respublica

Don't believe the experts

This morning I came across an online post from USA TODAY Sports in which their hockey experts made their predictions on who would win the Stanley Cup game 7 championship. Here are their guesses:

Kevin Allen, Bruins 3, Blues 1:  Home ice advantage. Big-game experience. Hot goalie. Dangerous power play. The Bruins have too many factors going for them. They are confident after going into St. Louis and beating the Blues 5-1 to force a Game 7. The Bruins’ trademark this season has the been the consistency of their effort.

Jimmy Hascup, Bruins 4, Blues 2: Tuukka Rask and his .938 playoff save percentage on home ice against a rookie netminder? A top line that reawakened with four points in Game 6? A future Hall of Fame defenseman (Zdeno Chara) logging shutdown minutes like he's in his prime? Yeah, give me Boston to finish this off.

Mike Brehm, Bruins 3, Blues 1: Would love to see a Bruins defenseman score in overtime, go flying through the air and get a statue outside TD Garden. But Boston should get this done in regulation. Blues goalie Jordan Binnington, who rebounds well after a loss, will keep the game tight, but Tuukka Rask's strong play and the Bruins' experience should win out and Boston will get an empty-netter to make the difference.

Jace Evans, Bruins 3, Blues 0: Tuukka Rask has been unfairly maligned by a segment of the Boston fanbase for years. But a shutout in Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Final – which predecessor Tim Thomas accomplished in 2011 – that would come with the Conn Smythe Trophy would be a good way for the winningest goalie in Bruins history to cement his legacy. A shutout would also be impressive based on the Blues' road dominance: they're 9-3 away from Enterprise Center these playoffs, and they have already won two games in Boston this series. 

So....Their experts went 4 for 4 in being wrong. So so satisfying. It's kind of like when all the political experts had Hillary Clinton to win in 2016

Fear not

This has a lot of truth in it.  Click to enlarge if it doesn't show up well.

 

What social media has become

I like social media, Facebook, Twitter, etc, but too often the posts and reactions to posts in comments (especially with politics) have become almost unbearably mean and angry. So this Tweet I came across says it perfectly.

"Social media has become a replacement for yelling at the TV."

None of this negates the areas of social media which are good and helpful. And there are many.

Branding the Two Americas

It's a good thing the election is getting close because news outlets have reached the point of absurdity in attempting to define liberal and conservative Americans. Take this Simmons Research survey posted by Politico, "Do you eat Republican Cheese" with a sub-title reading, "The Two Americas, a snapshot in brands."

The point is to inform us on the differences in products purchased or eaten by republicans and democrats and thus our cultural/tribal thinking. I mean, this is seriously off the wall. I'm putting up the survey graphic, but you'd see it better if you clicked the story link. The cheese preference which heads up the story title isn't even real cheese in either case. The category isn't even cheese, but dairy. Liberals supposedly prefer Stoneyfield Yogurt while conservatives go with Kraft Velveeta.

Neither are really cheese and with this first brand I can see that the survey publisher and Politico are defining liberals as more sophisticated and educated and refined. Take the magazine preferences they show: Liberals- The Atlantic, Conservatives- Guns & Ammo. And, under Health and Beauty Product we see, Liberals-Burt's Bees Lipstick/Gloss and Conservatives-Right Guard Anti-Perspirant.  Under meat preferences, liberals-Aldells sausages, conservatives-Swanson canned meat.

Come on. Was this really necessary? It's embarrassingly bad and insulting. One more reason why journalism is viewed with some skepticism.  Most of us eat food we like without worrying about politics

click to enlarge or check out the actual story link

 

What next?

Once again, local tv news has outdone themselves in posting the most outrageous stories on Facebook. This has to be done to get clicks for advertisers but, boy, do they find the stuff.

Two stories involved drinks. One told of a pregnant woman who went to McDonalds and her soda was actually cleaning fluid. Another man got a soda from another McDonalds and his was spiked with opiates. Supposedly. So much for McDonalds.

And a story about a woman who was not given anesthesia during a C-Section. Her husband her her screams.

There are way too many stories on horrible child abuse which I won't share here. Needless to say, though, most are linked by KMOV, Fox2Now, KSDK. And, I won't even link two separate similar stories in which a puppy and a baby were thrown off bridges.

Here's a headline, locally, guaranteed to get some clicks. "Mysterious foul odor has city telling residents, "If you smell something, say something."

Is this who we are, that we most enjoy reading about the worst of ourselves..  Local news outlets seem to think so.

IMHO

Cable news is now just theater.

Click bait

One thing about Facebook and Twitter, it gives local news outlets the opportunity to post links to stories from other areas which are just bizarre. And that could just be the point, the headlines are written to get you to click and read. This one from KSDK in St. Louis is an example. Just so you know, no way did I click to read this story.

"A man with no arms stabbed a tourist in Florida."

Finally talking about Missouri lane lines

 At last one of St. Louis' local news outlets did a story on how highway lane lines disappear when the pavement is wet and also dark. I've harped on this for years, at least since 2012. Driving in the midst of traffic and not being able to see any lane lines is one of the scary parts of living in this area and if other states can use paint which stays bright why can't MoDOT. So I was amazed and thrilled that KSDK had a news story last night on just this issue. They linked it to Facebook as well where so far there have been over 1000 comments, 541 shares and 2.9 thousand likes. Glad to finally see this issue, which obviously affects so many, brought to light...so to speak.

Back in 2012 I put up a post on lane lines on Washington DC highways, lines which were so bright and clear it was heart-stoppingly beautiful to those of us not used to having visible lane lines. It was so astonishing that while Dale drove I took a 15 second video of how the road looked and put it on a blog post. Take a look and see if you aren't envious.  The way YouTube has me set up is that after this short video another of my videos will show up. Just ignore if you don't want to see family videos.

We've lost our sense of common decency

I've been bothered by the practice of people using the comment areas of social media, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, news sites, whatever, to write the most vile thing that comes into their heads. This is true in secular politics, food reviews, crime stories, etc.  Today this tendency is out for everyone to see after the train carrying republican members of congress to a retreat, crashed into a trash truck which was in the middle of a set of tracks. The comments make me sick. You can disagree on politics but this kind of thing is beyond the pale. For example from Twitter:

"An AMTRAK train carrying Republican members of congress has hit a dump truck near Charlottesville: Hazmat workers on the scene are reportedly having trouble discerning which garbage is more hazardous — Republicans or the trash from the truck."

"Author and self-proclaimed CNN “talking head” Jonathan Tasini took to Twitter on Wednesday to declare that “God is working hard today to clean up the stink” because a “train full of Goopers” slammed into a dump truck moments after news broke that GOP lawmakers were in a collision that resulted in at least one death."

"Darn. The wicked spared."

There were many more.  Some have been taken down, but the internet is forever and others do take screen shots. The worst part is this is not unusual. For some reason people think they can say anything, rip anyone, call others names while on their phone or computer and it's ok. Because you think differently from me, I can lash out in any despicable way I want.

We're living in out of control times.

 

 

Throw up your hands kind of day

This was one of those mornings where finding a watchable morning news channel was almost impossible except for traffic and weather. The 3 cable channels had people on who obviously lost their minds in any number of ways and the first news headline I hear on one of the local channels was this:

"How smart is your underwear?"

Just a throw up your hands and turn off the tv kind of news day.