“Its five o’clock somewhere”, the title of a song written by Jim ‘Moose’ Brown and Don Rollins, as an annotation is unnecessary when viewed as a screen banner one would find on every cable or broadcast news program in the guise of a big red ‘breaking news’ banner.

”Americans are relying less on television for their news. Just 50% of U.S. adults now get news regularly from television, down from 57% a year prior in early 2016”. Katerina Eva Matsa, associate director, journalism research, Pew Research Center. No matter how you slice it, that’s still a lot of time people spend getting their news from televison. The aim of this post is to claim how one can get their television news fix in less time in front of a television. If one currently spend up to three or four hours of cable news watching, adding a half hour of broadcast news, like I often do, that’s a lot of time wasted when you can get your television news fix in less time by watching the PBS NewsHour, all without the breaking news banners and the annoying corralling subject banners at the bottom of the screen, main contributors of screen clutter, of which there are none on PBS, don’t believe me, ‘try it, you’ll like it’, especially the nice clean screen. And one will feel just as satisfied, less full, with time to spare to walk the dog, or what ever one does with extra time on their hands. Ok, admittedly there is one regret, the PBS NewsHour is only available week nights, oh there is the NewsHour Weekend, but it’s really only a half hour broadcast.  

And by the way, in keeping with the times, I just had to publicly ask myself, Will I marry me? I said yes.

Fifty-four-year-old financial journalist, David Faber celebrated 25 years on the air at CNBC, they played back some of his early programs and images of him on air with the network, none of which affirmed a young to old progression of the normal aging processes with even a little gray hair, even a Google image search failed in this regard too, as if he just appeared from womb to screen. A cursory search of personnel images of the entire network failed to find a single gray hair among the most on-air often seen screen personalities, male or female, did find more than the average of dye head female blonds, as if hair of the perceived young is what makes financial reporting markets hum. One seemingly daily chore is the upkeep or maintenance of Jim Cramer’s goatee, and its ever-changing shades, to the current plateau of looking like it has been painted on. It was, or may have been accidently revealed, that an on-staff hair stylist is permanently available to all, and that may have become standard among all multimillion-dollar television networks, even news divisions and why not, since a fake image is everything in the televison market place like any Hollywood film studio of old. No more mom and pop head dye type sessions at home that may not be up to broadcast standards when having a professional on call 24/7 guarantees the appearance of studio quality ongoing perfection, of course that does not seem to end the occasional blond streaking gone mad outcome. One last thought, kindly loan the CNBS hair stylist to MSNBC to team up with theirs to work on Willie Geist’s black top, network viewing audience will someday thank you very much as I do now…

I was never a fan of The Daily White House Press Briefing, it would be extremely hard for anyone these days to become one since they have been reduced to almost zero. As for a full dressed Presidential news conference, well they have been diminished to a shouting match whenever this American President comes into view, mostly out-of- doors, or as part of some joint press conference with some visiting dignitary, severely limiting the subjects questioned or explored. I can only guess the reasoning for this conundrum, quite unsuccessfully, but am willing to give you a shot…your turn… However, having written the above, this American President did give an 81-minute press conference, only the fourth of his presidency, full of, for everyone in observance that can only be called a, me-me-me press conference. As for this blogger, I would not have expected less, after all this is the Trump era, the era of all things Trump, many of them trafficking in visioual fakery of some form, like the fake dark dye head males and the blond dyed female reporters and news contributors, everything is as it was a few days ago, except, ‘you are there’…a willing and able participant. 

I was never a fan of The Daily White House Press Briefing, it would be extremely hard for anyone these days to become one since they have been reduced to almost zero. As for a full dressed Presidential news conference, well they have been diminished to a shouting match whenever this American President comes into view, mostly out-of- doors, or as part of some joint press conference with some visiting dignitary, severely limiting the subjects questioned or explored. I can only guess the reasoning for this conundrum, quite unsuccessfully, but am willing to give you a shot…your turn… However, having written the above, this American President did give an 81-minute press conference, only the fourth of his presidency, full of, for everyone in observance that can only be called a, me-me-me press conference. As for this blogger, I would not have expected less, after all this is the Trump era, the era of all things Trump, many of them trafficking in visioual fakery of some form, like the fake dark dye head males and the blond dyed female reporters and news contributors, everything is as it was a few days ago, except, ‘you are there’…a willing and able participant. 

After the WW1, the surviving world saw a need for an international organization to tame their inner selfishness by the founding of the League of Nations in 1920 to promote international corporation, it failed, I guess because that notion was just too new of a concept to be placed into practice at that point in world history. We can thank our lucky stars for organizations like the European Union and the United Nations that have helped to maintain world peace, but in Europe there are forces engaged in the chipping away at the Union’s effectiveness and this American President is doing the same to the United Nations by openly attacking globalism as a weakness, we have seen a world without such international organizations, world war was the result, a world with the selfishness of ‘my country first’ mentality can only lead to ruinous affairs all around. There must be no such thing as American interests, only global interests, if this earth is to exist in its wholesomeness well into the next centuries and beyond, a world with every country walled up into their very own tomb can only mean starvation of means and of thought.

After spending up to a year and a half held up in some out of the way cabin authoring a book, before going out on a book tour a marketing manager is hired, advising more books will be sold if hair is dyed to a more pleasing shade, that’s marketing code for no gray hair.

Sixty-six-year-old Steve Rattner of whom I like to call Morning Joe’s ‘economic chart man’, explainer, today presented some charts, fact checking the question, is the middle class better off under President Trump? I’m not here to fudge the accuracy of Mr. Rattner’s charts only to suggest, his appearance has indeed been fudged by way of hair dye, offering his appearance to legitimize his summation and the conclusions reached by his charts.

Well, here we are again, another Sunday morning of the political chat shows has passed, among them are the standard 90 percent of hair dyed questioners and those providing answers, putting forward their very best appearance of fakery as perceived, purely designed to place them in their most favorable demeanor of light and by extension, forever tainting their questions and answers, along with any opinionated remarks, proving again, that their master is not truth telling, but truth in a pleasing advertising packaging as in new and improved,  the mastering of the art of illusion and with all of the above faking certitude, simply by looking good as so much advertised spec and shined goods on display.

Why we will never see a forty-five-year-old Lisa Ling with gray hair, nor a forty-five-year-old Rachel Maddow, nor a fifty-five-year-old Laura Ingraham, nor a forty-seven-year-old Megyn Kelly not even a sixty-three-year-old Gayle King, it’s because they all appear on American televison, wait, Gayle King? for another reason… This is not an outing, all the above is publicly researched knowledge… The marketing of female American television personalities, not even trusted journalists, just will not allow it… and that’s that…

When I was in elementary school, first grade, to be exact, a picture book was handed out designed to teach, shapes, colors, letters and numbers, toward the end of the book, considered the advanced stage were pictures of people in occupational uniforms, policemen, fireman, for us to identify their kind of work, jobs. I imagine just such a book for today’s first graders, with the added request for them to design some uniforms for an occupation they see very often, like a female televison journalist. They would begin with, shoulder length streaking blond dyed hair, long false eyelashes, elaborate prepared smoky eyes, red tinted cheek bones and greasy fire engine red lips. I think these kids would have had to have been watching too much televison, to come up with just such detailed descriptions, televised news that’s news, broadcasted on televison daily…

Throughout the many stages of aging during a life time, description categories changes, we all start out as age enhancers, ask any toddler their age, the reply may be, I’m five and a half, gladly remaining for a while because in most cases, children’s admission fees are lower for most entertainment events and meals. Then somehow, the urge to be older starts to interfere, to be older can mean to be able to date, buy beer, or drive a car, all categorical stages on the road to adulthood. Before the final stage, there is the age of denial when we start dying our hair, seeking all sort of facial chemicals employed to reverse the natural look of aging.

A few years ago, actress Huong Hoang sued Internet Movie Database over their revelation of revealing her true age claiming that that information caused her harm, that “in the entertainment industry, youth is king”. As an aside, the true age of an actor is insignificant, if the actor’s role playing is believable, perception rules the day. Which brings me to the point of this post. Politician’s and televison news readers seem to be going way out of their way to alter our perception of them by appearing younger than they truly are by the use of hair dye, which begs the question, to what end do they engage in this false perception. News reading, and political reasoning coupled with hair dye heaves to a fake insignificants, when what one would hope for is the wisdom of age, even if only in appearance, would be prized of higher value than the ignorance of a youthful appearance.

Every once in a while, an old marketing shell game is played before our very observant eyes, a miner product ingredient is altered, then a new campaign is embarked upon in spanking new packaging with or without the claim, new and improved, much like today’s old male televison journalists appearing one day minus the years of gray hair we have grown accustomed to seeing, what was once old is now new again, not really, just an old fart in youngish looking hair dye, or a young fart, in never aging hair dye. The end game is the same, deceit, as if television journalism is more accepting from a youngish than an oldish person reading the same stories. Just how shallow is the thought of us the televison viewing public, the answer is, a complete and sometimes a very inconclusive certainty.  

Next post in this series, female news contributors in clownish make-up…

“In a perfect world”, everyone will look the same, no, in a fake world everyone will dye their hair, the proof of sort was clearly seen at the 2018 Emmy Awards telecast, wait, wrong again, try looking in the televison newsrooms on every network, where its least expected, then on to the Congress for more of the same…now you’re “got the ticket”. The opening song was all about diversity, too bad for women in high heels was not excluded, is very much the norm, has been forever where ever women are paid to gather.  

I think I know what the death of the last televised award show will look like, this show, as the entertainment industry keep trying to reinvent it, it has already been perfected, when all that was needed was to watch and learn how it was done in the 1960’s, copy it, repeat it, again and again. There were times when I didn’t even know what was going on, who was who, I am noted for my hatred of banners on television, but boy, did this show urgently need some. I kept asking myself, who are these people and what show are they on or in?

However, a little credit should be reliantly given to the program producers, they did try to correct the error of their ways toward the end, by then I’m sure many viewers, like myself was about to, call it a night and try to forget what had just been seen, at the very least until the next announced award televised show, hoping a copy of this posting had been pasted on the walls of the 2019 planning meeting.