Texas Under Represented on Reality Shows

Only a few days left in the month and the likely cancellation of my subscription to Fort Worth's #1 newspaper. I don't know what I'll do without it, it's like a gift that keeps on giving.

Today, in the first paragraph of an article titled "Area stylists on 'Shear Genius' cut to the chase for us" the Star-Telegram's TV writer, Robert Philpot, had this to say about a Bravo Reality Show about hairdressers, called Shear Genius.

"Reality TV's love affair with North Texas gets truly snippy tonight as Dallas area hairstylists Daniel Lewis and Matthew Tully are among the contestants on season two of Shear Genius, Bravo's haircutting competition."

Now, I'm thinking the above is just yet one more example of how the Star-Telegram repeats nonsense without questioning its premise. Like how over and over again the Star-Telegram trumpeted that a sporting goods store, being built in Fort Worth, would be the biggest tourist attraction in Texas. Or when the Star-Telegram over and over and over again trumpeted a lame little food court called the Sante Fe Market as being the first public market in Texas and being modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market.

So, let's look at the Star-Telegram's bizarre premise that Reality TV has a love affair with Texas. First off there are almost 30 million Texans. There are about 300 million Americans. So, Texas makes up about 10% of America's population.

So, all things being proportional, Texans should make up about 10% of the people on Reality Shows.

Do Texans make up 10% of the people on Reality Shows? I don't think so. Anymore than Cabela's is the top tourist attraction in Texas or the now closed Sante Fe Rail Market ever in the slightest resembled either a public market or Pike Place Market.

I would say Texas is being under-represented. Maybe that's why the Star-Telegram makes such a big whoop-de-doo whenever anyone on any show has any remote connection to Fort Worth, North Texas or Texas.

On the main TV page Philpot repeats his obsession, again, in a blurb about Shear Genius, saying "North Texas is represented by Frisco's Daniel Lewis and Dallas' Matthew Tully." In case we missed it the first time we got this important information.

And then in another blurb, this one about Farmer Wants a Wife, we learn that "Texas Christian University grad Brooke Ward has made it to the final two...."

Like I mentioned yesterday, in response to an emailer who suggested this was indicative of a small town mentality. Yes, it is. You New Yorkers ever read this type verbiage in the Times? Seattleites? Ever see this type stuff in the P-I? Los Angelenos, ever see it in the LA Times? Chicagoites, ever in the Tribune? San Fransicsans, ever in the Chronicle? Portlanders, ever in the Oregonian? Anyone, anywhere?

Oh yeah, I can see the LA Times having a lead paragraph read "Reality TV's love affair with Southern California gets truly snippy tonight...."

Pearls of Wisdom from Rush Limbaugh

I don't remember why, but I get an email every weekday from Rush Limbaugh. It's an email newsletter about that day's radio show.

I'd not listened to Rush Limbaugh for a week or so, til today, while pedaling my bike. I pedal pretty much everywhere these days. Keeping me fueled is cheaper than keeping fuel in my vehicle.

Mr. Limbaugh was being particularly amusing today. If only he'd tone down his ranting about liberals I would find him totally bearable. That particular ranting just seems way over the top, he so demonizes liberals, you'd think they were a scourge like Nazis.

An 80 something long time listener, first time caller, waited for over 2 hours to get to tell Rush that he looked good in that cowboy hat in the photo above. Rush Limbaugh has trouble accepting compliments. It can make him stammer. A stammering Rush Limbaugh is amusing.

One of the things I do agree with Limbaugh about is we share an aversion to whining doom and gloom mongers. They are almost always pretty much ignorant and so the world becomes voodoo nonsense to them as they stumble about in their empty little brains, being afraid of the world they live in. But not afraid to spout their nonsensical ignorance driven drivel.

Yes, I'm talking about you, you Latina Hothead.

So, here is one of Rush Limbaugh's Pearls of Wisdom from today's "Rush in a Hurry" newsletter.

Pearl of Wisdom: "I instinctively do not have a pessimistic view of the future of this country. I can find for you times in our recent past where gasoline prices have gone up identically in terms of percentage increase. Because of my advanced age of 57, I've been through these things and worse. The country is better today than at any time in my life, economically and with opportunity."

There have been times when gas has gone up by 50% in 6 months? I had no idea. Of course, Rush Limbaugh makes millions of bucks a year. He can afford to put gas in his tank. He doesn't even own a bicycle. Today he went on and on about his lifelong aversion to walking. He's hated it ever since he learned to do it. He estimates he walks no more than 10 feet a day. This came up when he questioned a statistic in some article he was quoting which said the average American walks over 900 miles a year. Rush figured that was over 2 miles a day and seemed unlikely.

Seemed unlikely to me too. Then again, I easily walk over 2 miles a day. Walking and biking are currently my only means of transport. I gave up on roller blades due to one bad fall too many.

George Carlin and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

My one long time reader may remember me making mention of an extremely weird oddity in my local inept newspaper of record. That being that if there is any remote connection between a person in the news and a location in north Texas, especially Fort Worth, the Star-Telegram will let you know that important fact, no matter how tenuous the connection may be. Like a person on American Idol may have visited Fort Worth at some point in time. This paper will let you know that important fact.

So, on Sunday George Carlin died. In an example of how hard it is for newspapers to compete with TV and the Internet, timeliness-wise, the George Carlin obit did not show up in the Star-Telegram til today.

That is understandable. What is not understandable is the Star-Telegram George Carlin obit's inclusion of the weirdest example yet of this paper's twisted need to make that all important Fort Worth connection.

Here's the Star-Telegram's front page George Carlin obit.....

"Comic George Carlin, who's being remembered as a counterculture hero, died Sunday of heart failure at age 71 after a long career on stage and in TV and film. But he had Fort Worth connections that predate his fame: He honed his act here in the late 1950s, when he was a DJ at the now defunct radio station KXOL."

He died. But he had Fort Worth connections? I am not making this up. The above paragraph is word for word what is on the front page of this failing newspaper. My longtime reader may remember that I heard from the guy who writes about TV for this paper. He told me the Star-Telegram does this type idiocy so as to give its readers a local connection to a story, unlike that evil paper in that evil town 30 miles to the east.

In reaction to one of my previous diatribes on this subject someone emailed me that "Fort Worth seems to have a small town mentality, which would seem to be like some sort of civic mental illness in a city of almost 700,000 population."

I couldn't have said it better.

Fort Worth Video

I've no clue as to what the point of this video is. The only thing about it that I do know is you get to see what some of Fort Worth looks like. From a hearse.

Who Cares About the Civil War? Part 2

I'm not real certain why it so bothered me to read that the majority of American high school students have no idea when the Civil War took place. It just seems like this is something anyone with any small bit of intelligence would know. That this is just one of those essential bits of knowledge that any American, with cerebral function, would know.

I asked a few adults yesterday if they knew when the Civil War took place. 3 out of 5 did. That was encouraging. But the 2 out of the 5 who did not know, well, their rationalizations for their ignorance were quite bizarre.

I won't name names. But one of the ignorant ones is up in Tacoma. This person thought the Civil War took place in 1812. But, the disturbing part was her rationale for being ignorant about a key piece of her nation's history. She told me that history is my thing, not hers. That she has other interests. Like I would have no idea what a Wedermeyer Chest was. Is some people's thinking so degraded that they equate knowing about a piece of furniture to knowing about the worst calamity to befall their nation, a calamity that reverberates to this day?

And then the other, much more disturbing, adult who did not know when the Civil War took place. Now, when I asked her I told her it would be understandable if she did not know, because she did not grow up in the United States, she grew up in Puerto Rico.

Well. She got all mad and defensive, going on about how she learned that but had no reason to keep that memory because she had too much on her mind and had to think about the future, not the past.

Okay, so that was pretty weird. And then a few minutes later she started going on about something in Puerto Rico that was making her mad, that being something about Puerto Rico making some demand of Spain. Something made me think she could conceive of no possible reason why Puerto Rico might make a claim on Spain.

So. I thought to myself, she's seemed pretty ignorant before, let's see how ignorant she actually is. So, I asked her if she knew why it was that Puerto Rico was part of the United States. She said she did not. She said she didn't care. That it wasn't important.

I then asked if she knew when Puerto Rico became part of the United States. She seemed really proud of herself when she answered that one, thinking she had the answer. She said "1492."

I sat there flabbergasted. This is a person constantly spewing the most ridiculous of ill-informed opinions and now I was right at the Heart of her Ignorance. This was a Puerto Rican who did not know why she grew up speaking Spanish, why or when her island became part of the United States. This is a person who must have never wondered why there is all that old Spanish architecture on the island.

She got very mad when I suggested if she knew about what happened in the past she might better understand the present. She then went on, again, about having too much in her head to add the past, that the past isn't important, tomorrow and the future are all that matter.

How does one communicate to such ignorance I sat and wondered?

The Puerto Rican is always going on, in a Doomsday fashion, about how the world is in such bad shape and so dangerous, with so many nations wanting to hurt the United States, particularly South America. I've tried to explain to her that the present is much better than having Soviet missiles aimed at us and growing up afraid of the dangerous commies. She had no idea what I was talking about. To her Hugo Chavez poses a grave threat to America, rather than the buffoonish cartoon character he appears to be to most of us. On and on she can go about Hugo Chavez, as if he's a modern era Hitler, and an important public figure on the world stage.

And therein lies the danger of being ignorant. If you've never heard of the Great Depression, if you've no clue about the total global chaos of World War II. If you are ignorant of the Cold War and the era when missiles were aimed at the United States. If you don't know of the bubonic plague. If you've never learned of the horrible famines that used to plague the planet. If you know nothing about madmen like Hitler. If you are totally ignorant about that which has happened before you are easy prey to stupid demagoguery. You'll believe that terrorism is the worst thing the United States has ever faced. You'll believe that $4 a gallon gas is the worst economic disaster of all time. You'll fear that a Holocaust denying fool, in Iran, is a grave threat to the world. You'll believe we live in the worst of times, when in reality, in most ways on most days, the world is in the best shape its ever been.

40 years ago who would have ever thought that China and India would be food exporters? Who would have thought a place like Dubai would rise in the Arab desert? That the Berlin Wall would be gone, Germany united, the Cold War won, by US, the Soviet Union gone, the Vietnamese loving American tourists, a black guy with a good shot at being our next President, cancer rates way down. 40 years ago who would have thought that Central and South America would be doing as well as they are now, stable for the most part, democracies, for the most part. 40 years ago, during the Space Race, who would have thought that, these few short years later, that America and Russia now cooperate in space, working together. And China is having an Olympics. And has put a man in space and is aiming at the moon.

It's a wonderful world.

I wonder if George W. Bush knows when the Civil War took place?

Who Cares About the Civil War?

Yesterday I was appalled to read that a recent survey discovered that a majority of American high school students did not know when the American Civil War occurred.

To me this spoke not to the sad state of our students, but instead to the sad state of our teachers. The college I graduated from was a big teacher's college. As in it is one where many grade and high school teachers got their credentials.

I remember a very telling incident. It was in a 300 level U.S. History class. The professor was passing out the graded results of our first test. Before he did so he said something like "I'm going to show you how well I read minds."

Before he'd handed a person their test results he'd say, "You're a future teacher, aren't you? And the person would answer yes. He'd give another their test and say, "You're not future teacher, are you?" And the answer would be no, I'm not.

I answered "no" when it was my turn.

When the professor was done he asked does anyone know how I knew the future teachers from those who aren't going to be teachers? I meekly raised by hand and suggested that "Since I got an A and I'm not a future teacher, I'm gonna guess that those you guessed were future teachers did not get A's."

"Not only did they not get A's, they did not get B's. All the future teachers got C's, D's and F's."

So, you've got C and D students teaching kids the essentials. But these are people who don't really have all that great a grasp on the essentials themselves. So, something as essential to understanding America as the Civil War is somehow not taught in a memorable way to a majority of students. That is appalling. If you don't understand what happened between 1861 and 1865 how can you understand the Civil Rights Movement that came along a century or so later?

More on this later, as in yesterday I asked several adults if they knew when the Civil War occurred. I was not universally appalled at the answers, but appalled nonetheless.

George Carlin Dead at 71

I've always found George Carlin very very amusing. I was surprised to learn, this morning, that he died Sunday. It doesn't seem a week goes by lately without some well known person dying, announcing they've got cancer or suffering a relapse requiring re-hab.

Below is a video of George Carlin taking on religion. In a very sacri-religious way. Is there any other way to take on religion?

Fort Trinity Trail Again, Plus Video

About noon I slowly coasted to my nearest gas station and pumped half a gallon into my nearly dry van. And then for the 3rd Sunday in a row I burned up half that half gallon driving to Gateway Park to bike the Trinity Trail to the Stockyards zone.

It was not windy today. That was nice. I had a huge surprise this time on the Trinity Trail. I have never seen so many bikers on this trail as I saw today. And it was the hot part of the day. I'm talking dozens. Usually I see none. I even saw non-homeless people walking the trail. When I finished my ride I even had a couple drive up to me and ask how to get to the Trinity Trail. That's definitely never happened before. I showed them how to go the scenic route. Or the shortcut. They took the shortcut.

Of course, self-deluded person that I am, attribute this sudden increase in bikers to being caused by my having blogged about it, in addition to being so earnestly trying to get Fort Worthers off their collective butts and work on getting Fort Worth off the Top 20 of those Most Obese Cities Lists. I feel I am making progress. Slow, but steady.

Here are a pair of videos showing what it's like to bike on the Trinity Trail. In the first video we start about a mile north of downtown, heading south towards downtown. We cross under the Main Street Bridge, that I've mentioned before. And then we cross another bridge to get to the other side of the Trinity River. The second video continues from that point.



The second video goes through the busiest part of the Trinty Trail, that being the part that runs from downtown through Trinity Park.

Six Flags Over Texas Anyone?

Anyone in the mood to stomach the stomach churning roller coasters at Six Flags?

I've got 4 free passes and no strong urge to use them. Actually, they're not really free. The free passes don't cover the cost of getting to Six Flags or parking there.

I've only been to Six Flags twice, both times very very very hot. The first time I got soaking wet on some Wild Rapids ride that had killed someone the year before. I did not realize I was going to be going under a waterfall. You would think this would be refreshing to get all wet when it's 110 in the shade. But it's not.

When you get all wet and it's superhot the natural human response is to take off your shirt. But at Six Flags Over Texas there are signs forbidding this sensible practice. I cared more about my comfort, than a sign, and figured if being shirtless got me both comfy and kicked out of Six Flags, the way I was feeling right then, that would have been a win-win.

Sadly, no one told me to put my shirt back on. After an hour of sitting and drying I was good to go. With my shirt back on. Why does Six Flags Over Texas insist shirts be worn? While on the opposite side of the freeway at Six Flag's Hurricane Harbor shirts are not required? You don't even have to wear shoes at that park. It's perplexing and vexing.

Australia Overtakes America's #1 Position

I am in some sort of state of minor shock. For weeks I have been imploring Americans to draw down on our National Strategic Fat Preserve in order to cut food costs and shrink waist lines. And for aesthetic reasons.

I bragged about how we Americans have such an advantage over other nations in this strategic area, with us Americans collectively storing billions of dollars worth of food in our personal Fat Banks.

And, so, what do I learn on this last day of Spring? Australia, of all places, has passed us Americans as the fattest people on earth. How could this happen? I think of Aussies as being like west coasters, a fit and trim people with plenty of health nuts.

26% of Australians are obese. Only 25% of Americans are obese. With a population of 300 million, that's 75 million obese Americans. Australia's population is only about 20.5 million. That's even less people than Canada and California. With 20.5 million people, and 26% of them obese, Australia only has 5.33 million obese people compared to America's whopping 75 million.

So, though we may no longer be #1 in the percentage of our people who are obese, America is still proudly #1 in total number of obese people and in the amount of calories stored in our collective National Strategic Fat Preserve.