Podcast 478

On Media. It started out as an idea for a podcast on Friday. A departure from the increasingly tedious, even terrifying and depressing world of politics. As the weekend progressed and opportunities for socializing were offered, ‘On Media’ moldered, then morphed into something more complex. After several attempts to assess what the podcast would be about, one attempt to write it and three attempts to record it, I finally just said the hell with it and decided to talk it out. Thus ‘On Media’. Some of it is a repackaging of ideas behind the podcasts I’ve done about the fact that the mass marketing most of us have gown up in is gone, replaced with a new world of mass specialization. People ask me all the time what is going on in the world. What’s wrong with the media. Or, they tell me the media is at fault. The media is bad. What is the definition of media? What is it’s role in society? What’s really going on? These days we have millions of sources of information available at any time. Any one of those sources can be the most viewed in any single day. It is not unusual for You Tube channels to have more views in a few hours than the cable news channels have all week. In the middle of this is politics. All news coverage is emotional and symbolic. There used to be a tactic called political theater. Now it’s all theater. Politics is media. We are submerged in images of persuasion everywhere we go. From the logos on the clothing we wear, to the TV’s in bars pouring their images into our minds while we eat our burgers. All these images are emotional, and emotional because emotion persuades. You think people seem angry, frustrated, confused? Wonder why? We can’t seem to get a handle on what’s wrong. Our government is the product of something called The Enlightenment. Are we enlightened? Or enslaved? Sponsored by Brush Studio in the West End, Saint Louis Park, and by Hydrus Performance.

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Podcast 429

Politics as Sport. Millions of people watched the most recent Republican debate on CNBC this week, and everyone is talking about how the candidates ‘really gave it to the moderators’. The moderators had it coming, but was this a surprise? Do you mean say the media is biased? Really? How shocking if true, right? Meanwhile this week a US Destroyer sailed past man-made islands claimed by China provoking quite a response. While the US should challenge Chinese ‘ownership’ of these islands this is just the kind of incident that creates foreign policy crises seemingly ‘out of nowhere’. To add insult to injury House Republicans this week voted to increase federal spending by 50 billion dollars in 2016 and something like 30 billion in 2017. (Editor’s Note: Republicans were shocked and dismayed in the 1970’s when President Carter’s budget deficit hit 45 billion.) Talk about the GOP betrayal of their voters? No, let’s talk about media bias, again. Republican and Democrat candidates running for their party’s nomination to run for president – technically not running for president yet – continue to play to the biases and fears of their most vociferous supporters, as part of a sick and dangerous symbiosis between media, pollsters, and politicians. People watch to see who will be ‘thrown off the island last’. Indeed, politics is being covered not as sports as covered, but is in fact a sport in itself. Why not talk about video games and fantasy football at the debates? The election is already a fantasy football league or video game, or reality TV show, anyway. With most people getting their news in shards from social media, google searches, You Tube and other sources like this, the story about three deep space objects hiding behind the moon is perceived with the same credibility as the story of US Special Forces and Navy Helicopters being deployed to Syria, where they may be as likely to get into combat with Russians and Chinese troops as they are to fight ISIS. We’re ‘Cruisin For A Bruisin’ in the United States if this is how we expect to elect the next President, and subsequently run the country. Don’t forget to join The Bob Davis Podcasts and Jason Lewis for a live podcast Saturday, Halloween at 11:00 AM in Lakeville, Minnesota at the Main Street Cafe. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. (Editor’s Note: I refer to Russia Today, which is a propaganda outlet for the Russian Government as Russia Times. It’s RT or Russia Today.) 

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Podcast 396

Summer Walk and Talk. The rules of the Walk and Talk Podcast are: No prep. No Planning. You walk. You Talk. Slash and Burn, Walk and Talk. At the peak of the summer it still doesn’t feel right to get down and dirty on the political front. There’s still a sense that the topography of the political battlefield will change at some point, and it will be back to the drawing board for the scores of presidential candidates, who are as plentiful as the corn growing in those Iowa fields. Besides, there’s Sturgis, air shows, local summer celebrations, fireworks, kids playing on the lawn, charcoal fires for steak and so…much…summer. Yet, if you look carefully, the sun has changed its angle slightly and in Minnesota at least, we’re just a month away from the State Fair. Every year, at some point during the state fair, the weather changes and we all know what that means. Fall is coming. So if you’re tweeting and face booking about one of the presidential candidates, watching the 24 hour cable channels religiously, hanging on every word of every shouting match, you’re missing real life going on. While people engaged in the business of politics are busy … the average person in the United States couldn’t care less right now about the latest spat between Mike Huckabee and Jeb Bush, or Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Big stories of the summer? The Planned Parenthood video is a doozy. The Chinese stock market collapse (which is being called their 1929) could become the black swan story if the perfumed princes in Beijing can’t get control of things. A calamity like this in Asia would have far reaching implications economically in the US and the world, and in terms of foreign policy. Commodity prices seem to be in a long term slump, and yet some media outlets are talking about inflation. Still, all these potential game-changers are just storm clouds in the west, on a warm summer night. A little lightning on the horizon, and maybe some rain and thunder by dawn. The romance of summer supersedes all that political noise, and it’s a good thing. Seriously, who doesn’t prefer the soft hum of summer twilight to some gas bagger on a podium? Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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