THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Tragedy as a marketing tool.

Today I saw a clip on BBC news website that set off a thought process. What do you expect from a news site? The news of course, a lot of which is tragic, showing people at their worst as far as cruelty and greed are concerned, namely our inhumane treatment of each other, occurring across religious and national divisions.

The piece was about the rise of the so called Islamic State. The problem was that the report was somewhat remote from news as such in that it was a dramatization with dramatic music in the background.  By dramatizing the story the news value was depreciated. It aso served in some way to glorify bad news and more than likely encourage those about whom the story was created. In the end it ceased to be news. We only need the facts without the dressing.

I have little patience with tragedy being used as a marketing tool.

Farting dog cure.

Many modern dog foods are created in such a way  so as to produce a smelly wind problem. Purely by accident I discovered a solution to the problem,

I feed our dogs pellets and usually add chicken gravy to make the food a little more interesting. It does the job of encouragement to eat but is no help with smelly wind.

Last Sunday my wife prepared a pea and ham-bone soup. On removing the bones and other offcuts we put them in another pot and boiled for roughly two and a half hours, producing a nice thick gelitonous gravy. About half a cup of the gravy is added to each meal. That is all it takes. I think it is the fat content type thet makes the mixture work so well, reducing volume and velocity of the whiffy wind.

The only problem is that we do not make the soup every Sunday. That may need to change.

Nostalgia

The pic was produced from a neg of a shot that was taken around 1968. I decided to scan a few of my old negs and came across this one, given to me by my girlfriend of the time. The digital reproduction is not perfect, but I find the image more than satisfying, brings back a flood..

BBC News - China and Japan: Seven decades of bitterness

BBC News - China and Japan: Seven decades of bitterness



I find this most disturbing in that the only real connection between then and now is the word Japan. Most of those who participated in the atrocities or inaugurated them are dead and gone. How can a current populace be blamed for an incident or incidents that happened so long ago?  Are current leaders looking for a scapegoat to use as a reason for rabble rousing and gaining a following? It seems like it.



If anybody at all has a credible answer, please give it.

The Beatles-While My Guitar Gently Weeps

John Lennon - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

The so called gap between the rich and the poor.

Who is creating the so called yawning gap between rich and poor?

The answer to that question must come from the poor themselves, or those who consider themselves to be in some way economically disadvantaged. They form a large group, a group that has collectively massive spending power, coupled with the desire to appear prosperous. There is no better way to do that than spend money that you do not have, driving up the demand for 'stuff'. Manufacturers sense this demand and they produce so that the so called poor can have what they want, at a price of course. Everbody should be happy.

But everone is not happy.

There are a few that blame the wealthy, but how can they be responsible when the demand is feasibly created by the so called poor, by spending money they do not have. Blaming the rich is a scapegoat. The situation is compounded further by the multitude of things that are considered necessary, the smart car, the big TV, the out of reach home and the wardrobe stuffed with clothing that is hardly ever worn.

The wealth gap seems to be caused not by the rich, but the unreasonable demands of the poor.