I want a a super-handy, single-handed device that's more usable than iPhone & iPod.
I've been very seriously considering buying Google's Nexus 7 tablet because it has a larger-than-iPod screen and its Android implementation is not crippled like the ones other retailers are pushing.
Then, today, seemingly reliable reports that Apple is definitely announcing a mini version of the iPad with a 7.85-inch screen that'll sell for significantly less than iPad's $499 tag. That's according to "several people with knowledge of the project who declined to be named discussing confidential plans." Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said, "No comment."
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Invest in the Cayman Islands
Whether you're a non-profit or a presumptive GOP Presidential nominee, the conventional belief is that you put money in Cayman Islands accounts to keep the prying eyes of the U.S. government away from those investments, which is only important if you want to avoid U.S. taxes.
The reason United States Senator Charles Grassley (R-Ia.) distinguishes between a non-profit and a Presidential candidate escapes me. Wouldn't such a practice be slimy in either case?
Sorry, Senator. I hate to throw your own words back in your face, but if those words were meaningful for a non-profit, then they are also fair game for anyone running for public office.
I get it. My ex wife hated it when I'd repeat her words, mainly because she preferred I'd forget about her inconsistencies.
I don't see the dishonesty in taking Grassley's remarks made in 2010, disparaging offshore investments made by a non-profit, and applying them to an offshore investor who wants to lead this country. Senator, as you know, someone with the kind of wealth and wherewithal to leverage such artful tax shelters is clearly not someone with whom wage earners would relate.
I'll make a deal with you. I'll stop calling lean, finely textured beef "pink slime" if you and Gov. Branstad will admit that shit is disgusting under any moniker.
The reason United States Senator Charles Grassley (R-Ia.) distinguishes between a non-profit and a Presidential candidate escapes me. Wouldn't such a practice be slimy in either case?
Sorry, Senator. I hate to throw your own words back in your face, but if those words were meaningful for a non-profit, then they are also fair game for anyone running for public office.
I get it. My ex wife hated it when I'd repeat her words, mainly because she preferred I'd forget about her inconsistencies.
I don't see the dishonesty in taking Grassley's remarks made in 2010, disparaging offshore investments made by a non-profit, and applying them to an offshore investor who wants to lead this country. Senator, as you know, someone with the kind of wealth and wherewithal to leverage such artful tax shelters is clearly not someone with whom wage earners would relate.
I'll make a deal with you. I'll stop calling lean, finely textured beef "pink slime" if you and Gov. Branstad will admit that shit is disgusting under any moniker.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Healthcare: we're missing the point
The problem with the healthcare conversation in this country is the way we make presumptions about what it is and should be. First and foremost, medicine has become a profit center for large corporations and the super rich.
I heard a political pundit last Sunday suggest it's a problem that sick people are showing up at the doctor's office without healthcare insurance. There's never even a remote possibility that the patient might pay for services rendered. And that's a new dynamic that took hold in my lifetime.
In 1958, when my mother gave birth to my oldest brother, the doctor and hospital bills combined equalled two weeks' of my dad's salary. That reveals two major changes in medicine in the last half-century: costs have tremendously outpaced inflation and the patient-as-the-payer model is dead.
Secondly, health care professionals have resisted modern technology that would improve both the quality and accessibility of health care.
In the tech and statistical realms, we understand that the higher the granularity of collected data, the higher the resolution of the system or model.
There is no shortage of devices that can collect and store a patient's vital signs. Heartrate, blood pressure, respirations, temperature and other diagnostic information can easily be collected and studied by a patient (or family & friends of the patient) by devices and appliances that can and should be widely available to consumers.
The collection and storage -- and subsequent analysis -- of this data is not a complex thing, yet the established routine remains a personal visit to your doctor's office to establish these.
Imagine that. Someone under 50 years old sees a doctor maybe annually, and usually much less than that if he's a man. We rarely know what our heartrate is at any given moment and may only see blood pressure readings at the Walmart pharmacy while playing with their sphygmomanometer.
From a statistical standpoint, that's a pretty awful data sample.
With today's technology, people could potentially increase their awareness of their state of health to levels never before seen. I don't mean merely increasing vitals collection to monthly or weekly, but minute-by-minute.
Imagine pulling out your phone and opening your health monitor to see idiot-proof gages and alerts and trends based on your vital signs. Add the ability to to take high-resolution photos of areas of concern, sonograms and personal observations -- all over a period of time (showing changes) and you can begin to predict with much more accuracy the internal workings of a person's body.
This would undoubtedly modify one's behavior -- and provide invaluable diagnostic data to a health care provider, who now has access to a gold mine of information from which to assess and treat ailments. Together, between the patient's input, the collected data and the doctor's observations & expertise, a patient would then have the best possible chance for a positive outcome.
But today, we needed a President to tell the health care industry that they suck at record keeping and overall patient care. It takes a Supreme Court case to expose just how broken the health care industry is today. It takes people of a certain age to remind the country that it hasn't always been this bad.
I've always said that if Apple was in the health care business, everyone would carry a health monitor capable of managing their own health -- cheaper and more reliably.
Doctor's would always have an established baseline from which to judge the meaning of tell-tale changes in vitals. Patients would always be able to glance at the monitor and make more informed and objective decisions about their own health care needs.
There's a wealth of knowledge about the human body available to all of us and there's no good reason the health care industry should shroud this critical information and medicine-as-a-profession behind enormous pay-walls and bureaucratic bullshit.
How did this system get so badly broken? Easy. We let insurance companies transform medicine into a profit center. And they did so insidiously and gradually. Big Hospital and Big Pharmaceutical leveraged Congress to advance health care in a way that restricts access to only those doing business with the big pockets of big insurance.
It's one of the country's worst morale failings since slavery. Withholding medicine except to the highest bidder is legalized extortion, and the only ones that can stop it are too busy engaged in partisan bickering or playing video games.
If we use common sense and follow the money, we usually find out it's about money and greed. This case is no different.
I said that there's no good reason to shroud the health care system behind paywalls and bureaucracy, but there is a reason nevertheless. It's much more profitable to extort money from sick people, a dynamic facilitated by the insurance companies' promise to pay the bills for us.
Along with that promise comes sacrifice and a lawyer-rich environment.
We continue to see Washington trying to fix symptoms of the health care system, one of which is the litigious nature of the business and subsequent limits on lawsuits called tort reform.
There wouldn't be a need for tort reform if there wasn't this enormous pool of money from which to draw million-dollar settlements commonly referred to as "deep pockets".
You're starting to see how the insurance companies are at the center of the healthcare problem and issues surrounding it. Litigiousness is the symptom of the problem and the fix isn't restricting meaningful lawsuits. Washington politicians and lobbies know it, but none of them will ever want to talk about it.
The fix is insurance reform and rule changes for doctors and hospitals.
To fix health care in this country is to reform risk pool management and to force health care facilities to become transparent with patients with regard to their business and medical practices and policies.
I'm appalled at the restrictions placed on frontline health care providers -- the truly good-spirited, kind and giving souls we want to see greeting us in our hour of need. Doctors and nurses and technicians are the heroes, but have given way to impositions that restrict their ability to provide quality health care. It's practically unheard of to see a doctor that isn't bound by government regulations that enslave him to large corporations, like Big Hospital, Big Pharmaceutical and Big Insurance.
There was a time when the most important insurance decision you had to make was deciding whether it was worth letting your insurance company know all your health issues in exchange for having them pay your medical bills. Now there's no choice whatsoever; it's no optional but assumed that you have a health insurance plan -- and they get to make all decisions about what care they'll pay for.
And the government seems to have it out for you and your doctor. The clinic is stifled under the weight of regulations that make it difficult at best, not to mention very expensive, to meet all the legal criteria imposed on them. All of these compliance measures mean more employees and third-party vendors who specialize in government compliance consulting, drives up the cost of health care -- and drives many smaller practices out of business altogether.
There's no way you can tell me that today's restrictive health care environment is better for patient care under the current set of rules. There would be less suffering through better access and higher quality diagnostic methods and treatment and medications if we were truly on a level playing field.
Medicine is a field that should be occupied by caring, generous individuals who want to do good, reduce society's suffering and serve their communities.
The corporate tycoons that are driven by greed, whose only concern is enriching themselves over the good of patients' health, should be sent packing on their Leerjets to their private islands to die a horrible and lonely death.
Finally, if you fix the culture in a way that embraces Silicon Valley, you'll see product development in consumer-targeted medical devices and instruments skyrocket, which will give doctors and patience an incredible advancement in diagnostic medicine that will transform health care -- and human behavior itself -- in unimaginable ways.
I heard a political pundit last Sunday suggest it's a problem that sick people are showing up at the doctor's office without healthcare insurance. There's never even a remote possibility that the patient might pay for services rendered. And that's a new dynamic that took hold in my lifetime.
In 1958, when my mother gave birth to my oldest brother, the doctor and hospital bills combined equalled two weeks' of my dad's salary. That reveals two major changes in medicine in the last half-century: costs have tremendously outpaced inflation and the patient-as-the-payer model is dead.
Secondly, health care professionals have resisted modern technology that would improve both the quality and accessibility of health care.
In the tech and statistical realms, we understand that the higher the granularity of collected data, the higher the resolution of the system or model.
There is no shortage of devices that can collect and store a patient's vital signs. Heartrate, blood pressure, respirations, temperature and other diagnostic information can easily be collected and studied by a patient (or family & friends of the patient) by devices and appliances that can and should be widely available to consumers.
The collection and storage -- and subsequent analysis -- of this data is not a complex thing, yet the established routine remains a personal visit to your doctor's office to establish these.
Imagine that. Someone under 50 years old sees a doctor maybe annually, and usually much less than that if he's a man. We rarely know what our heartrate is at any given moment and may only see blood pressure readings at the Walmart pharmacy while playing with their sphygmomanometer.
From a statistical standpoint, that's a pretty awful data sample.
With today's technology, people could potentially increase their awareness of their state of health to levels never before seen. I don't mean merely increasing vitals collection to monthly or weekly, but minute-by-minute.
Imagine pulling out your phone and opening your health monitor to see idiot-proof gages and alerts and trends based on your vital signs. Add the ability to to take high-resolution photos of areas of concern, sonograms and personal observations -- all over a period of time (showing changes) and you can begin to predict with much more accuracy the internal workings of a person's body.
This would undoubtedly modify one's behavior -- and provide invaluable diagnostic data to a health care provider, who now has access to a gold mine of information from which to assess and treat ailments. Together, between the patient's input, the collected data and the doctor's observations & expertise, a patient would then have the best possible chance for a positive outcome.
But today, we needed a President to tell the health care industry that they suck at record keeping and overall patient care. It takes a Supreme Court case to expose just how broken the health care industry is today. It takes people of a certain age to remind the country that it hasn't always been this bad.
I've always said that if Apple was in the health care business, everyone would carry a health monitor capable of managing their own health -- cheaper and more reliably.
Doctor's would always have an established baseline from which to judge the meaning of tell-tale changes in vitals. Patients would always be able to glance at the monitor and make more informed and objective decisions about their own health care needs.
There's a wealth of knowledge about the human body available to all of us and there's no good reason the health care industry should shroud this critical information and medicine-as-a-profession behind enormous pay-walls and bureaucratic bullshit.
How did this system get so badly broken? Easy. We let insurance companies transform medicine into a profit center. And they did so insidiously and gradually. Big Hospital and Big Pharmaceutical leveraged Congress to advance health care in a way that restricts access to only those doing business with the big pockets of big insurance.
It's one of the country's worst morale failings since slavery. Withholding medicine except to the highest bidder is legalized extortion, and the only ones that can stop it are too busy engaged in partisan bickering or playing video games.
If we use common sense and follow the money, we usually find out it's about money and greed. This case is no different.
I said that there's no good reason to shroud the health care system behind paywalls and bureaucracy, but there is a reason nevertheless. It's much more profitable to extort money from sick people, a dynamic facilitated by the insurance companies' promise to pay the bills for us.
Along with that promise comes sacrifice and a lawyer-rich environment.
We continue to see Washington trying to fix symptoms of the health care system, one of which is the litigious nature of the business and subsequent limits on lawsuits called tort reform.
There wouldn't be a need for tort reform if there wasn't this enormous pool of money from which to draw million-dollar settlements commonly referred to as "deep pockets".
You're starting to see how the insurance companies are at the center of the healthcare problem and issues surrounding it. Litigiousness is the symptom of the problem and the fix isn't restricting meaningful lawsuits. Washington politicians and lobbies know it, but none of them will ever want to talk about it.
The fix is insurance reform and rule changes for doctors and hospitals.
- Absolutely no risk pool should ever be used as a profit center under any circumstance whatsoever
- Malpractice insurance should be abolished to eliminate frivolous litigation
- All risk pools should be tightly regulated and monitored by the state.
- All financials should be reported to the public on an ongoing basis, down to the individual claim (identified by number known only to the insured).
- There can be no criteria for coverage and absolutely no personal medical information can be supplied to a pool manager (insurance company).
- No health care provider can use coverage as pricing measure and all pricing must be published in clear and plain language, accessible by any prospective patient.
- Patient information is owned solely by the patient and cannot be released to any third-party or face imprisonment.
To fix health care in this country is to reform risk pool management and to force health care facilities to become transparent with patients with regard to their business and medical practices and policies.
I'm appalled at the restrictions placed on frontline health care providers -- the truly good-spirited, kind and giving souls we want to see greeting us in our hour of need. Doctors and nurses and technicians are the heroes, but have given way to impositions that restrict their ability to provide quality health care. It's practically unheard of to see a doctor that isn't bound by government regulations that enslave him to large corporations, like Big Hospital, Big Pharmaceutical and Big Insurance.
There was a time when the most important insurance decision you had to make was deciding whether it was worth letting your insurance company know all your health issues in exchange for having them pay your medical bills. Now there's no choice whatsoever; it's no optional but assumed that you have a health insurance plan -- and they get to make all decisions about what care they'll pay for.
And the government seems to have it out for you and your doctor. The clinic is stifled under the weight of regulations that make it difficult at best, not to mention very expensive, to meet all the legal criteria imposed on them. All of these compliance measures mean more employees and third-party vendors who specialize in government compliance consulting, drives up the cost of health care -- and drives many smaller practices out of business altogether.
There's no way you can tell me that today's restrictive health care environment is better for patient care under the current set of rules. There would be less suffering through better access and higher quality diagnostic methods and treatment and medications if we were truly on a level playing field.
Medicine is a field that should be occupied by caring, generous individuals who want to do good, reduce society's suffering and serve their communities.
The corporate tycoons that are driven by greed, whose only concern is enriching themselves over the good of patients' health, should be sent packing on their Leerjets to their private islands to die a horrible and lonely death.
Finally, if you fix the culture in a way that embraces Silicon Valley, you'll see product development in consumer-targeted medical devices and instruments skyrocket, which will give doctors and patience an incredible advancement in diagnostic medicine that will transform health care -- and human behavior itself -- in unimaginable ways.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
The death of local radio
The title is a cliche that has become the bitter moniker of the displaced and disgruntled local radio personality and the signs are pointing to more dramatic reductions in local facilities, considering the recent bolstering of centralized management teams and infrastructure.
No one should be surprised when radio leaves Main Street USA; it's been coming for 16 years.
If you work in local radio and you're 25 or younger, your grandchildren may not believe you when you tell your stories about local radio. "They did what with 100,000 watts? And a thousand-foot tower? That's stupid!"
I took a four year hiatus from radio in the nineties and when I returned, the carts and card catalog were gone and automation had been rolled out and the the President had just signed the 1996 telecommunications bill, essentially opening the door for the massive corporatization of my beloved career.
What happened in '96 was not the death of local radio, but the seeds of a gradual streamlining of worldwide media. What I had been secretly daydreaming about while pulling overnight shifts at a small-market 100KW in the eighties was coming true. Back then I had free-run of the station and all night to imagine dozens of better ways to do what we were doing in our building, some spurred from John Schad's innovations with audio and computer hard drives. The tasks we laboriously repeated hour after hour and day after day were also being repeated by station after station, and all of it was wasted on inefficiency.
So to me today's changes are not all bad. The old-timers will say, "It was a fun ride," but as the days of local terrestrial radio and television stations makes way for personalized pocket media, we'll realize we were just too bloated to compete with what was started by a teenager from his college dorm room. We'll recognize that the term 'local' has actually been upgraded to 'location-aware'.
Radio people can continue to hopelessly cling to their antiquated processes until the last receiver goes to static, but the evidence is mounting that there's nothing so special about what they actually do when it can be done more efficiently from a datacenter.
Think about what we do. Today we sell air time to local businesses, then write and produce commercials. A local traffic team schedules those commercials into the daily logs, producing pounds of paper along the way. The rest of the programming is done in much the same way; local folks drop in nationally syndicated songs, nationally distributed voice tracks and weather from national prediction centers into the daily schedules and click 'save'. Old-timer tube-heads spend most of their days struggling to bridge the technology gap between antiques and modern devices with soldering irons and duct tape.
The sales staff has already been trained to input everything into a central computer, unwittingly making way for centralization of the other moving parts -- functions which could just as easily be performed from a coffee shop.
That begs for a revelation: local businesses can just as easily use online tools to buy air time and website banner ads. They already buy banner ads from Google and Facebook, just like they buy direct mail services from Vista Print. Select a theme, enter some text, drag & drop in an element, enter the number of impressions, select a target audience, and voila!
What's that, you say? That business model couldn't possibly generate enough revenue to build and maintain massive broadcast facilities? Exactly! Therein lies the rub. In this digital age, what media company can justify keeping hundreds of local office buildings and a thousand high-powered transmitter facilities scattered around the countryside to do what Facebook and Google can do with a fraction of the capital?
Enter Bob Pittman, the leader of the newly-minted Clear Channel Media + Entertainment. He is steering an antiquated industry into an era that began 16 years ago, but that clung hopelessly to its past.
No one should be surprised when radio leaves Main Street USA; it's been coming for 16 years.
If you work in local radio and you're 25 or younger, your grandchildren may not believe you when you tell your stories about local radio. "They did what with 100,000 watts? And a thousand-foot tower? That's stupid!"
I took a four year hiatus from radio in the nineties and when I returned, the carts and card catalog were gone and automation had been rolled out and the the President had just signed the 1996 telecommunications bill, essentially opening the door for the massive corporatization of my beloved career.
What happened in '96 was not the death of local radio, but the seeds of a gradual streamlining of worldwide media. What I had been secretly daydreaming about while pulling overnight shifts at a small-market 100KW in the eighties was coming true. Back then I had free-run of the station and all night to imagine dozens of better ways to do what we were doing in our building, some spurred from John Schad's innovations with audio and computer hard drives. The tasks we laboriously repeated hour after hour and day after day were also being repeated by station after station, and all of it was wasted on inefficiency.
So to me today's changes are not all bad. The old-timers will say, "It was a fun ride," but as the days of local terrestrial radio and television stations makes way for personalized pocket media, we'll realize we were just too bloated to compete with what was started by a teenager from his college dorm room. We'll recognize that the term 'local' has actually been upgraded to 'location-aware'.
Radio people can continue to hopelessly cling to their antiquated processes until the last receiver goes to static, but the evidence is mounting that there's nothing so special about what they actually do when it can be done more efficiently from a datacenter.
Think about what we do. Today we sell air time to local businesses, then write and produce commercials. A local traffic team schedules those commercials into the daily logs, producing pounds of paper along the way. The rest of the programming is done in much the same way; local folks drop in nationally syndicated songs, nationally distributed voice tracks and weather from national prediction centers into the daily schedules and click 'save'. Old-timer tube-heads spend most of their days struggling to bridge the technology gap between antiques and modern devices with soldering irons and duct tape.
The sales staff has already been trained to input everything into a central computer, unwittingly making way for centralization of the other moving parts -- functions which could just as easily be performed from a coffee shop.
That begs for a revelation: local businesses can just as easily use online tools to buy air time and website banner ads. They already buy banner ads from Google and Facebook, just like they buy direct mail services from Vista Print. Select a theme, enter some text, drag & drop in an element, enter the number of impressions, select a target audience, and voila!
What's that, you say? That business model couldn't possibly generate enough revenue to build and maintain massive broadcast facilities? Exactly! Therein lies the rub. In this digital age, what media company can justify keeping hundreds of local office buildings and a thousand high-powered transmitter facilities scattered around the countryside to do what Facebook and Google can do with a fraction of the capital?
Enter Bob Pittman, the leader of the newly-minted Clear Channel Media + Entertainment. He is steering an antiquated industry into an era that began 16 years ago, but that clung hopelessly to its past.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Why the gas tax is unfair to wage earners
When the state tacks fees on the price of a gallon of gas, it's punishing a class of people that are not only the least deserving, but the weakest element of the government. The wage earner.
The reason we, the weak, are taxed in the first place is because we don't have the power to fight back.
The US Supreme Court recently ruled that corporations are sovereign entities above and beyond the individuals that comprise them by upholding their ability to speak with a louder, more pervasive voice in government via campaign contributions. That gives the very rich incredible influence in government that the rest of us cannot access.
The reason the wage earner, the people that drive their cars for reasons of personal travel or to get to their jobs and many other non-commercial reasons, should not have to pay a gas tax is because they cause a minuscule amount of wear and tear on the roads in comparison to that of commercial users.
The unmistakable beneficiary of our roads are the corporations that use them to generate vast amounts of revenue. Pound-for-pound, semi trucks cause 60 times more damage than a passenger car. Even if I thought the people, who have a natural right to move about the country unencumbered by government regulations or corporate restrictions, were to fork over an equitable share for their road use, then it would be a tiny fraction of what they currently pay.
Let's also remember that the gas tax is not the only way in which the people subsidize over-the-road commerce. We pay huge in state and federal taxes on wages, tax on purchases, tax to give health care to elderly, disabled and poor people, and tax to supplement the incomes elderly people after they retire, without respect for financial need. Any of these moneys can be leveraged or converted to directly or indirectly fund road construction or gas subsidies -- on the backs of the wage earner.
There are no delusions that the government needs revenue to operate and keep the country on the rails. The question is, from which spigots should it be able to derive it? The problem is that some very powerful people and entities regard the wage earners as an enormous teat from which to enrich themselves.
I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little sick and tired of being the schmuck who has to pay all the damn bills around this place!
Friday, June 22, 2012
Free digital TV means $140 in monthly savings
I always threatened to cancel my cable TV subscription, but when my bill jumped from $78 to $140 a month, it was suddenly a lot easier to return the gear to Mediacom and end the relationship.What I had not fully realized was that 95% of what I watch is free. In fact, all the top shows are in fact broadcast OTA (over-the-air). What am I missing? I can't watch Mad Men and The Daily Show at their initial air times anymore, but for $9 (Netflix) I can catch up on almost any cable show, like Mad Men, and there's a free app for The Daily Show.
For the sake of full disclosure, I had to replace the Internet connection my cable company provided as a part of their $140 package. I found a company that provides DSL for $45/mo. And I still have my Tivo DVR, so that's another $129/yr ($10.75/mo). I can drop that (see below) and still enjoy all my shows. Finally, my phone bill is $45 a month. I'm keeping that.
What you need to cut the cable:
- $35 TV antenna (and the guts to instal it)
- $50 chimney mount and RG6 coaxial cable
- $35 signal splitter/amplifier
- $100 over-the-air DVR
Now, even if I give up my Tivo, I still can record two shows at once, and watch them on my computer, or TV (via Apple TV [$99]) or on my iPad if I want.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Branstad endorses a big, fat liar
It's pretty late in the race to be choosing horses, and this particular stallion has some issues from a previous run.
Romney showed us there's nothing he wouldn't lie about. So the question is whether it hurt Branstad to back the better of the evils, when in fact the lesser man is evil.
Let me take you back to august of 2007 when the former governor of Massachusetts appeared on a radio show while stumping in Des Moines during his ask-me-anything tour.
Several minutes into a filler segment, the talk show host abruptly shifted gears, noting that Romney was walking into the studio. "Good morning, sir, welcome aboard," Jan Mickelson said. But the niceties didn't last.
After a significant kerfuffle on and off the air, Mickelson said, "I hope we can do this when we can spend some quality time on the air." "No, I get a little tired of coming on a show like yours and having it be all about Mormon," Mr. Romney fired back.
If it's not bad enough that Romney was argumentative, defensive and combative, he told Katie Couric that the host had a hidden camera on the console.
More than this being about a potential US President's dishonesty, I'm disheartened that the governor of my state would back him in that role.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Pink slime saga will not end well for producers
I've lived in Iowa all my life and I owe it to the agriculture community a measure of gratitude for sustaining an economy here so that I can be gainfully employed my entire adult life. But should that mean I can't speak openly about the elephant in the room?
Would I be a bad Iowan if I was critical of its producers? Listen to any politician or company or industry communication director and you're going to hear some one-sided dialog. But as an ordinary resident, that's not my job.
As an individual I have a right to take the available information and assess it with as much critical thinking as I can muster on a given day and form an opinion about it. Unfortunately it's well known that the industries see their jobs as managing public perception through spin in the name of sustaining our economy here.
As a lifelong Iowan, I've long known you don't ask what's in a hot dog. I've long known that hamburger consists of about the lowest grade meat imaginable. It probably has a high connective tissue count. That's why it's ground up; to break those tissues to make it more palatable. You expect a certain amount of bovine gut matter to be there that you presume to be incidental to the meat cutting process.
What one does not expect is that they take the undesirable trimmings offsite to a facility that specializes in engineering those trimmings into some kind of substance that is then added back into the ground beef as a filler. That's obviously to save money, but it also serves to let the beef company advertise a lower fat content that is free from bacteria. It's now a leaner product and is safe.
But as is always the case when the conversation is controlled by the industry, you have to ask what are the yeah-but rebuttals that are left out.
"We have just begun to fight," said Gov. Terry Brandstad (R-Ia) about the presumed smear campaign being waged against the non-meat filler product being added to some 70% of all ground beef sold in the US.
Branstad was dancing as he called on college student at Texas A&M and Iowa State University to counter what "Hollywood and the media elites and the people spreading these...misinformation..."
He now says wants a congressional investigation into how this image-busting smear campaign got started.
US Rep. Steve King (R-Ia) thinks sworn testimony will repair the damage caused by what the governor calls a conspiracy to hurt producers.
The media is helping. The Des Moines Register refers to "pink slime" as "trimmings from other cuts of meat." Local television news has been covering the story nightly, but has yet to suggest the additive is anything other than meat.
But the glaring omission -- what nobody bothers mentioning -- is what precisely the misinformation is.
Yes, people have called it "pink slime," which I stipulate paints the additive in an unappetizing light. I'm told that images purporting to represent the substance have not been accurate. I am also aware that there have been exaggerations about how "lean, finely textured beef" is exposed to ammonia.
BFI in Sioux City, Iowa was treated to a gathering of beef industry supporters who have launched a campaign with the rallying cry, "Dude, it's Beef".
True. But it ain't exactly meat, is it?
This is a war without an enemy. Nobody wants the beef economy to suffer unduly. There is no upside to saying things that are untrue about the food we eat and rely on for our livelihood. But I hope we can talk about it candidly.
We've been told it's not dangerous. But what precisely does lean, finely textured beef do to advance human or animal nutrition?
The sad fact is that the louder the governor of Iowa speaks on behalf of his generous campaign donors, the more attention is drawn to a substance in our food that is almost universally repulsive.
It seems to me the problem is the fact that they've been using filler to artificially lower the production costs of ground beef and passing it on to unwitting consumers as pure and good.
Well it's not good. And it's not honest. This is the most vile and disgusting part of the bovine. Salvage matter, if you will. It's cow guts pulverized into an unrecognizable paste, which has been sanitized with ammonia (Cargill at least uses citrus).
Yes, it's beef. No, it's not meat.
In some cases, it's been reported that the actual pink slime content in a typical pound of ground beef is as high as 30%.
No one I've talked to about this wants pink slime deliberately added to their diet at any cost savings.
The bottom line is that we don't have to make up lies about finely textured beef because there are plenty of accurate truths available that are positively disgusting to the consumer.
I'm mortified that there are entire plants dedicated to turning the most awful part of the cow into filler to stretch hamburger.
And then there's the labeling issue. The plant owners say it's all beef, therefore requires no disclaimers.
But wouldn't people want to know about this stuff? Yes. And it's unpleasant. And growing up in Iowa I've learned there's a lot of unpleasant things you can learn about how food makes it from the farm to the dining room tables of America. Hot dogs come to mind. "If you knew how they were made, you'd never eat another."
Shortly after the story blew up, I bought 10 lbs. of 80% lean ground beef at Hy-Vee for $2.89 a pound. I did this knowing it probably contained 15% of the most unspeakable parts of the cow. Call me disgusting, but it's beef, afterall.
I only wish the beef producers had the guts to be honest about their products.
I want to see farm-of-origin labeling. The FDA demands to know, but they keep it a secret from the people who actually buy the meat. Why do they need to keep this a secret? I suppose there could be a plausibly legitimate reason for that, but I can't think of one.
The corn-based feed they gorge the cos with at feedlots makes for more fat on the meat, which is said to produce a tasty steak when grilled. In the west, they'll tell you grass-fed beef tastes so much better than midwest's corn-fed variety.
I'm of the opinion there's a lot we're not supposed to know because it's not terribly appetizing to contemplate at the dinner table.
We know the cruelty imposed by meat producers, but Iowa just passed a law to put down those who would expose the suffering.
I would rather go on believing my hamburger is not the best cut of meat,, but that the part therein that isn't considered meat is inconsequential But instead we learn that they actually ptoduce the additive offsite and ship it in to the meat plants to deliberately dilute the product with salvage matter.
The real danger to the beef industry isn't that people are spreading lies or misinformation. What's going to change the business of beef is that consumers now know more accurate information about what goes into the Big Mac that just doesn't sound good to them, which will eventually affect demand for their products.
I'll give you this: cow guts might in fact qualify as beef, by definition. But let's be honest. It doesn't even qualify as a low-grade cut of meat...dude!
Would I be a bad Iowan if I was critical of its producers? Listen to any politician or company or industry communication director and you're going to hear some one-sided dialog. But as an ordinary resident, that's not my job.
As an individual I have a right to take the available information and assess it with as much critical thinking as I can muster on a given day and form an opinion about it. Unfortunately it's well known that the industries see their jobs as managing public perception through spin in the name of sustaining our economy here.
As a lifelong Iowan, I've long known you don't ask what's in a hot dog. I've long known that hamburger consists of about the lowest grade meat imaginable. It probably has a high connective tissue count. That's why it's ground up; to break those tissues to make it more palatable. You expect a certain amount of bovine gut matter to be there that you presume to be incidental to the meat cutting process.
What one does not expect is that they take the undesirable trimmings offsite to a facility that specializes in engineering those trimmings into some kind of substance that is then added back into the ground beef as a filler. That's obviously to save money, but it also serves to let the beef company advertise a lower fat content that is free from bacteria. It's now a leaner product and is safe.
But as is always the case when the conversation is controlled by the industry, you have to ask what are the yeah-but rebuttals that are left out.
"We have just begun to fight," said Gov. Terry Brandstad (R-Ia) about the presumed smear campaign being waged against the non-meat filler product being added to some 70% of all ground beef sold in the US.
Branstad was dancing as he called on college student at Texas A&M and Iowa State University to counter what "Hollywood and the media elites and the people spreading these...misinformation..."
He now says wants a congressional investigation into how this image-busting smear campaign got started.
US Rep. Steve King (R-Ia) thinks sworn testimony will repair the damage caused by what the governor calls a conspiracy to hurt producers.
The media is helping. The Des Moines Register refers to "pink slime" as "trimmings from other cuts of meat." Local television news has been covering the story nightly, but has yet to suggest the additive is anything other than meat.
But the glaring omission -- what nobody bothers mentioning -- is what precisely the misinformation is.
Yes, people have called it "pink slime," which I stipulate paints the additive in an unappetizing light. I'm told that images purporting to represent the substance have not been accurate. I am also aware that there have been exaggerations about how "lean, finely textured beef" is exposed to ammonia.
BFI in Sioux City, Iowa was treated to a gathering of beef industry supporters who have launched a campaign with the rallying cry, "Dude, it's Beef".
True. But it ain't exactly meat, is it?
This is a war without an enemy. Nobody wants the beef economy to suffer unduly. There is no upside to saying things that are untrue about the food we eat and rely on for our livelihood. But I hope we can talk about it candidly.
We've been told it's not dangerous. But what precisely does lean, finely textured beef do to advance human or animal nutrition?
The sad fact is that the louder the governor of Iowa speaks on behalf of his generous campaign donors, the more attention is drawn to a substance in our food that is almost universally repulsive.
It seems to me the problem is the fact that they've been using filler to artificially lower the production costs of ground beef and passing it on to unwitting consumers as pure and good.
Well it's not good. And it's not honest. This is the most vile and disgusting part of the bovine. Salvage matter, if you will. It's cow guts pulverized into an unrecognizable paste, which has been sanitized with ammonia (Cargill at least uses citrus).
Yes, it's beef. No, it's not meat.
In some cases, it's been reported that the actual pink slime content in a typical pound of ground beef is as high as 30%.
No one I've talked to about this wants pink slime deliberately added to their diet at any cost savings.
The bottom line is that we don't have to make up lies about finely textured beef because there are plenty of accurate truths available that are positively disgusting to the consumer.
I'm mortified that there are entire plants dedicated to turning the most awful part of the cow into filler to stretch hamburger.
And then there's the labeling issue. The plant owners say it's all beef, therefore requires no disclaimers.
But wouldn't people want to know about this stuff? Yes. And it's unpleasant. And growing up in Iowa I've learned there's a lot of unpleasant things you can learn about how food makes it from the farm to the dining room tables of America. Hot dogs come to mind. "If you knew how they were made, you'd never eat another."
Shortly after the story blew up, I bought 10 lbs. of 80% lean ground beef at Hy-Vee for $2.89 a pound. I did this knowing it probably contained 15% of the most unspeakable parts of the cow. Call me disgusting, but it's beef, afterall.
I only wish the beef producers had the guts to be honest about their products.
I want to see farm-of-origin labeling. The FDA demands to know, but they keep it a secret from the people who actually buy the meat. Why do they need to keep this a secret? I suppose there could be a plausibly legitimate reason for that, but I can't think of one.
The corn-based feed they gorge the cos with at feedlots makes for more fat on the meat, which is said to produce a tasty steak when grilled. In the west, they'll tell you grass-fed beef tastes so much better than midwest's corn-fed variety.
I'm of the opinion there's a lot we're not supposed to know because it's not terribly appetizing to contemplate at the dinner table.
We know the cruelty imposed by meat producers, but Iowa just passed a law to put down those who would expose the suffering.
I would rather go on believing my hamburger is not the best cut of meat,, but that the part therein that isn't considered meat is inconsequential But instead we learn that they actually ptoduce the additive offsite and ship it in to the meat plants to deliberately dilute the product with salvage matter.
The real danger to the beef industry isn't that people are spreading lies or misinformation. What's going to change the business of beef is that consumers now know more accurate information about what goes into the Big Mac that just doesn't sound good to them, which will eventually affect demand for their products.
I'll give you this: cow guts might in fact qualify as beef, by definition. But let's be honest. It doesn't even qualify as a low-grade cut of meat...dude!
Pet diaries
This has been circulating for a while and I enjoy seeing it every time it rolls back to me.
9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 pm - Dinner! My favorite thing!
7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!
My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.
The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet. Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates my capabilities. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Bastards!
There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.
Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow, but at the top of the stairs.
I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released, and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird must be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now.
The Dog's Diary
8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!
9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!
10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!
12:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!
1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!
3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!
5:00 pm - Dinner! My favorite thing!
7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!
8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!
11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!
The Cat's Diary
Day 983 of My CaptivityMy captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed hash or some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength.
The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet. Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates my capabilities. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Bastards!
There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage.
Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow, but at the top of the stairs.
I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released, and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird must be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
This is my thirtieth year in radio and I'm still inspired by the spirit of the business, with all of its varied aspects. There are layers stacked on entertainment, journalism, community service, marketing and a camaraderie that has always spoken to me. It touches people and binds us to those in other worlds and about town.
There's also a moving timeline that is intriguing and exciting. There's a rich history that creates this aura of heritage, yet it's full of people always working to enhance and polish the processes that make the sound come out of the speakers and the words ever-relevant.
I'm not a purist. I think that's too limiting for such an evolving medium. I love new ideas and exploring ways to change up my craft. Besides, pure is relative to an individual and the period of his entry into the business.
The earliest broadcasts were always live, as there was no means to record them. Later, programming was produced using test acetate (lacquer-coated discs cut using a needle modulated by sound), reel-to-reel and "carts" (continuous loop tape cartridges of various lengths). However the basic gear -- the mic, a transmitter and many inexpensive receivers -- still comprises the magic of radio.
It's okay to wear your tape-splicing ability on your sleeve or to extol the virtues of the cart deck, but you have to be amazed at our ability to edit in the digital realm and file reports, with photos and video, armed with nothing more than a mobile phone and the radio smarts to know what to capture.
Radio is as it's always been; people with eyes on the streets and a smile in their voices. The constant is that talent creates the imagery of a window that looks over the city to an extent that one might think of them as omniscient. Listening makes you feel connected to the world outside while you may be confined to your home or your car or your office. They are a collective voice coming from several places seemingly at onces, providing comfort and a sense of companionship.
People will forever pontificate about whether radio is dying. Until it's dead. But I know on this day it's not. It's thriving as a medium and reaches impressive audiences over-the-air -- and now across a global digital fabric. The biggest challenge today is not that the medium is losing its viability, but rather the challenges facing the guiding business model.
I have been extremely fortunate to be able to work at some of the most prolific radio stations of the midwest. I've always worked alongside stellar performers who carry on the positive spirit. They've been unquestionable assets to our industry and the stations they support.
But if radio ever does die, I hope entertainment, journalism, community service, marketing and a camaraderie survive.
There's also a moving timeline that is intriguing and exciting. There's a rich history that creates this aura of heritage, yet it's full of people always working to enhance and polish the processes that make the sound come out of the speakers and the words ever-relevant.
I'm not a purist. I think that's too limiting for such an evolving medium. I love new ideas and exploring ways to change up my craft. Besides, pure is relative to an individual and the period of his entry into the business.
The earliest broadcasts were always live, as there was no means to record them. Later, programming was produced using test acetate (lacquer-coated discs cut using a needle modulated by sound), reel-to-reel and "carts" (continuous loop tape cartridges of various lengths). However the basic gear -- the mic, a transmitter and many inexpensive receivers -- still comprises the magic of radio.
It's okay to wear your tape-splicing ability on your sleeve or to extol the virtues of the cart deck, but you have to be amazed at our ability to edit in the digital realm and file reports, with photos and video, armed with nothing more than a mobile phone and the radio smarts to know what to capture.
Radio is as it's always been; people with eyes on the streets and a smile in their voices. The constant is that talent creates the imagery of a window that looks over the city to an extent that one might think of them as omniscient. Listening makes you feel connected to the world outside while you may be confined to your home or your car or your office. They are a collective voice coming from several places seemingly at onces, providing comfort and a sense of companionship.
People will forever pontificate about whether radio is dying. Until it's dead. But I know on this day it's not. It's thriving as a medium and reaches impressive audiences over-the-air -- and now across a global digital fabric. The biggest challenge today is not that the medium is losing its viability, but rather the challenges facing the guiding business model.
I have been extremely fortunate to be able to work at some of the most prolific radio stations of the midwest. I've always worked alongside stellar performers who carry on the positive spirit. They've been unquestionable assets to our industry and the stations they support.
But if radio ever does die, I hope entertainment, journalism, community service, marketing and a camaraderie survive.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Voter ID efforts suspect
I keep hearing that Iowa needs to pass legislation that prevents voter fraud. And the proponents of the measure use language that appeals to the sensibilities of regular people, saying, "If you need an ID to (insert any common activity), then why not require ID to make sure elections are fair?"
And that's when my ears perk up. That sure has the ring of demagoguery, the same rhetoric used in every debate on nearly any polarizing issues where someone has a thinly veiled agenda.
I must ask if this insistence on requiring government identification at the polling place is based on actual voter fraud problems or does this amount to statistical wizardry crafted by some organized elite faction to sway outcomes to their preferred side.
Voting is a fundamental right in our republic and it should not be a difficult undertaking for citizens to exercise. True, government and businesses are pushing harder to ask us to prove our identity at every turn, but the reasons for that climate are not the fault of the citizen. It's a mere convenience for the automation of information, correspondence and transactions.
The question you ought to ask is, should people have to jump through extra hoops to exercise their rights as US citizens? If I, as an American, have the right to be left alone, for example, then I have a right to not obtain government identification papers. You must not be forced to forfeit one right in order to exercise another.
If every time we turn around, the government demands that we produce papers, then we become a controlled state; we forfeit our personal sovereignty. We associate that kind of state-control with Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, which we vehemently oppose and find repulsive. We value the idea that the government has no cause, right or standing to stop, detain, inconvenience or generally bother people for any reason, unless the people have committed a crime against other people, or their property, or that public safety requires it.
There's no public safety issue here. And there appears to be no voter fraud issue either. People are trying to solve a problem in Iowa that simply doesn't exist -- at the behest of a well-funded organization that wants to use the peoples' government for its own profit and purpose.
Those who value liberty and freedom need to think critically about what this will mean for us. We need to understand the direction such measures would take us as a nation; more toward government control and the loss of the freedoms guaranteed by our charter.
And that's when my ears perk up. That sure has the ring of demagoguery, the same rhetoric used in every debate on nearly any polarizing issues where someone has a thinly veiled agenda.
I must ask if this insistence on requiring government identification at the polling place is based on actual voter fraud problems or does this amount to statistical wizardry crafted by some organized elite faction to sway outcomes to their preferred side.
Voting is a fundamental right in our republic and it should not be a difficult undertaking for citizens to exercise. True, government and businesses are pushing harder to ask us to prove our identity at every turn, but the reasons for that climate are not the fault of the citizen. It's a mere convenience for the automation of information, correspondence and transactions.
The question you ought to ask is, should people have to jump through extra hoops to exercise their rights as US citizens? If I, as an American, have the right to be left alone, for example, then I have a right to not obtain government identification papers. You must not be forced to forfeit one right in order to exercise another.
If every time we turn around, the government demands that we produce papers, then we become a controlled state; we forfeit our personal sovereignty. We associate that kind of state-control with Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, which we vehemently oppose and find repulsive. We value the idea that the government has no cause, right or standing to stop, detain, inconvenience or generally bother people for any reason, unless the people have committed a crime against other people, or their property, or that public safety requires it.
There's no public safety issue here. And there appears to be no voter fraud issue either. People are trying to solve a problem in Iowa that simply doesn't exist -- at the behest of a well-funded organization that wants to use the peoples' government for its own profit and purpose.
Those who value liberty and freedom need to think critically about what this will mean for us. We need to understand the direction such measures would take us as a nation; more toward government control and the loss of the freedoms guaranteed by our charter.
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