Hello,

In a couple of hours the olympic games will begin again.
Unfortunately the youtube link has been removed.

Let it be fair games and may the best win.

Bertus

 

Eighty years after Hitler's '36 Berlin games, I was amazed to see how much the current games owe to the Nazi influence. The torch relay and televised coverage were just two of many innovations that remain to this day. Saw an excellent show on it. I'll try to find it and post the link if I can.

This is it:
http://www.pbs.org/program/nazi-games-berlin-1936/
It's not short, but very well done and I highly recommend it.

This year I'm looking forward to how they'll cover the harsh reality. Will they ignore it or dig into it? The precedent of hiding the bad stuff and making everything look happy was established back in '36 if not earlier, and has been part of the tradition of the games.

 

Remember, we use to get our "news" in the early days, via news clips at the movie theater. Even today with 700 channels, there is manipulation to keep one fixed to a few channels. Imagine what is was like with only "radio" and a few movie news clips, and the written word.

There wasn't too many Olympic games between the resurrection of the games and 1936, even less prior to television and film (talkies).

Every Olympic games has a "producer" and each want to out do their predecessor.

 

Since we have the regular Olympics and the Special Olympics I say we start a Super Olympics where the participants can dope and juice themselves to no end and participate!

The only rule they have is that they have to survive long enough after the event to collect their medals.

Bench pressing a bus? No problem!

Cyclists doing smoking burnouts while getting up to speed? Heck yea! You'll never win a Lance Armstrong achivment award if you can't.

Sprinters chasing down cheetas? Sure. We could have that! Just need to inject a few liters of Russian mystery mix first!

Discus throwers tossing 100# manhole covers 300+ feet. Just a normal daily event in the Super Olympics.

(You know you'd watch.)

 

Remember, we use to get our "news" in the early days, via news clips at the movie theater. Even today with 700 channels, there is manipulation to keep one fixed to a few channels. Imagine what is was like with only "radio" and a few movie news clips, and the written word.

There wasn't too many Olympic games between the resurrection of the games and 1936, even less prior to television and film (talkies).

Every Olympic games has a "producer" and each want to out do their predecessor.

It is not manipulation, it is economic theory playing out as predicted. As a service or product becomes easier to duplicate, more and more suppliers will offer it. Eventually, as more suppliers compete, margins (profits) decrease which causes quality and innovation to decrease. In the end, too much competition can be bad for the consumer.

This "bad for the consumer" stage is where we are at with the news media. Not enough margins to do the most expensive thing per broadcast minute (or newspaper column-inch) - investigative reporting. With so many suppliers trying to fill so much time (or web pages or real pages) the quality is crap or the content is non-existant. If investigative reporting existed today, we would have different candidates in 2016.

John Oliver and John Stewart had some of the largest investigative reporting budgets on TV in recent years - and they are supposed to be entertainment shows, not news. Sad how the investigative reporting budgets were cut to the bone at the big three networks.

 

It is not manipulation, it is economic theory playing out as predicted. As a service or product becomes easier to duplicate, more and more suppliers will offer it. Eventually, as more suppliers compete, margins (profits) decrease which causes quality and innovation to decrease. In the end, too much competition can be bad for the consumer.

This "bad for the consumer" stage is where we are at with the news media. Not enough margins to do the most expensive thing per broadcast minute (or newspaper column-inch) - investigative reporting. With so many suppliers trying to fill so much time (or web pages or real pages) the quality is crap or the content is non-existant. If investigative reporting existed today, we would have different candidates in 2016.

John Oliver and John Stewart had some of the largest investigative reporting budgets on TV in recent years - and they are supposed to be entertainment shows, not news. Sad how the investigative reporting budgets were cut to the bone at the big three networks.

This is similar to natural emergence of monopolies due to competition. My latest favorite is Bayer's plans to buy Monsanto. It's a brave new world out there. I guess as long as someone will keep
making things like the porn version of Pokemon Go, statis quo will remain unchallenged.

For some reason I just thought of this scene:

 

If investigative reporting existed today, we would have different candidates in 2016.

In the 1992 race, its been reputed that when an investigative reporter asked the candidate's people about something negative, they threatened the reporter with NO ACCESS ever if they reported it. The move was "War Room".

 

This is similar to natural emergence of monopolies due to competition. My latest favorite is Bayer's plans to buy Monsanto. It's a brave new world out there. I guess as long as someone will keep
making things like the porn version of Pokemon Go, statis quo will remain unchallenged.

For some reason I just thought of this scene:

Consolidation is how many industries survive. Unfortunately for the news media, they all tried to do the opposite - make more and more outlets. Every news paper and local news station made a website, cnn added cnn headline news, NBC created cnbc and msnbc, fox did their thing and so on and so on and so on. Then the web seach companies started adding content - yahoo, google, ... , the sub specialties started, 24-hour sports news (espn), 24 hours of financial news (Bloomberg), ...

There is just not enough viewer hours out there to keep them all profitable - especially because the next generations wants their news in Tweets or snaps. Not even enough time to sell an advertising second with each one. Idiocracy has arrived.

Some days I wish the crop sciences companies would have gone the way of the news media but other days I kind of like a profitable crop science company in case some big new crop outbreak threatens civilization. Like now, when the congress isn't funding a zika eradication program. I guess they are waiting until the market opportunity becomes big enough for a corporation to find it interesting and persistent enough to become a sustainable business plan.

 

In the 1992 race, its been reputed that when an investigative reporter asked the candidate's people about something negative, they threatened the reporter with NO ACCESS ever if they reported it. The move was "War Room".

It was not just 1992, and we don't have to dig into the past to find it...

http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/14/media/donald-trump-media-blacklist/

 

In the vein of the 1936 influence on today's Olympics, the same can be said of the 1994 movie about the 1992 elections and how to deflect negative stories.

The question becomes, does a biased press get the same access as an unbiased press? The first amendment guarantees the "free press" but like all things free, there is a responsibility. Is a biased reporter really reporting the news or spinning the news with their bias?

 

they threatened the reporter with NO ACCESS ever if they reported it.

And in today's news, that's right, just one day, the results of modern investigative reporting are revealed:
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/anti-clinton-activist-dying/
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/sheriff-raids-cop-corruption-facebook/

 

@#12 I can see the villagers now ...

Can someone be sued for libel?

 

I can see the villagers now ...

Actually, the villagers aren't objecting at all. They're too busy double-thumbing their "smart" phones.

 

@#12 I had a friend who was the Officer in Charge at a radionavigation station in Grangeville LA about two decades ago. At an OIC conference, his Commanding Officer told all the OICs in the area to develop a working relationship with the local Law Enforcement Officers. Now, my friend's unit didn't have any LEO responsibilities, but he asked the question anyways ... He stated "the last sheriff is in jail for bribery, the new one is up on charges. Just how friendly do you want me to be with the sheriffs?" Sometimes the unvarnished truth is a bitter pill.

 

Commanding Officer told all the OICs in the area to develop a working relationship with the local Law Enforcement Officers.

I heartily agree with kissing the right butts, however, I have too many old scars to want my lips that close to a LEO again.

 

I heartily agree with kissing the right butts,

After what I just said, I think I should be careful to exclude the Mayor.
http://thefreethoughtproject.com/sex-drugs-mayor-arrested/

 

@#12 When you said mayor and I looked at the link, I immediately thought of the DC Mayor Marion Barry. I guess fairfax is close enough to DC that Mayor Barry had an influence ....

 

The thing is, I used to watch the olympics as well as some other sports. I have stopped. It has become too rediculous. I switched to Red Bull series events

 

The thing is, I used to watch the olympics as well as some other sports. I have stopped. It has become too rediculous. I switched to Red Bull series events

In pst years, NBC spent so much time showing use "back stories" of good looking athletes or athletes who have overcome an "obstacle" to get to the games that I walked away from the TV before the event happened.

 

The only 'sport' I'm looking forward to.