By everyone’s reckoning, except mine, the 1997 film, Titanic, was a smash hit, as for me, I was never able to wrap my mind around a itinerant, lower class orphaned, artist from Wisconsin, even if he had once toured world class cities like Paris, after winning tickets in a poker game, was able to board the RMS Titanic, traveling as a third class passenger, was then able to mix with the swells in first class, even if dressed in a well fitted tuxedo, speaking the lower class lingo I imagined he did, not for one minute, much less an entire evening of dining without once or twice tipping his hand of his less than proper upbringing, even if able to adopt fine dining mannerisms, the idiosyncrasy of the genteel tableware, must have been a challenge, observed as lacking in the social graces. Which brings me to ABC’s television series, Designated Survivor, at first glance has me wondering, where are all the old male gray hair heads, the balding heads, or at a minimum those with receding hair lines, which in my view, would bring some believability to the characters, having clawed their way up the political ladder to the White House, that must have taken or had some affect on their traveling and toiling in the now called swamp on their appearances. And the females, what, no trending faddish streaking blond heads, if there are some, I didn’t see many. As I watched, I had to keep reminding myself, that gray hair is a no-no on television this season, no matter how practical, much like kids liking to see other kids on television, but gray haired old people do not. There’s this one scene with eight people meeting in the Oval Office, not one of them has gray hair, how is that possible, unless one of the sponsors is Clairol.

All the characters above, it’s a given, are in the domain of probabilistically, however, the germ of reality can only add some semblance of believability, and not just be a token to be taken at face value, something far more engrained is needed, which would not have arisen my doubts to this record high level, fiction for fiction sake, is just not enough for me at this point in my life of observances.  

During the Attica Prison uprising-rebellion-riot, in 1971, there was a period when negotiation was possible to bring an end to hostilities, when a team of observers was gathered, that included, Tom Wicker, of The New York Times and James Ingram of the Michigan Chronicle, among other trusted members of the civilian population. Journalists were so included because over the years they possessed a proven record of unfailing trust, it was not unusual for some of them to be called upon as a guarantee of safe passage into police custody, ending many a hostage situation. The most trusted person in America at the time was a television journalist, an anchorman. Last Sunday on all the political chat shows that featured a panel discussion of perceived so called know it all journalist, most of them seem to be in service to a higher master other than journalistic integrity, which can easily be observed, almost to a person, a marketing master, dressed in a crop of freshly dyed hair for the occasion. Every would-be dictator soon learns that to be successful, the influence of all journalists must be diminished and if possible, belittled, once done, its hoped their fervour can be transferred to them. As events would have it, a hostage situation presented itself, like always, news personnel was called in to act in the role as auditor, what came forward was elaborately hair dyed, overly made up television personalities with full film crew in tow, looking to cashing in on the story as a means to increase ratings, instead of an unfurled plain looking television journalist with the expected aim of custody protection, not the circus of false fruit that was not predicted, nor wanted, was not even remotely anticipated, came as a shock.

In short and in conclusion, who’s to blame for this ruinous image turnaround of journalists, particularly television journalists, not some high and mighty Big Apple Madison Avenue marketing firm, it’s us, the viewer, seemly we very much prefer our journalists, chiefly, our female television journalists, to look cheap, trashy and whore like, just ask any central casting director, enough said? You betcha…

When it’s said that someone has hair issues, it can mean, a little hair loss to the extreme of baldness, adding a receding hair line too, all are hair issues confronting both males and females. This is what is known as the set-up, now I can proceed with the meat of this posting.

I watch a lot of news programing being a news hound, have observed a few males appearing on the air that have hair issues, conservatively, a few, of the female set, none, so where are they, oh, they’re there alright, right in front of our eyes, well hidden under synthetics. I have heard it argued, if a female appeared on air displaying a hair issue, it would up stage any words coming out of her mouth, yes, I guess it would, for a short period of time, then, if what she has to say, is interesting enough, soon, forgotten. As it is if she appeared in a synthetic, must also be true, I can name at least five females that appear on television every day in a synthetic without giving it much thought, I’m betting you can too, it’s the 800-pound gorilla in the television studio. It’s such an accepted culturally everyday happenstance that it’s easily overlooked by choice, hah-hah, by chance, coincidence, not on your life, its well planned. Female television journalist has been so glamorized with exotic hair shades, pouting red lips and synthetics that it now seems there can be no going back, but it’s the females in the industry that must do the engineering of being the driving force in broadcast excellence, no longer satisfied as that  pretty little woman, person thing, on the set, but as an engaging expert in presenting the news in a very informative way, ready, set, go…

I have this vision that a female journalist, her journalism, has nothing to do with being beautiful and easy on the eyes, time to get tough delivering hard news stories, like a few pioneering females colleagues of the past, no more of that lady home journalist stuff of antiquity, roll up your man shirts and get to reporting… 

Conclusion, before attacking the enormous issue of hair loss, start first with your age related gray hair, and if the test has been passed, then, and only then will you be ready for tackle the big issue of bald headed women practicing journalism, journalism on television…for the win…

Unlike most Americans, I will not be watching the Comey-Stephanopoulos interview tonight, would rather wait to see which excerpts rise to the top in repetitive rotation throughout this year, those that don’t will probably not be worth viewing anyway. This highly charged interview punctuates the promise of, “breaking down the politics, smoking out the spin”, as two warring parties are hoping to snare political winning points, making of Comey the most villainous scoundrel that there ever was. You can bet that western union messages will figuratively be dispatched for all their worth, touting some perceived winning points, ignoring others, as the American people in the audience, both cheer or scorn this political principled battle of wits, of hits and misses, in this effervescent season of theatre in the open arena of public opinion.

Now, if you will kindly forgive me as I go slightly off topic, while stepping upon my soapbox, with some of my fears for tonight’s program, that there will not be any on-screen banners guiding viewers interpretation, and extremely thankful that there will not be any of those news contributors, you know the kind in streaking blond dyed hair, long false eyelashes and red greasy lips, which has rapidly becoming the standard norm of most female television journalists. And now, on and on to the interview of this very early political waterlogged season…I wish all in the know well…

Today on CNBC’s Squawk Alley, assignment reporter, Morgan Brennan, was officially named permanent co-anchor, confirming once again, that there is no such thing as too many blond heads, peculiarly at this network, or specifically in television news, on both cable and broadcast news over the air ways.

Every year at about this time, thousands of students, will be graduating from learned institutions, some will go on to higher education while the rest will be making their way into the market place seeking full time employment. Many will be met with some form of good wholesome grooming advice, urging them to banish youthful punk appearances of holey knee jeans and facial metal stapling’s. This year, such advice has taken on an urgency like no other, where employment appearances seem to be taken directly from the look of television journalist in the guise of excessive off shade hair dyes, (females are advised to take paint chip sheets to a hair dresser), punctuated by elaborate facial make-up schemes, as practiced by both male and females. No where else can one find fewer and fewer gray hair males anchoring the news, dark seem to be the favorite hair shade, even among the political set too, and no gray among females at all, as if females are somehow immune from appearing with gray hair at any age. To secure a front office position, or one representing a firm, the lighter the hair shade, kinda guarantees employment, even among those ethnics where such hair shades are unlikely. As the nation rapidly moves toward a majority minority, there are still some that find any outward ethnic appearances unacceptable in the work place, leading to some hair straightening, oval eye and rhinoplasties operations. My above partial assessments seem only to apply to most traditional white collar inner office employments, no such assessment has yet been made or confirmed of the more vocational factory floor trades, although I’m sure there must be some there too.

If you are Dell Technologies, embarking on a new expensive television commercial campaign, laden with special effects, it can only do your image great harm to then hire a well accomplished fifty-two-year-old actor, dress him up in a dyed beard in praise of your technology, since any kind of perceived traceable visual fakery, cannot serve your applications well, by having it described as a favorable must-have discipline, once the stain of fraudulency has been exhibited. So, how could this exertion have been worse, if a synthetic was employed, although one was not, however, in this current marketing era, I’m sure, one must have come under serious consideration…In conclusion, a kinda truth in advertising should begin and end with the spokesperson…plain and simple…with no facial fakery special effects of any classification…

There’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, if something is perceived as an advantage, that television news broadcasters, will dabble in me-tooism, how do I know this? just how do you think the annoying news crawl, excessive on-screen banners and hundreds of stills and clips at the mention of a name got their start, none of which is ever deployed on CBS’s Face the Nation and their top rated 60 Minutes. Its as if the identical news staffs are in charge at each program, perhaps its because of network policy, that can’t be it, because it’s not the practice network wide, it must be something else, it could be just good old fashion broadcast colloquialism put to good use at these programs and nowhere else on the network. The secret of their success, to paraphrase somewhat, viewers want to view a screen that has taste and is relished to the eye as well, with as little of an annoyance and distraction as possible.