Correction: The Lantern Theatre Company, to which a link was provided in the prior Jackspotpourri in the article on Shakespeare and Gender, is located in Philadelphia, not in Great Britian. My error.
JL
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The Air You Breathe is Free, but What About TV?
(Not being a ‘techie,’ I may have made some technological errors in this piece, but I would hope they don’t detract from the point I am making. JL)
Step outside on a clear day in a hopefully pollutant-free environment and take a deep breath. That doesn’t cost you anything. That kind of air is free.
Other kinds of air are free too.
When radio and ultimately television were in their infancy, stations broadcast their signals as electromagnetic waves carried through the air. If you had something that could ‘tune’ to the ‘frequencies’ of these waves, like a ‘radio’ or ultimately a television set, equipped with an antenna that would reach into the air to capture them, you could bring radio or television signals into your homes for free! What a blessing!
FDR spoke to a select few TV set owners in 1938 from the New York World Fair, and Harry Truman’s 1949 inauguration was available to anyone who had a TV set. And there were no charges for these telecasts, if you had an antenna. 
A relic of those early days is the heading which many newspapers still title their television listings: ‘On the Air.’ Few of the programs they list are exclusively ‘on the air’ any longer. There are some stubborn people around who still use antennas (remember your first TV’s ‘rabbit ears’ and the roofs decked with antennas) to pick up those signals, some of which are still around ‘in the air.’ In fact, these signals are what make AM/FM radio in automobiles possible today, although there is a popular service one can pay for (Sirius Radio) that is based on satellite and ground station transmissions.
But back in the 1970s, technology came up with an improvement over those electromagnetic waves wafting through the air. It was called ‘cable’ and provided far better television reception through a physical cable, running into your home from wires added to poles already carrying telephone lines or electricity, or buried underground, plus providing the availability of an almost infinite number of channels.
The days of the TV sets that could input the frequencies of only thirteen channels from those electromagnetic waves in the air were over. New sets were necessary to carry all of those now available channels. And oh, yes, unlike those electromagnetic waves in the air, ‘cable’ was not free.
This is what served us well for many years until technology was developed whereby even those cables were no longer necessary. Forget about them along with the electromagnetic waves in the air.
You were now able to receive these signals electronically via the internet, which is what most cable TV providers utilize to serve their viewers. (A few are ‘hybrid’ using an outdoor saucer-like antenna reaching for signals from a satellite, or buried fiber-optic cable, but ultimately, somewhere along the way to the subscriber, they are also internet dependent.)
And today, because almost everyone is somehow hooked up to the internet for communicating with others or for gathering information, it was an easy step to add TV reception to these online uses of the internet.
But like cable TV, these signals were not free and had to be subscribed to, but most people went along with their increased cost because of the extremely broad array of programming they offered.
The buried wires and those running up the sides of buildings into rooms where your TVs were located slowly disappeared, (except for buried fiber-optic cables) joining rooftop and rabbit ears antennas on the junk pile.
Those electromagnetic waves in the air still existed, of course, and some people tried to capture them if they could find an old set of rabbit ears to hook to their TV, but most gave up on such efforts because of their difficulty and the poor quality of the pictures compared with what the TV providers were offering.
Once the internet-dependent TV providers had their hands in the viewers’ pockets, it dawned upon them, and other media companies with an internet presence, that there were further ways of digging deeper into those pockets!
They began to develop TV channels ‘streaming’ programming that was not available to their regular paying customers. Suddenly It cost ‘extra’ to see some sporting events, some motion pictures, and other ‘premium’ programming on these channels. And to see them, it was necessary for consumers to replace their old TV sets with ones advertised as being ‘smart TVs’ readily receptive to these ‘streamed’ channels.
Everyday, it seems, more and more ‘regular’ programming (oddly still called ‘cable’) is migrating to such ‘extra cost’ premium streaming channels, or is available on the internet itself, but only after the user pays a fee. (Some ‘streaming’ channels are available without a charge but their content is very limited, but still serve to keep viewers ‘in the ‘streaming’ game.)
The days of advertisers completely covering the cost of programming are ebbing. How much longer do you think programming like baseball’s ‘World Series’ will be offered by TV providers without an ‘extra charge’? For boxing and wrestling fans, that day has already arrived. This is something to keep an eye on!
If a TV provider ever decides to charge extra for streaming old ‘Seinfeld’ re-runs, it will be time for reforms in the services that have come a long, long, way from those electromagnetic waves that could be picked up with a set of ‘rabbit ears,’ a metal coat hanger, or even a ‘crystal set’ built by a twelve-year-old.
JL
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'We Have Met the Enemy and it is Us’ Department
In her “Letters from an American’ posting dated 12/16/2024, Heather Cox Richardson praised the New Deal reforms initiated by Frances Perkins, the first female Cabinet member, and chronicled historic Republican efforts, continuing today, to destroy these reforms.
What too many, perhaps including Professor Richardson, ignore is the point made in the New York Times by Carlos Lovada on November 6, right after the election. (I had posted a link to it on Jackspotpourri.) Its title gave his message away: ‘Stop Pretending Trump Is Not Who We Are.’
Go back and check it out at https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/trump-wins-harris-loses.html or JUST CLICK HERE.
JL
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Weather Report - El Nino and La Nina
For years I’ve been hearing about and reading about these two patterns occurring in our weather. And I still am ignorant of what they are.
Well, in the Palm Beach Post recently, their excellent meteorology reporter, Kimberly Miller, included the following explanation in an article about the upcoming season’s weather, and how it might be influenced by La Nina:
“What are El Niño and La Niña weather patterns?
The climate patterns El Niño and La Niña are part of the powerful El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO.
La Niña happens when waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean cool, shifting when and where tropical thunderstorms form so that the wind shear in the Atlantic Ocean wanes during hurricane season allowing budding tropical cyclones more leeway to grow.
In winter, La Niña pulses storms into the Pacific Northwest on a more northerly and inland track, holding the jet stream at higher latitudes longer where it traps cold air to its north.
During El Niño, equatorial waters warm. In summer, El Niño creates wind shear that chops up Atlantic tropical cyclones. In winter, El Niño nudges the jet stream south traditionally giving Florida cooler, wetter winters.
But there’s no guarantee either climate pattern will behave as predicted.”
Now that clears up everything, right?
JL
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Trump Will Get Real in 2025
More and more, it appears that president-elect Trump’s campaign threats (1) to deport millions of illegal immigrants, (2) to save money by ruthlessly slashing the Federal payroll, (3) to punish foreign countries by increasing tariffs on their exports to the United States and (4) to weaken our support of NATO, were just red meat thrown to keep his easily-swayed MAGA voters happy.
These things are far ‘easier said than done.’ There are limits to what the Executive Branch can force through the House of Representatives, which, unlike the Electoral College, must more frequently answer to the voters. (Our undemocratically elected Senate is another story, recently touched upon in Jackspotpourri.)
None of those threats will probably come to fruition except in a very minimal, token manner to give him something about which to crow to his right-wing media pals.
I feel that, In reality, the new administration’s thrust in 2025 will amount to traditional Republican programs that (1) try to reduce or eliminate government regulations that raise companies’ cost of operating and govern the financial marketplace, (2) try to lower taxes paid by corporations and the wealthy, (3) try to significantly weaken the socio-economic safety net that has existed, and grown, since FDR’s New Deal, and (4) try to convince ordinary Americans, dealing with day-to-day problems, that such steps actually benefit them.
But that is what his biggest donors want, including the administration’s puppet master, Elon Musk. The more they try to carry out the first three thrusts, however, the less likely they will succeed with the fourth. The 2026 elections will determine if they succeed in doing that.
JL
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Housekeeping on Jackspotpourri
Forwarding Postings: Please forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it (Friends, relatives, enemies, etc.) If you want to send someone the blog, you can just tell them to check it out by visiting https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com or you can provide a link to that address in your email to them.
There’s another, perhaps easier, method of forwarding it though!
Google Blogspot, the platform on which Jackspotpourri is prepared, makes that possible. If you click on the tiny envelope with the arrow at the bottom of every posting, you will have the opportunity to list up to ten email addresses to which that blog posting will be forwarded, along with a brief comment from you. Each will receive a link to click on that will directly connect them to the blog.
Either way will work, sending them the link to https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com, or clicking on the envelope at the bottom of this posting.
Email Alerts: If you are NOT receiving emails from me alerting you each time there is a new posting on Jackspotpourri, just send me your email address and we’ll see that you do. And if you are forwarding a posting to someone, you might suggest that they do the same, so they will be similarly alerted. You can pass those email addresses to me by email at jacklippman18@gmail.com.
Again, I urge you to forward this posting to anyone you think might benefit from reading it.
JL
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