Category Archives: media news

Social media make me LOL

December 17, 2016 kanelis2012

Of all the forms of social media out there, Facebook remains my favorite medium.

I’ve told you already about my desire to wean myself of Facebook. Alas, I’m not likely to be able to do it. The forum allows me to stay in touch with friends and to become acquainted with “friends” with whom I have some connection through Facebook.

This particular social medium does give me plenty of giggles, though.

They occur when I post something either on my own timeline, such as my blog — which is distributed automatically on Facebook — or when I comment on a comment offered by someone else.

A fellow I know here in Amarillo, for example, said something disparaging this evening about President Barack Obama. I made a response. He responded back to me. Then others joined in. Indeed, as I write this blog entry, the crowd of respondents is growing by the minute. It’s becoming a bit of a free-for-all out there.

I responded to a couple of my friend’s Facebook friends, who then took me to task for my own political leanings.

Off they went. Back and forth. Commenting on this and/or that. It never ends.

That’s generally when I bow out. I leave it to others to argue the points until they run out of energy, out of time, out of things to say or when their loved ones tell them it’s time to run some errands.

I end up shaking my head. I do giggle at times. I also try to get into some of these folks’ skulls. I wonder: Are they trying to change others’ minds, or are they just messing each other? Or with me? Or themselves?

I’ve noted already in this blog that I usually don’t have the stamina to keep sniping at others. It ain’t my style. I like to put my thoughts out there and then let others talk among themselves. Oh, I’ll mix it up, but I pick my battles carefully — although I don’t really consider it a battle.

I’m still having fun with this blog and with my involvement with Facebook. Many times my critics keep me humble, which was something I reminded myself of back when I was a full-time journalist.

In this new era of social media, the critics these days quite often keep me amused.

Thanks for the laughs.

local news, media news, State news

Here comes the Bum Steer issue

December 16, 2016 kanelis2012

My pal Dave makes an excellent point about Texas Monthly’s annual Bum Steer Awards issue — which is hands down my favorite issue every year of the renowned feature publication.

He hopes they “don’t go to press too early,” given the wackiest of years that’s about to pass into history.

Boy howdy, 2016 gave the Texas Monthly editors plenty of material with which to work. Indeed, this year produced a national phenomenon, starting — and perhaps ending — with the stunning outcome of the presidential election.

The Bum Steer issue has been my favorite for the nearly 33 years my family and I have lived in Texas. I look every year in this issue for something that happens in my hometown that qualifies as a Bum Steer. Whether it was in Beaumont, where we lived for nearly 11 years, or in Amarillo, where we’ve been for the past 22, I always anticipate that Texas Monthly will find something truly weird to highlight and share with the rest of its readership across this vast state.

I actually have a favorite candidate for a Bum Steer. It just occurred, so Texas Monthly likely couldn’t get into print. It was the idiotic display of exhibitionism by “Pastor” David Grisham, who went to Westgate Mall a few days ago to berate children and their parents who wanted the kids to visit with Santa Claus.

Talk about a killjoy, man! Grisham sought to tell the kids that Santa ain’t real. He’s fake. Some parents took umbrage at this guy’s bad manners and boorish behavior.

Well, the Bum Steer issue will be out soon. Here’s hoping Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle are well represented, no matter what.

local news, media news, religious news

‘Pastor’ displays anti-Santa exhibitionist traits

December 13, 2016 kanelis2012

David Grisham proclaims himself to be a “pastor.”

His actions are far from pastoral. He ventured to Westgate Mall in Amarillo over the weekend and berated children and their parents over the kids’ desire to sit on Santa Claus’s lap and tell the Jolly Old Man what they want for Christmas.

Grisham has demonstrated this tendency before to thrust himself into the media limelight, whether it’s seeking to burn a Quran at a public park in Amarillo or launching a boycott against another Texas city because voters elected an openly gay mayor.

The good news from this “pastor’s” latest rant, though, is that the kids aren’t buying the garbage he is peddling, which is that Santa ain’t real.

Of course he is in the hearts of the children. How dare this clown seek to tell the kids any differently!

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/34034882/amarillo-families-say-kids-still-believe-despite-grishams-actions

As KFDA NewsChannel 10 reported: “John Bennett was one father who can be seen in the video standing in line with his children to see Santa. He says he was outraged when Grisham began to impose his beliefs onto children. ‘Seeing the looks on my children’s faces of them hurting made me hurt and I wanted to put a stop to it just like the rest of the parents in line did,’ Bennett said.”

Grisham now says he’s getting “death threats” because of his ridiculous ranting at Westgate Mall. I won’t pass judgment on whether he is or isn’t getting such threats — which is something this “pastor” perhaps ought to do regarding the existence of Santa Claus.

Perhaps it might suit Grisham better if he simply affirmed to his Repent Amarillo flock what they already believe, which is that Christmas should be reserved solely for the celebration of Jesus’s birth.

He also ought to cease the ridiculous exhibitionism for which he has become infamous in his hometown.

entertainment news, media news, national news, political news

POTUS will moonlight as executive producer

December 9, 2016 kanelis2012 7 Comments

This has to be almost poetic in nature, if you think about it.

Donald J. Trump won election to the first public office he ever sought. It’s a big one, for sure: president of the United States of America.

He knows next to zero about governance, so he’ll be learning much of it while working on the job.

Then there’s this: The new president is going to remain attached to the reality TV show that gave him notoriety, “The Apprentice.” He’ll be an executive producer of the show that will be hosted by former body builder/California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who will inherit the role Trump once played, getting the chance to say “You’re fired!” to would-be business executives.

This is just plain weird, man. Strange in the extreme. Goofy to the max.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/maybe-the-answer-is-that-he-can-t-divest

The president of the United States usually has a pretty full plate. He’s got to do things like, oh, protect us against our enemies, rev up the economy, ensure domestic tranquility and be the spokesman for the greatest nation on Earth.

How is this guy going to have time to devote to being executive producer of a TV show?

I guess the poetic element comes in as we realize that the president will be more or less serving as an “apprentice” in his own right while working his day job as head of state and head of government.

Thus, his role as executive producer of “The Apprentice” would appear to be a perfect fit.

Good … grief!

media news, Sports news

Fighter of the Year … finally!

December 9, 2016 kanelis2012

The Ring Magazine has been called the pre-eminent publication about professional boxing.

It made a huge mistake in 1966, though, in failing to name the then-heavyweight champion of the world its Fighter of the Year.

The magazine declined to give the honor to a fellow named Muhammad Ali, who defended his title five times that year, wiping out the competition with ease. Ali was at the peak of his boxing powers.

The magazine, though, disliked his objection to the Vietnam War as well as his affiliation with the Nation of Islam. It refused to call him by the name he chose and used his birth name, Cassius Clay, when referencing The Champ.

Times change — and so do attitudes.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/retroactive-ring-magazine-names-ali-1966-fighter-of-year/ar-AAlk6a2?li=BBnba9I

The magazine has decided to grant Ali the title he deserved all along. Fifty years later, Ring has named Ali its Fighter of the Year for 1966, to along with several other such honors the magazine had granted him. It didn’t select a Fighter of the Year in 1966.

It’s a curious thing, though, about the timing of this decision.

Ali won his court fight over his suspension from boxing in 1971, when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that boxing authorities had violated his constitutional rights by denying him the chance to earn a living. Ring honored him with Fighter of the Year accolades in 1972, 1974, 1975 and 1978. It also honored him in 1963, before he announced his Muslim faith.

Ali died this year at the age of 74.

A more fitting tribute would have been to grant the honor denied to Ali while he was still able to accept and appreciate it.

Those of us — along with his loved ones — who marveled at the man’s skill in the ring and his courage outside of it will accept the honor on The Champ’s behalf.

media news

Fake news infects the real thing

December 8, 2016 kanelis2012

We’re witnessing one of the more hideous and frightening aspects of the social media craze.

Fake news, man.

It’s this phenomenon we used to call “propaganda.” Internet trolls sit around the house and ponder ways to put out patently false stories — often involving celebrities/public figures/elected officials — and then watch the world react accordingly.

I’m not entirely certain if it’s a right-wing craze or a left-wing craze. I guess I’ll settle on the righty angle, given that’s what we hear about mostly.

Whatever the tilt of those who put this crap out there, it’s driving me to the brink of insanity.

Texas Tribune recently did a study of an elected official, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, and discovered that he’s become a big purveyor of fake news. He and/or his campaign staff puts these lies out there and, I reckon, laugh until their guts hurt as people react to it.

The Republican official’s response is equally “hilarious.” He says he’s not a “news source.” No s***, Sid! Still, someone is sending this crap into cyberspace and the worst of it is that people are buying it!

Didn’t someone recently put out a lie about Hillary Clinton being involved in a child porn ring or some such horse crap? And didn’t that provoke a violent reaction?

I used to tell people who would submit letters to the Amarillo Globe-News, where I worked for nearly 18 years until 2012, that they need to take care about what they read on the Internet. They would insist their information was “true, because I read it on the Internet.” My response usually was that they should believe only about 1 percent of what they read on the ‘Net and then check out the source of the information before passing it on.

Now, with this epidemic of “fake news,” I reckon the reliability percentage has plummeted even farther.

It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.

I’m longing for a simpler time when we recognized fake news when it appeared on those supermarket tabloid headlines — my all-time favorite of which was, “Chocoholic Mom Gives Birth to Super-Coated Baby!”

Ah … those were the days.

media news, national news, political news

Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ is a no-brainer

December 8, 2016 kanelis2012

Here it comes: a good word about Donald J. Trump.

Time magazine’s Person of the Year is the 45th president of the United States. When the magazine’s editor in chief, Nancy Gibbs, was asked this morning whether this was a difficult choice, she said that it wasn’t. It was an easy choice, given how Trump managed to win the presidency by breaking virtually every known rule of conventional political wisdom.

I happen to agree with this choice.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/07/504662237/time-magazine-names-donald-trump-person-of-the-year?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social

I’m not going to get into the discussion about how the magazine has named some pretty despicable characters as its Person of the Year. They include, say, the Ayatollah Khomeini, Adolph Hitler and Josef Stalin (twice).

It’s fairly customary for the magazine to honor newly elected presidents for this honor. So it’s no surprise that the newest elected president would get the nod as Person of the Year.

Look long and hard at virtually every aspect of Trump’s winning campaign: his lack of “ground game,” his insults, his bizarre behavior, his apparent complete ignorance of the principles of governance, the fact that the presidency is the first office he’s ever sought.

It’s good to examine what so many so-called “experts” said about his chances of being nominated, let alone being elected. He was dismissed as a joke, a circus act, a carnival barker, a huckster.

Here he now stands, ready to assume the role of commander in chief and head of state of the greatest nation on Earth.

All of that, by itself, qualifies this guy as Person of the Year.

Gibbs was right to say this was an easy call.

Now we’ll await this man’s ascension to the highest office in the land and we’ll see whether he has learned anything about the job he is about to do.

media news, State news

Texas GOP fed up with agriculture commissioner?

December 4, 2016 kanelis2012

Sid Miller blew into Amarillo the other day, ate dinner at a downtown restaurant and then proceeded to make an ass of himself by making a big show of his displeasure with the meal he received.

That’s not even close to describing the misdeeds of this loudmouth politician.

The Texas Tribune is reporting that Miller, the Republican commissioner of agriculture, has become the king of fake news. He puts out bogus items as if they are true. He makes defamatory statements on his social media feeds about Muslims, Democrats … anyone who opposes what passes as his world view of politics and public policy. He collects these gems from ultraconservative websites and then posts them on his Facebook page, which he boasts as having tens of thousands of followers.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/12/03/texas-ag-chiefs-facebook-account-fake-news-flows/

The Tribune’s analysis of Miller playing fast and loose with the facts is in the link. It’s so very interesting, and damning!

Get this: Texas Republicans just might be embarrassed and ashamed enough of this guy to run a serious primary challenger against him in 2018. How do I know that? Well, I don’t know it to be a fact, as it hasn’t happened yet.

However, I got a snootful today from a member of the Texas legislative delegation — a Republican, no less — who said damn near anyone would be better in the job as agriculture commissioner than Miller.

I happen to agree with that assessment. The guy is a loon.

My hope now is that if Texas Republicans are truly angry at the manner in which this statewide elected official has conducted himself that they’ll do something to get this individual out of office.

High Plains Blogger