FRIDAY FAST ONES

1.)  Ever notice that if a letter comes in the mail marked Personal and Confidential you can be sure it is junk mail?

2.)  There were 2,100,000 viewers of the HBO series premier of "The Newsroom."  Sad that there are less than 100,000 viewers of the Rachel Maddow Show which is excellent real live reporting 5 days a week.

Sadder still that O'Reilly over on Fox gets 2-3 million viewers.

3.)  A 14 year old ballet dancer sponsored an online petition to get Seventeen Magazine to stop photoshopping their models - and it worked.

The Seventeen staff has signed an eight-point Body Peace Treaty, promising not to alter natural shapes and include only images of "real girls and models who are healthy."  Next they are going after TeenVogue.  Hopefully the advertisers will take notice of this desire for the natural.

4.)  I keep hearing negative things about "small" employers looking for ways to evade offering health insurance as the Affordable Care Act requires.  What is it to these employers to offer insurance?  There is no mandate that they pay any part of it.  They simply have to use their position as employers to offer plans which would not be available, or as inexpensive as when offered as a group plan.

I set up the insurance plan for our tiny company (3 employees and the owner) It took very little time and cost nothing to arrange. I made some adjustments to our payroll software and the deductions and tax info are automatic.  So even administrative costs aren't a valid argument.  Any ideas about this?  Educate me.

5.)  So glad the spell check is back...the function has been missing from Blogger for a week or so.

6.)  An odd week with a day off in the middle.  No complaints that it is the weekend again!  Enjoy.

RESOLUTION - TO KNOW LESS

Christmas has been put away so I guess it's time to get focused on the year ahead.  As trite as it is, resolutions or any other sort of plan makes sense.  Otherwise, the year just seems to pass with no markers, no successes or failures to recognise.

This past year I was pretty much adrift.  There were milestones in the family, but for myself, with no set goals except to be employed full time and get those damned benefits, there was nothing else on my radar.  The get myself together and lose weight thing is perennial.  Will the fact that my 40th high school  reunion is this year make a difference?  It didn't for the 30th...

No, it is time to move on to bigger things. Things with more weight than my ass. I read about the dismantling of  women's reproductive rights and I get mad, but don't do anything - and that is why those rights are eroding - we who believe sit and don't do anything about it.

It ticks me off that I know about the damned Kardashians even though I have never watched their show(s) on TV.  I am sick of reports about Dancing with the Stars on the morning news shows.  And why is Entertainment Tonight reporting on political scandals?    In my line of site at the gym is the Maury show which is apparently a program "helping" women determine who is the father of their baby.  I don't plug in to hear the show, in fact I have taken to using my exercise machine with my eyes closed rather than see the daily parade of sloppy, swearing, angry, tacky and defiant people on the screen. And worse yet, the cheering and jeering audience.

On The View a while back Whoopie Goldberg said instead of petitioning to get the Kardashian show off the air (which some people are trying to do) just don't watch the shows.  Well, I don't watch a lot of shows that I end up knowing about.  I end up knowing about "celebrities", toddler beauty shows and dance moms.  I hear about weddings, divorces, bankruptcies, thefts, car crashes, hook ups, break-ups, trials,  text messages,  and tweets.  I wonder how far underground I have to go to avoid Snooki, the bachelor, the singers, the housewives, the losers and the makeovers?

So this year - that is what I plan to find out.  It means I can't watch The Today Show which I have enjoyed for years - or at least up until the past 4 or 5 years when seems to have left the news department. If another show I happen to be watching - like The View - starts in on the gossip or features people from those tacky shows, I will turn them off.  It means no more Bravo because the programming I watch isn't worth seeing the commercials for the shows I don't.  I can record the shows and speed through the crap commercials when Project Runway, Work of Art or Mad Fashion is on. 

On the internet I will stop reading the Huffington Post, Jezabel and avoid clicking on  many of the links I run across here and there.  There is so much smart content out there I will have more time to seek out.

My resolution this year is to become more ignorant of some things in the world around me - but it is also to get involved in the stuff that matters.  That part I'm not so sure about, aside from blogging (preaching to the choir for the most part) I will need to explore ways to make a mark and make a difference.

That and reduce the size of my ass.

MEN, SEX AND NEWS

In one of those interesting coincidences , a new study about female new anchors and their effect on men came out just as our local station has hired and his heavily promoting a new member of their news team.  Not an anchor, but very a very female member of the team.

The study by Indiana University researchers is one of those "I hope this wasn't funded with my tax dollars" studies.  It found that when the sexual attractiveness of female newscasters was played up, men watched, but retained less information than when a woman in plainer clothing without much makeup delivered the same news.  As they put it on the Death +Taxes website:  Men pay significantly more attention to attractive women, tuning in when they’re on TV, but they’re not actually retaining what they’re saying. They’re thinking about their boobies.

Christina Loren

I won't even go into the whole discussion about Fox "News" using this tactic and the phenomenon that is Sarah Palin.

I will say that we have been experiencing this in our home for the past couple of weeks.  The local NBC station has replaced the weather person with a woman named Christina Loren.  Her arrival has livenedd up our mornings.  Tom no longer lingers outside with his morning coffee and cigarette, he wants to check out Ms. Loren.  She is very vivacious and has what can only be described as a Barbie-like figure.  She dresses to emphasise it and the men at home camera just loves those profile shots.

Tom has joked that he keeps watching the weather over and over but can't seem to remember what the weather is going to be - as supported by the Indiana study.  Last week Ms. Loren was wearing a shirt with brass buttons.  Two of the brass buttons were, well, off center, maybe there were lapels or something, but the buttons were in mid-breast like big brass nipples.  Tom was amazed.  I said they were going to get complaints.  This week Ms. Loren is no longer wearing the wrap dresses with the ruffles and sweaters with oddly placed buttons.  This week Ms. Loren is wearing suits and plain shirts.

I guess they actually want men to remember what the weather is going to be.