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thewayneAs it happens, the day that we're inaugurating that weird old felon from Florida also falls on the day that we're remembering Martin Luther King Jr., and it's a federal holiday, which means a lot of us have the day off.
What are we doing to commemorate the changing of the guard on this day, or this week?
The weird guy is obsessed with numbers and crowd sizes. He's already losing on this as his ceremony is being moved into the Capitol Rotunda as temperatures in Washington are far too cold for an outdoor swearing. And I've heard that hotel bookings, rather than their normal near 100%, are down to about 50-60%, which amuses me to no end.
But there's another number that matters: TV ratings. And what matters is both what you watch, and what you don't watch.
It's one thing if you don't watch the ceremony. That's fine. BUT... if your TV is showing something else instead all day long, you're skewing the numbers away from the ceremony! Not only are you denying viewership numbers to the ceremony, you're showing that you were home, and watching TV, and chose not to watch it!
For me, my TV is going to alternate between watching the movie The Apprentice, which apparently the weird felon hates, and the Tarantino movie Inglourious Basterds. I don't like the latter, and haven't seen the former, but I feel it's a bit of a statement on my part. My stereo will be turned off, basically I'll set a timer on my watch to change the movie after it's done.
There's no doubt that this is almost entirely a symbolic gesture, but it makes me feel slightly warm and fuzzy. So I'll do it.
We are not a Neilson-ratings household, but streaming reports their own numbers independently. I don't think that really matters much.
What are we doing to commemorate the changing of the guard on this day, or this week?
The weird guy is obsessed with numbers and crowd sizes. He's already losing on this as his ceremony is being moved into the Capitol Rotunda as temperatures in Washington are far too cold for an outdoor swearing. And I've heard that hotel bookings, rather than their normal near 100%, are down to about 50-60%, which amuses me to no end.
But there's another number that matters: TV ratings. And what matters is both what you watch, and what you don't watch.
It's one thing if you don't watch the ceremony. That's fine. BUT... if your TV is showing something else instead all day long, you're skewing the numbers away from the ceremony! Not only are you denying viewership numbers to the ceremony, you're showing that you were home, and watching TV, and chose not to watch it!
For me, my TV is going to alternate between watching the movie The Apprentice, which apparently the weird felon hates, and the Tarantino movie Inglourious Basterds. I don't like the latter, and haven't seen the former, but I feel it's a bit of a statement on my part. My stereo will be turned off, basically I'll set a timer on my watch to change the movie after it's done.
There's no doubt that this is almost entirely a symbolic gesture, but it makes me feel slightly warm and fuzzy. So I'll do it.
We are not a Neilson-ratings household, but streaming reports their own numbers independently. I don't think that really matters much.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-19 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-19 11:52 pm (UTC)Step from your pedestal and lift your torch and enlighten us! Give us back our love of human rights, and welcome those who seek Your blessings.
Lady Columbia - personification of the spirit of America, corn-fed, "All-American", strong, hearty, and full of youthful zeal. Patroness of Progress, give us back the progress we've made in building a just and equitable nation.
Lady Justice - even with your blindfold on, you can see the injustices we're having to deal with. Use your sword and scales to help us restore the balance!
SO MOTE IT FUCKING BE!!
no subject
Date: 2025-01-20 07:14 am (UTC)Liberty has become perverted into this idea that individual freedom is supreme above all, despite the freedom it deprives of others when thus exercised. We saw it during Covid when freedom became the freedom to spread disease and cause death to others.
Columbia, American wheat grown by American Farmers in American soil for American consumers. Not too sure that's one to rely on. Probably loves the tariffs.
And Justice. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A good strong avatar. But human and flesh passes out of this world and when she did the men ignored her deathbed wish. So now Justice is stripped of her blindfold, forced to see the one who bought this one an RV and provided that one with a little extra income, and how, if this third can return the man who appointed her to power, he might just confer more power onto her. The blindfold is in tatters, and rich men's thumbs are on the scales. We see ourselves in a nation where there is no justice and there is no judge.
Invocation is insufficient when resurrection is what is required.
I envy the hope with which you are filled, but I'm not feeling it myself. I remember well the days in the journal of that propagandist LevelHead we would bring the facts, and note the dangers of the harms veneered in reasonableness - but not reason - that he proposed, to avert this very outcome.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-20 04:57 pm (UTC)Columbia, because she became the spokes-myth for rural electrification and transportation infrastructure.
Justice - oh dear gods, I miss Ruthie so much! Her sensible and intelligent interpretation of the law would have prevented so much tragedy.
I have no hope left. I wrote those invocations in order to try to find some hope. But when I woke up on the morning of Election Day and heard the results, it felt as if someone had punched me in the belly as hard as possible, and for weeks thereafter I suffered from assorted gastroinestinal complaints. And armed rebellion would turn into another Civil War, which is undesirable for all sorts of reasons.
My generation forced a sitting president to resign, ended a war, and changed society by singing protest songs. I can sing pretty loud. Right about now (just before noon) is the time for me to start singing.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-20 09:14 pm (UTC)And Columbia wasn't all about selling American wheat and corn for the highest profit. She brought improved farming methods that allowed farmers to work more efficiently, and things like "rural electrification" (and later "extending telephone service"), and embodied an all-American spirit of Progress (which at that time implied improved technology and new scientific discoveries.) And youthful zeal and energy to accomplish that progress.
Justice (the abstraction) has been known to whore herself out to the highest bidder for millennia. But RBG is among the honored ancestors, so we need to invoke her inspiration.
I've never heard of LevelHead.