TV Coverage of Jimmy Carter’s Funeral … and More
Full TV coverage of this historic event was provided on Thursday by PBS, CNN, MSNBC, and the local outlets of ABC, CBS, and NBC. It was disgraceful that Fox, on their news channel and on their local outlets, did not.
This says a lot not only about Fox, but about the millions of Americans who choose, for all the wrong reasons, to get their news coverage from them. Not only was it disrespectful, but it also was unpatriotic.
At the funeral service, President Joe Biden (for the next ten days anyway) eulogized Carter with these words:
“Carter was “a white Southern Baptist who led on civil rights. A decorated Navy veteran who brokered peace. A brilliant nuclear engineer who led on nuclear nonproliferation. A hard-working farmer who championed conservation and clean energy… and who also established a model post-presidency by making a powerful difference as a private citizen in America, showing us how character and faith start with ourselves and then flow to others.”
“At our best, we share the better parts of ourselves: joy, solidarity, love, commitment. Not for reward, but in reverence for the incredible gift of life we’ve all been granted. To make every minute of our time here on Earth count. That’s the definition of a good life. It was the life Jimmy Carter lived for 100 years: a ‘good life of purpose and meaning, of character driven by destiny and filled with the power of faith, hope, and love.”
Twenty-four Hours Later in a Courtroom
And as a contrast to Jimmy Carter’s funeral, on the following morning, Biden’s successor in office’s sentence for the 34 felonious criminal counts of which he had been convicted by a New York jury amounted to having his case ‘unconditionally discharged,’ by the judge.
That means he faces no punishment other than being labeled a felon for the rest of his life, which can prevent him from participating in many civil and political activities, an easily circumvented status in most jurisdictions where the felon might have political connections. (Florida law says that felons lose their right to vote if the State in which they were sentenced takes away that privilege ... and New York does not take away that privilege unless the felon is incarcerated.)
JL
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Checking With Your Doctor
Anyone who watches TV cannot avoid the numerous commercials for pharmaceutical products that urge the viewer to ‘talk with their doctors’ (or prescribers) about the product advertised. Because such medications almost always require a prescription, that’s unnecessary advice. Doctors do not need patients to dictate what medication to prescribe, and wasting time being told about what a patient saw in a TV ad.
Apparently, the advertising copywriters who produce these commercals’ texts have never tried to do that. It is very difficult to just speak to a doctor without an appointment, and they are usually not immediately available, even for those who talk their way past the receptionist who answers the phone. Specialists are even more difficult to reach.
A ’Google’ search aimed at the ‘doctor shortage in the United States’ will produce many articles confirming the decrease in the number of physicians presently practicing in this country, especially in the area of primary care. Some have retired and many have given up private practices to become employees of corporate medical providers and have to follow their employers' ‘bottom line’ oriented procedures (example: number of patients seen in a day). Just try to reach one of those to ask about a medication you saw in a TV commercial. Good Luck.
With the expansion of heath care enabled by the Affforable Care Act and of course, Medicare and Medicaid, there are increasing demands being put on the our decreasing number of doctors in private practices.
I believe it is up to the pharmaceutical manufacturers, all of which seem to be doing well financially, to address this problem by (1) supporting expansion of our medical schools, (2) establishing scholarships to them, and (3) aiding in the low-cost financing of tuition which leaves most medical school graduates deeply in debt for years. Some are already starting to do that, but more effort is necessary, particularly in the area of primary care physicians. Very simply, ‘Big Pharma’ should put its money where its mouth is.
And while we’re on the subject, be sure to note all the caveats that appear toward the bottoms of such commercials, always in small print and displayed only for a few seconds, occasionally with a hasty ‘voice over,’ the interpretation of which is usually beyond a lay person’s ability. (Sometimes even 'death' is listed as a possible side effect.) That’s another reason why we need more physicians in this country.
JL
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Dumb or Stupid?
You might have missed ex-news anchor Don Lemon’s recent profanity-laden tirade in which he accused some Trump supporters, especially those of the MAGA variety, of being dumb or stupid.
It took place in connection with an interview with Elon Musk on ‘X’ that centered on the availability of visas enabling foreign engineers and scientists to work in the United States. (Musk and Trump are for such visas; their MAGA supporters are against them.) If you are interested in the details of this burgeoning conflict on the right, copy and paste https://www.yahoo.com/news/don-lemon-unleashes-expletive-filled-004555196.html on your browser line or just CLICK HERE.
I believe Lemon was ‘off target.’ The ‘dumb or stupid’ are uncorrectable and will always remain ‘dumb or stupid.’ They can’t do much about it.
What can be changed is the gullibility and ignorance of the supposedly smarter folks who vote and behave as if they were dumb or stupid. And that, my friends, is the problem I believe Lemon was addressing.
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This incident reminds me of Donald Trump’s bragging back in 2016 when he won the Nevada G.O.P. primary, that he ‘won with the vote of the highly educated and with the vote of the poorly educated.’ He went on to say that he ‘loves the poorly educated,’ a strange thing of which to be proud, particularly since he didn’t offer the same love to the ‘highly educated’ who voted for him. He knows on which side his bread is buttered. And Don Lemon ‘sort of’ recognizes that.
JL
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More Cartography
The last posting of Jackspotpourri discussed the difficulty of representing our globe in a flat dimension on a piece of paper. There have been many, many attempts to do this, most of which you can check out at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_map_projections or by JUST CLICKING HERE. You might find these efforts interesting.
Unless you live in Antarctica, or perhaps Southern Australia, New Zealand, or Southern South America, the Winkel Tripel projection seems better than the misleading Mercator projection or the confusing azimuthal equidistant projection. It still significantly exaggerates the size of Greenland and other places in the far northern latitudes but seems to be a fair compromise and is the projection currently used by the National Geographic Society. (There is nothing to stop those in the far southern latitudes, like New Zealand, from choosing map projections showing their areas more accurately.)
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| Winkel Tripel Projection |
JL
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We Need Fact Checking
Because of the reduction in ‘fact checking’ currently being carried out by major internet sites, (a way of kissing the President’s ring (?) and currying his favor), I strongly urge everyone to read Boston College professor Heather Cox Richardson’s ‘Letters from an American’ EVERY DAY.
Copy and paste https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ on your browser line or CLICK HERE. I repeat, visit there daily! (You can subscribe to a ‘free’ subscription so that it automatically appears in your email every day.)
There are going to be many unchecked right-wing lies contaminating our media, electronic or otherwise, and Heather does a great job of ‘fact checking,’ providing documented citations for whatever she writes. every day.
There’s no charge to subscribe to follow ‘Letters from an American’ every day. (There is, however, a small subscription fee but only if you want to be able to add your comments to the hundreds made every day and see some of her additional postings.)
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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