because we've made it that way.

How's that for "Irony is dead, part ∞"?

It's like we've nationalized some weird version of Munchausen's Syndrome By Proxy - or maybe it's the logical outgrowth of the old OPM - except that instead of gaining unearned benefit from Other People's Money, we can tap into the psychological benefits of Other People's Misery. We can manufacture sympathy and reap the rewards without having to go through any of the real suffering ourselves.

We are a nation of sick fucks.

The City Of Brotherly Love

A fight broke out in a theater during the Mr Rogers movie.

We have reached Peak Philadelphia.