Quesalupa Cheesy Breaking News

Convenience Foods

People are about convenience foods, and now it seems that fat cats who own the news marketplace are about serving up news that is just as cheesy. They also don’t want to have to do the research to know what is fact or fiction on the internet. Actually companies have cookie which track content you look at and spin everything into your ear that falls within the confine of your tastes, all to drive traffic.  News no longer is about truth.  The Kardashians (Sociological reasons) are news, Sarah Palin is news.  Prince William is news.

Fat Cat Press

Blogs

The quality of news is degraded by the blogosphere, many say. That’s because we can cut and snip out portions of news articles from reputable news sources, but the reputable is corrupted by the capitalism of the internet.  Yes, the advertising is what is paying the bills, and the fat cats who make money need the dollars to stay fat.  So really what is news on the web is only what fat cats think will draw money into their coffers. The chart below show the difference between what the public wants to hear about and what the news agencies place as content.

Oh, those two percent-ers. They could care less what is in the news, and they don’t see their owning newspapers, radio and TV stations and internet news sources as related to public service.  No, they see it from the penthouse view of looking down on their bludgeoning financial statements.  [Did I mention fat cats???]  Did the company make quarterly sales figures, and what we are left with is a Quesalupa new diet?  Cheesy and full of links to girls showing off their skin, what the hell has that to do with news?

Outrageous Carp mixed with News

Even news references are often paid spaces from those advertising, or those selling something, as I’m sure you are aware of half the links are pay-by-click sites driving money into someone’s pocket, and not yours or mine.  Having food, sex, fashion and popular culture, the popular menu items just waters down organization ability to generate decent news coverage.

Write it and they won’t come; Unless you link to popular culture! Then write consistently or your relevance fades fast.

As a blogger, I’m always microblogging and linking to content or cultural aspects of what I’m writing so that I can draw more points from the digital bots, (Google mainly) that reflect the relevance of my pieces. I’m at least up front about it.

[Notice that the first three years I was a super blogger, and now I’ve rejoined the rank ranks]

Do you really think my writing is good enough to put my blog up in front of a quarter million viewers, as it has over the past few years.  I’m writing this thing infrequently, and so I’ve found that to have a voice, I have to build a complex system of other people boxes to get up high enough to broadcast in the world of news and social commentary.  Maybe you are like me and lose interest if no one is reading your posts.  Sites like Yahoo and MSN are full of content they did not create, but snagged from other sources like the Huffington Post, New York Times, Reuters, Associated Press, and a load of sponsored site.   Companies like Taboola are helping drive information regardless of its character, authenticity and accuracy.  The ethic is making money now providing reliable news.

 

My social experience is that you need Darth Vader, Clockwork Orange, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Prince and Michael Jackson type focus to get any real traction on the slippery slopes of blogging. Without them, your content is just zeros and ones floating into a blackhole of the unseen.  Digital conversations with the ether.  The tags are the communication that connects us, not the content.  People are not caring or even wanting your insights and commentary blog world.  They want you porn, your gossip, your pictures of the famous or notorious.  If I could place Osama bin Laden ‘s corpse up, I’d have something that many might like to see especially if it had a video, regardless if the picture was real or not.  Heck didn’t they make an Osama movie focusing on that death scene????  You need some violent psychopathic tendencies to illicit the type of traffic in this “dog eat dog” world.

Advice Point:

When placing popular cultural items in you blog, who cares if they make any sense, they will drive people to your site.

Internet News and Regular News is Corrupt

This graphic depicts the real world of how news doesn’t meet the public’s interest in content. The lines are out of whack.  This is the same reasoning that keeps the cheesy fattening goodness of the Taco Bell Quesalupa on the menu.  Everyone knows this meal is more like a cholesterol and sodium through the roof.   As CEO Creg Greedy, oh I mean Yum Brands Greg Creedy has stated, “Easy trumps better!”  As Yum does care about nutrition and quality, neither does the news agencies we read each day.  So enjoy your cheese, and also don’t worry about indigestion.  The fat cats want your money and they don’t care if you grow stupid by reading the poor quality news and information they  control.  What are you going to get cancer – if it were so they would own medicine?  Oh know, perhaps they do?

Article References

http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/taco-bells-quesalupa-what-exactly-is-it-w163753

Schnell writes: While many lament the seeming lack of quality, in-depth journalism today, a Gawker article argues that the inescapable problem is that you need a paying (in some form) audience (of a large enough size) to do it. There are plenty of free “news” sources to be found online, especially blogs simply regurgitating and putting a spin on wire news reports. But as the article notes, “The audience for quality prestige content is small. Even smaller than the actual output of quality prestige content, which itself is smaller than most media outlets like to imagine.” Even highly respected news sources like the New York Times are resorting to wine clubs, and the Washington Post is giving free subscriptions to Amazon Prime members to drive more corporate synergy and revenue. Rich parent companies are giving up on boutique, high-quality, niche journalism projects like ESPN’s Grantland and Al Jazeera America because there simply aren’t enough TV viewers/online ad clickers to pay the bills. So how do we reconcile our collectively-stated desire for high quality journalism with our (seeming) collective unwillingness to pay for it?

3 stylized facts: i) particular quality news markets are dominated by merely a few providers, ii) demand for quality news appears stable, but provision of news has become specialized; mainstream news is decoupled from quality news, and iii) the dominant business model of internet news mirrors that of radio, television, and newspapers in that costs of news production are recouped via advertising.

6 companies own the America news media are swimming in the money:

Why do we blog?

For me it is a clearing of the cobwebs, a clearing of the brush, and plowing of the field.  There are a lot of funny things out there.  Some are funny to me, but really are serious, and some are serious to me, and maybe you’ll think that is funny.  The problem is that no matter how many cobwebs I clear out, I’m busy spinning more.

Are we thought spiders weaving our endless silks and trapping ourselves in a contagion of words?

Do you really think I want people to be bad parents?  Why, they are already, and they don’t need my encouragement, but I give it regardless.  Heck, it’s all because my cat controls the world.  See cats have a lot more power in homes then you realize.  Mine actually is awaiting my arrival, unless he thinks someone else will feed him better, then this train might end up derailed, spinning off the tracks, and throwing my dead body out into a field.  Is that funny?  Just picture some famous actor playing the part:  I’d pick Will Farrell.  I can imagine his cat killing him.  And someone said, “More cowbell.” Amen.

So if you look at life, the two basic sides of ever situation is either comedy or pathos.  Now that catches us.  We are drawn into feeling, and feeling is what makes us feel.  Good, you are keeping up with this.  So, take that train wreck, it could have both the sad and untimely end to yours truly or it could have the last laugh: the multi-million dollar settlement that goes to the bereaved families.  See my son has been bugging me for some things I just can’t afford, and so he might just get the money from mom, as she is a softy.

You got to look for the silver lining in everything.  In our culture, you are really looking for the green lining, you see.  Heck some people say “hey look at this, so one got a finger in his soda can, and collected $250,000 dollars.  I wish that would happen to me.”  I don’t think anyone wants to drink that for any money, really.

I think money causes a great deal of our distress and our pathos, and as the root of evil is the love of money, it makes good sense.  Somehow my cat doesn’t get it.  If he would only move more resources into the house, I’d even get him a scratching post.  And, if I had more dollars to spend on the son, he’d leave the cat alone, most of the time.  Maybe I should write something and get paid for it, that’s the ticket!

Do you blog, and if you do, why?  Leave me a comment if you a perpetual blogger, and link your blog, so that I can crawl your web of thought.

Doctors Speak Out About Medical Billing Fraud

Medical Billing Problems! Us?

As you know, the price of insurance and medicine has risen noticeably for many years. My own insurance is with Blue Cross, and it is supposed to increase in cost by 39%. The cost keeps going up, and my pay doesn’t. The rich fat cat medical organizations can charge whatever they want, and we can do “nothing” about it.
Maybe you don’t know it, but as recently as 1981, only 8% of families filing for bankruptcy did so in the aftermath of a serious medical problem. But by 2007, 62.1% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were medical related. This reflects a grievous, unchecked increase for families. Insurance costs have gone up. Will it ever end? Probably not.
Medicine is not like any type of business that competes for your dollar. As a matter of interest, have you ever wondered how the costs on your medical bill are calculated? Well most of it has to do directly with what the insurance policy you carry says it will pay. Then if your policy doesn’t cover past a certain point, you get the cost directly. Or your deductible on your insurance may b extremely high from the get go. But nothing regulates these costs, and they are just increased at the whim of the hospital or doctors office. Yet health care in the US is not improving under this type of unregulated system.
Furthermore, in states with large immigrant populations (many who are here illegally), the state’s costs for medical care is helping to destroy the state’s budget. And if the state doesn’t pay it directly, you might not like it but you bill goes up to cover the cost. The real cost of illegal immigration is that states do not check citizenship in providing education to their children, or for state funded social services, and for county run medical facilities.
I read recently that inflation of costs associated with medical visits continues to be done, reflecting how unethical billing practices have become rampant in the industry. People you know that when you see a bill for $50 for an aspirin, or $800 for entering the hospital emergency room, you have been had.
When doctors speak out against theses practices, or if they question the legitimacy of how billing is handled, they are often fired – meaning their contract is ended. In many places medical fraud is as popular as other felonious activities like robbery and murder.
I feel the system should not be left in the hands of the fat cats. What about you?
Related Articles:
Doctors speak out about their struggles with a “broken” medical system article

Medical Bankruptcy in the United States, 2007: Results of a National Study

Critical Condition of American Health Care book

Medical Fraud and How it is done: webpage

Should we care? The Universe!

Arthur Runs This Place

I know some people who are interested in the planets, the universe, and everything.  Of course we already know that the answer is 42, but I’m still wondering why we should care.  I learned recently that my cat, Arthur, actually runs the world.  He decides which things are up and which things go down.  (See photo)

Now I’m not here to dispute his powers, but maybe you wonder why things are as they are.

Really what is happening 12 gozillazillon light years away has little significance in my world and probably in yours, so what explains this desire to know whether the nebula is colliding with a black hole the size of 100 billion galaxies.  What does the study of the cosmos matter?

The only big bang I’m concerned with is the BMW that struck my daughter’s car and killed her.  I have buttons of her now, and she looks like an angel, a shooting star, who died too young.

Now the scientist asks all these questions about how the creation occurred and suggests that it happened randomly.  And they wonder why the rest of us don’t think they are brilliant.  They really don’t get it.  The beauty of the night’s sky came from chaos?  Really.  Well beauty doesn’t come from randomness.

Think about music.  Can you throw it together at random and make music.  I think 2 years olds make better music than that.

Can you take a bucket of paint and throw it at random to create a painting.  My experience with that is you end with the color brown.

That is the color of Arthur, ruler of the universe.

It amazes me that scientists don’t see the larger picture, and they are the ones measuring and cataloging this universe, but they don’t have faith in the one who made the whole thing.   Madness I tell you.

Further Readings

The Meaning of Life

Astronomy Introduction