Fox News apology mashup

Here’s a funny (to me) video about current political events. If you want to skip this post, I understand. Also, there’s a serious intro to give it context (since a certain news site is ignoring it).

If you haven’t heard, Fox News just settled with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million. That’s a lot of money! It’s because Fox News intentionally misled their viewers, claiming there was voting fraud in the 2020 election and that Dominion’s machines were corrupt. There’s no proof of fraud, but there’s plenty of proof from inside recordings that Fox News knew the election fraud story was fraudulent, yet they pushed it anyway*. Fox News didn’t want the court case to proceed, with their top TV entertainers** possibly having to testify, so they settled.

An unfortunate part of this settlement is that Fox News didn’t have to admit to its viewers that they misled them. So no official apology, and thus people that only watch Fox News may continue to be misled by propaganda. In response to this, Stephen Colbert made a compilation of Fox News TV personalities admitting to what they did. This is funny (FYI, this clip starts right before the mashup):

For the record, I’m not necessarily against Fox News — just against lying and propaganda. They’re doing much harm to the country by continuing to promote the big lie of voter fraud when there’s been no evidence. I realize Donald Trump still says there is “massive evidence”, but it’s way beyond time to put up or shut up. He had 60+ court cases where no actual evidence was presented. (Some of those were actually humorous, if you read the pre-trial discussions between the judges and lawyers. Should I write on those?)

* Apparently “Fair & Balanced” means “We’re all for Trump, and everything bad is Biden’s fault”.

** In a previous defamation lawsuit, Fox News said their TV news hosts are entertainers, not to be taken seriously. The actual wording, from Fox News lawyers about Tucker Carlson: “cannot be understood to have been stating facts, but instead that he was delivering an opinion using hyperbole for effect”, and the judge agreed, saying, “Given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.” There’s a previous defamation lawsuit where the Fox News laywers claimed that the TV hosts are entertainers and thus not to be held to the standard of speaking truth. That’s a lame cop-out, and I’m surprised it worked, because “Fox News” is the name of the channel, and it’s displayed on the screen most of the time, so they are marketing themselves as news. Can they just adopt a new identity as it suits them, regardless of who they are? I figured they were against such things…

Sorry about all the seriousness here — I know some of you come here for randomness. I wasn’t going to write on the lawsuit, but found that video clip funny.

If I may close with a quick public service announcement: Get your news from multiple sources, and not all that are only conservative or liberal. Actual news is facts. Any news source that tells you who is to blame or who to be mad at is pushing an agenda.

Now I’ll return you to your regularly scheduled randomness…

creating ripped jeans

You might be aware that it’s trendy / fashionable these days to wear aged jeans. By aged, I mean jeans with holes in them where they look worn out. I don’t know the proper terminology for this, whether they’re weathered, worn, torn, distressed, ripped, or shredded. (I’ve never heard anyone say shredded jeans, but I’ve seen some that fit that definition — they had more holes than jeans.)

Now, I’m not normally one to write on fashion, but I have a question. I have a pair of jeans that are becoming worn out, developing faded spots and holes and frayed areas. So does that mean I’m suddenly more cool when wearing these? Or do you have to spend more money on designer jeans that look worn out but aren’t? Is there some type of fashion legitimacy to whether or not someone paid for that look or whether they paid in sweat equity?

Let me know in the comments, because I don’t understand fashion. However, to be honest, I don’t care. I’ve long since realized that coolness / awesomeness is not defined by what you wear but more by your attitude and how you feel about yourself. And so once I realized that, just mere thinking allowed me to transcend coolness. 🙂 Although even if you disagree with that, it’s okay, because I wore out some jeans, so now I’m cool by modern fashion standards. 🙂

I won’t even get started on the fact that some of these worn-out-looking jeans cost $100 more… Except I reckon I just saved $100. 🙂

a cluttered house is now cool

This post may be unusual for the type of content usually shared here, but that just makes it random, which kinda makes it fit. 🙂 Ultimately it’s about enjoying life more, which does fit.

Marie Kondo, of decluttering fame, now has 3 kids, and guess what — her house is now messy. Who could have predicted this? People with young kids understand! You can spend hours cleaning and decluttering, and kids can make it look like tornado came through in 30 minutes or less.

Before children, it’s not that hard to maintain a decluttered home. I mean, it still takes considerable work, but it’s possible. Once you have kids, the dynamic changes. And Marie Kondo learned some things:

1) Kids take up a LOT of your time (as they should).
2) Cleaning takes 10x more time. No, the math doesn’t add up, but some messes cause a disproportionate amount of cleanup, like spilled milk, or those “How did poop get here?” experiences. And just collecting the dirty laundry becomes a scavenger hunt. (The other day we found 7 socks with no match and spent way more time than you would expect looking for a single match.)
3) Keeping your house looking like those in a magazine or TV show becomes less important (as it should).

It’s funny when you have kids and you visit someone who doesn’t have kids, and they say, “Excuse the mess” when you arrive, but you don’t see a mess. 🙂

It’s easy to laugh about how Marie Kondo’s bestselling book was titled, “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up”, and her motto on her Netflix series was “Tidy house, tidy mind”, and I’m joking about it now, but it shows how priorities change when you have children. One of her iconic phrases was about filling your home with items that “spark joy”, and it’s good to be organized. (I’m not putting that down — most of us could probably do better with that.) Now she has realized, “Up until now, I was a professional tidier, so I did my best to keep my home tidy at all times. I have kind of given up on that in a good way for me. Now I realize what is important to me is enjoying spending time with my children at home. … My home is messy, but the way I am spending my time is the right way for me at this time at this stage of my life.” Good for her!

She now focuses on the Japanese concept of kurashi, which loosely translates as “way of life” or “the ideal way of spending our time”, which now is more about decluttering what’s filling up your time rather than what’s filling up your closet. On her website it says, “The true purpose of tidying is not to cut down on your possessions or declutter your space. The ultimate goal is to spark joy every day and lead a joyful life.” I can relate to that. Life tends to be “too busy” and cluttered, with not enough time to do what’s most important. I push back on the busyness and from trying to keep a perfectly-maintained house (which is near-impossible with kids unless you neglect the kids). Life is too short to get caught up in worrying about what someone else might think. If you see my home, it’ll look like busy people with young kids live there. To me, that’s authentic. (I’m not against picking up when company visits, of course, but is it authentic to present an unrealistic lifestyle?) If they judge me for my house not looking like a house in a magazine photo, that’s on them. I don’t have to lose my peace over their judgmental attitude.

Oh, sorry — I started to rant there. One last thing from the article: Marie Kondo now makes it a point to drink tea three times a day and prioritize spending plenty of time with her kids. Sounds like a plan! Now please excuse me, I must go drink some sweet tea. 🙂

P.S. Apparently the idea of having your house somewhat cluttered has actually become popular and trendy, being called “cluttercore”. (I was unaware of this movement. However, this obviously means that I am trendy, perhaps even a trendsetter because I was living in a cluttered house before cluttered was cool.) 🙂

fun-sized candy bars

In a recent post about trying to be a responsible adult with a bowl of chocolate, I ended it with the idea of eating “a reasonably-sized piece of chocolate”. That made me think of “fun size” candy bars. That’s a weird bit of marketing. Does anyone think those bite-sized candy bars are actually more fun?

Plenty keeps me up at night. Global warming. The world my kids will inherit. The logic behind calling the smallest candy bars “fun size” when the real fun comes from eating a mass of chocolate the size of a brick. ~ Jon Wertheim

Can’t argue with that. 🙂 If there were truth-in-advertising laws that applied here, those “fun size” candy bars might be called “small enough to make you mad” or “it’s tiny so we can say it’s not many calories” or “try to eat just one”. 🙂 Some of those are so small that you have to make a concerted effort to make it more than one bite.

One time I saw a 5-pound Hershey’s chocolate bar. I think it was at the Hershey’s store in Times Square in New York City. Attempting to eat that would be a lot more fun than one bite of chocolate. It would be so unhealthy and unreasonable, too, but we’re talking about fun. Healthy and reasonable might be eating a salad instead, and where’s the fun in that? (I will admit that it is possible to make a great tasting salad, but healthiness decreases at an inverse rate as tastiness increases, which is a discussion for another day.)

Also, think about how great a gift it would be to give someone a 5-pound chocolate bar. Young kids would not be able to contain their excitement and astonishment. They might even start dancing spontaneously. Some adults may also not be able to hide their excitement, either. 🙂 The recipient might be excited at having so much chocolate to themselves, or they could share it and be the life of the party. Giving away chocolate makes any party better!