The pliable mind.

Today's Tids Issue 2,788
Opening Stuff 

How come on the day after "Day Light Saving Time move ahead Sunday", everything smells like Spring? Your eyes all of a sudden see buds flourishing on trees. Must be a psychological thing. Time to regrip the Golf Clubs.

The new History Channel Series "The Bible" is getting remarkable viewership. In fact, the show about the book of which almost everybody is aware, and fewer and fewer are reading, was the 4th highest show last week behind NCIS, NCIS LA and American Idol. That's pretty heady company for a history book. The only other cable show on the top 20 list was the Walking Dead, which might describe people who avoid the basic teachings of the historic work of literature. It's too bad that people who reject God or religion, aren't more aware of a book that essentially describes the basis for the moral growth of a society in which they and everybody lives.

Paying for rebuilding after destruction in known flood plains, whether near the ocean or major rivers, has just never made sense to me. It would be better if the Fed Flood Insurance program paid a better than average damage claim for the person to comfortably move elsewhere, rather than permitting rebuilding and paying over and over again.

The Question:
"The Bible" and "The Walking Dead" (I still have to laugh at that combination) are the two top Cable TV shows. Name the next ten.

The Headlines:
--Italy Comedy Show Has World Stocks Tittering; Weakened China Data Adds To Pullback from Peak..
--Japan Remembers Nearly 20,000 Killed In Tsunami.
--2,813 Thousand Dead Pigs Found In Shanghai Drinking Water; Officials Say, "No Pwobwum".
--Karsai Denounces Closest Ally, US; Says They Are In Cahoots With Taliban; Terrorists Open Fire On Amaricans In Kabul Police Station..
--North Korea Cuts Hot Line To SK.

The battle between the keep-the-internet-free entitlement crowd and the producers of music just seems ot go on and on. To some the concept pf the "Free Internet" means not paying for music. Of course the music producers and artists see the Internet as great a way to distribute music more efficiently to more people. So, in step some liberal academics. You know, the people who misapply theories in real situations. The group suggests that music downloads can remain free if the Government subsidizes it all! This is true folks! And you think that the only people who want to grab a piece of your taxes are those you can see.

I'm hearing that new trend among seniors planning their later in life marriages, is lining up pharmacies as Bridal registries. I'd like a Gorham Chantilly sterling silver walker please. One that would match my table service.

I went up to the local gambling casino, the new basis for economic growth in my beautiful, dying state, and thought that several of the customer service people sounded like former DMV employees. Wadaya want!

Among the accomplishments of President Obama, is his single handedly adding more proof to the old axiom long held by astute political observers, "Senators generally do not make good Presidents." What do Senators know how to to do best? Spend money, procrastinate decisions, go on junkets and pass the buck. Case closed.

Too many people in the so-called service economy have absolutely no idea what the words service means.

3D Printing is the hot new terminology for fringe technophobes.  I mean it is cool, but it's been around for about 20-25 years. In fact there was a company two towns up from where I live that was an early leader in stereo-lithography and rapid prototyping, an earlier form of what has now become cocktail party chatter fodder. That company and the guy who owned it got a lot of press, and took in a lot of investment money, but produced little except maybe a vacation home for himself. In reality, the little company from Portsmouth had legal problems with 3D Systems the leader in the technology today. I think it's tough to predict the success of the promise about "Order/Make at Home" commercialism. But, it definitely has the "Wow!" factor. I mean it is really cool; Jaw dropping amazing. Yet do you want to invest in a company like this? That is always the conundrum when the drumbeat may be bigger than the practicality.

I think my Spell-Check is quite the snob. For instance it continually wants to change blue collar, lunch pail Pawtucket into chi-chi Nantucket. Dummy S-C doesn't realize that Pawtucket is one of the great historical cities of America, in fact the very birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. A city that produced many early wealthy titans of industry who lived in that classic old city, and would have been some of those powerful new England families who developed the whaling island Nantucket into an elite vacation place. Yes my Spell-Check resonates the cultural myopia of today's society.

The Answer:

Let's see we go from The Bible to The Walking Dead, and then to high culture in Duck Dynasty, followed by Vikings, Pawn Stars, WWE, Sponge Bob, Then repeats of WWE and Duck Dynasty followed again by American Pickers and Swamp People. So, that's what people are watching on cable. Notice the absence of Storage wars, a former hot viewing fad. I think this is a good indicator of where America's TV mind is at. The cable programs are choices beyond the network offerings, the wild west for confident viewers.

I got those Monday Mornin' Blues. Ot is it...is it..."Spring is bustin' out all over, All over the meadow and the hill!
Buds're bustin' outa bushes And the rompin' river pushes  Ev'ry little wheel that wheels beside the mill!

Yup, it's gotta be spring fever.