Death Of The Political Junkie Rest in Peace-Podcast 645

Death Of The Political Junkie Rest in Peace-Podcast 645

Are you a political junkie? Wake up in the middle of the night to check headlines? Scan social media in the bathroom? Watch the 24 hour cable news channels? Listen to talk radio on the weekend? Inbox full of political emails? We’ll talk about it in Death Of The Political Junkie Rest in Peace-Podcast 645.

Relevance

TV Stars and channels just want to keep their brands and their personalities foremost in your mind. Same with politicians. This is what people in the media call ‘Being Relevant’.

Inside Baseball

The problem is, the twenty four hour political chatter is less relevant every day. Those addicted to what we call politics these days are driving a conversation about tweets, traded insults, and stunts by people who seem more and more unhinged as each minute passes. In Death Of The Political Junkie Rest in Peace-Podcast 645.

Lies Conceal Truth

Politics and those who cover it are talking about each other more than they actually report on the news. The result? The actual political community continues to do whatever it wants, whenever it wants.

Mika Joe and Donald

Even though we have all kinds of ‘news’ coverage, it seems like the function of our government is a mystery to most people. Relating new things to the audience becomes more and more difficult in a sea of nonsense. Television presenters who poke at public figures getting a taste of their own medicine is news? Featured in Death Of The Political Junkie Rest in Peace-Podcast 645.

Meanwhile We’re Bankrupt

Puerto Rico is bankrupt. Illinois, California and New York are next. Debt is at record levels. Both political parties promise more and more. Someone, somewhere, someday will have to pay for it.

People vote for personalities. When their ‘guy’ takes office, it is expected he or she will do what ‘the voters’ want. That is not what happens. Why? Political Junkies these days know it all. They can tell you why Trump is a sociopath or why Loretta Lynch should be in federal prison but they can’t tell you what a republican stands for or what a democrat is. Maybe it’s time to watch less and do more.

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and X Government Cars.

Death Of The Political Junkie Rest in Peace-Podcast 645

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Fear Anxiety Hope In A Time Of Fast Change-Podcast 643

In Fear Anxiety Hope In A Time Of Fast Change-Podcast 643 a look at coping with angst. Social media and instant coverage drives more worry and concern. How do we cope?

Fast Change

It’s hard to believe how much the world has changed in just ten years. Five years ago social media was in its infancy. Twitter is just 11 years old this year. The iPhone is only ten years old. Smart devices are getting smarter. Especially relevant is the truth that change is going to go faster. Drones. Cyber Terror. Driverless Cars. Autonomous Machines. Some of the effects will be good. Some will not be good.

Fear Anxiety Dread Anguish

Seems like we used to talk about robots disrupting traditional businesses. Now it’s happening. So, when Amazon buys Whole Foods, there is a reaction. Does this mean people will lose their jobs? Does cheaper food mean deflation? When there is a new development we’re immediately told what the effects will be before anyone has had a chance to soak it in. In In Fear Anxiety Hope In A Time Of Fast Change-Podcast 643.

Gonna Take More Than Just Love

What is the antidote to fear and loathing? Truth is, it would be easy to say love is the answer. What is love without knowledge? Remember how we learned to swim or ride a bike? There was fear at first, until we figured out step by step what we had to do to float, or balance. From knowledge and experience comes judgement.

Building A New World

New technology forms the cornerstones of the world we’re building, whether we want to build or not. Social media, constant coverage, blathering back and forth, isn’t going to stop. We need to learn more and fear less in order to make the right choices. Perspective comes from the combination of knowledge and life experience. The more we know about things we don’t understand the less we fear them. We’ll talk about it in In Fear Anxiety Hope In A Time Of Fast Change-Podcast 643.

Taking Charge

Human connections and real experiences are also important. Turning off the shouting back and forth. Taking a break from politics. Giving to and accepting help from those that come from different perspectives helps build a base of experience and knowledge. Reading a book about something not relevant to the day to day. Travel.

Try a Head Stand!

Finally, it helps to have some kind of physical practice. Whatever it is we like to do. Hiking, hunting, yoga, martial arts, camping, running. It all helps to get away from the natural inclination to check your twitter feed or post another selfie on Instagram.

Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul

In Fear Anxiety Hope In A Time Of Fast Change-Podcast 643

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Podcast 446

Media Manipulation. Checking out the news cycle before and after the debates, and in the last few weeks it sure feels like we’re being manipulated. You can’t say anything about anyone these days without a stream of tweets and posts about what’s politically correct, or charges that ‘you’re in the tank’ for this or that candidate. New story lines about Donald Trump are actually laughable. After his comments on the San Bernardino Terror Attack (not the San Bernardino shooting, as Hillary Clinton likes to characterize a terror attack) Trump was a racist, a fascist and a demagogue. Now that a new poll has been released showing Trump breaking through forty percent, with his closest challengers as much as twenty points behind, the story line is its the fading middle class, or dumb white high school only ‘blue collar’ workers who support him. Or, that Ted Cruz is suddenly ‘the nominee’ because he beat Trump by one point in a poll in Iowa. Because people in Iowa don’t know that they’re being surveyed, interviewed and chronicled to death as they ‘pick the next president’. Meanwhile not a vote has been cast. Kudos to the Cruz campaign for working hard in Iowa but let’s not forget Iowa (which is somewhere down there between New York and Los Angeles, for those of you in the media) Republicans voted for Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012 and gave Michele Bachmann a big boost in the Straw Poll in 2012. Were any of those people the Republican nominee, or even president? At the same time, almost no ink has been devoted to Hillary Clinton’s compulsive lying or Bernie Sanders’ fairy tales about how to fix the economy, or solve all of America’s social problems with another government program. While the pundits and commentariat blabs on and on trying to predict the future, manufacturing is in a recession, government and corporate debt are at record levels, companies are merging to pump up their fourth quarter earnings, Chinese officials admit making up economic numbers, commodities are depressed  and the Fed is about to raise interest rates. Iran has pulled its troops out of Syria because they’re getting their ass kicked by ISIS, which by the way is expanding into Afghanistan where they will get an assist, no doubt, from the guy we had locked up in Gitmo, but let go to get a deserter back. Don’t worry about that right now though, Anderson Cooper is on talking about Carly Fiorina’s dress, Donald’s smack down of Jeb! and the Cruz Rubio rivalry. Hey did the Wild win? Maybe we’re better off with astrologers. As long as its Vedic astrology, right? Sponsored by Pride of Homes and Luke Team Real Estate and Hydrus Performance. 

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