Best Christmas Songs Ever!

We're all trying to get into the proper festive mood, and maybe these songs can help! 

Searching for Truth in a Post-Fact World

It's been such a wacky year.  I've never encountered such a volume of false news stories, or Fake News, as in 2016. I'm not referring to inaccurate news stories; rather, it's the deliberately fallacious articles/clips/tweets that serve to appall, agitate and promote political action. Part of this, of course, derives from the intensely partisan nature of our election year-and-a-half. It's natural that talking points/lies are disseminated by political parties to coat their opponents with whatever mud is available, justifiable or not. Same as ever.

But there's much more this time. We have a president-elect who thrives by asserting that traditional news media are liars and deceitful "scum". At his campaign and now post-election rallies, he revs his base by giving them a news media-directed 2 Minute Hate, a la Orwell's 1984. This isn't Nixonian paranoia or Spiro Agnew's ridiculous "nattering nabobs of negativism." This is a calculated effort to de-legitimize The Fourth Estate. Such disruption has immense value for political propaganda and the framing of societal perception of policies and events.

Some citizens may feel that Mainstream News is an institution suffering from integral rot. Others may need news sources that provide constant affirmation of their belief systems. Still others may not  understand the difference between vetted journalism and slick click bait.  And some have decided that any news/info source that presents any evidence rebutting their candidate/party/position/belief is partisan and cannot be trusted.

It's been downhill since the avuncular Walter Cronkite signed off with his final "And that's the way it is." Most people believed him. They believed his news organization, and others like it. Since then, there has arisen such a multiplicity of cable and internet news media that a Point-Of-View Balkanization has occurred. Advocacy journalism has flourished. And so has Partisan Journalism. And in between the fractures and odd angles of this Cubist-like rendering has emerged Profit Journalism, which is not journalism at all. And it's what constitutes Fake News.

I came across this swell chart on aplus.com that reads like a contemporary News User Reference Guide. It makes complete sense:

It should be simple. Read more than one news source. Make occasional forays into opposing ideological news sites. There is truth in more than one set of political or cultural perspectives. If you come across something that makes you think, "this can't really be true, can it?" go to a fact-checking site like snopes.com or politifact.com or factcheck.org. It's great to question authority. It's also good to question possible political or profit motivations.

Now to help us all along with our pursuit of The Truth, here's our old friend, Grace Slick. "When the truth is found to be lies, and all the joy within you dies -" Click on this bait:

It's Alive!!

Something has ripped the Time Space Continuum! Lightning and thunder! Earthquakes and tsunamis!    Dogs howling and children screaming! What unearthly entity emerges from the ether? Why, it's The Daily Shmaa! Yes, it's the return of the award-winning blog that captivated and often perplexed readers for a portion of 2008-9. It disappeared under a shroud of mystery, leaving followers with a cruel choice of reading The Atlantic, New York Times, or sputniknews.com.

And why has this gloried remnant from a golden age of blogdom been resurrected today? Could it be that a pleading call has been issued across the land, a blasting note from the horn of Roland, a devotional prayer for the return of Arthur, a holographic entreaty to Obi-Wan Kenobe?

Well, maybe.

Call it boredom, call it a need to figure out what's happening in our wonderful country, call it a cab. I've decided to give it another whirl. So please forgive this and probably the next few entries as I attempt to shake the rust off of the old bones. I will strive to return this enterprise to the ascendent standards it never enjoyed.

Anyway, I heard about an election that took place last month. Sounds like it was crazy! The winner lost the popular vote by 2 percentages, 2.7 million votes. The winner got his electoral college edge in three states where his cumulative edge was less than 80,000 votes. Wowzer.

And now there's some fuss about how the winner is unfit for office, a demagogic reprobate, whose election received subterfuge from Russia, and is set to make appointments and policies that will please The Putin Bear.  This can't be right, right?

Back in the day, the Electoral College was created to prevent a demagogue from being popularly elected. Educated and sophisticated patriots - Electors - would cast their mandated state votes, thus bypassing a direct popular vote.  They would be the fire wall to prevent disaster. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

However, irony loves a good rich laugh. Here's a comment I read somewhere that nails it:

"A very American outcome. The institution designed to prevent the installation of an unqualified candidate despite the popular vote is instead going to overturn the popular vote to institute the unqualified candidate."

So. If you have an interest in persuading Electors to hold off on their votes to the winner until they've been briefed by Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, call his office:

1. CALL DIRECTOR JAMES CLAPPER: (703) 733-8600
2. TELL HIM TO BRIEF THE ELECTORS

You can click the following link for more information:

https://electoralcollegepetition.com/brief-the-electors/#gs.7zXHkZs

Whether or not you call to action, it's time to enjoy something really stupid. The set-up: Pee Wee Football players against Pro Team Mascots. The Pee Wees are probably about 10 years old. The Mascots are fully grown adults, and cloaked in foam and plastic. There's a lot of awful in this video, but it really is funny, in a way that is difficult to admit to.

Enjoy?

That's it for now. Please let me know what you think of The Shmaa's return, and how to improve it (no, not that!!).