Bread And Circuses - And Uniforms

Over the weekend our staff noted an odd thread running through the behavior of friends, neighbors, professional colleagues, and even the general public.

Over the past couple of days, one of the world's most vocal climate change deniers admitted he has been completely totally wrong, in the face of a new report. A major oil spill in Wisconsin dumped over 1,000 gallons of raw crude into a farmer's field. Europe is, once again, hanging by an economic thread, while our own economy continues to be stalled by a do-nothing House of Representatives - who are about to go on a five week long August vacation.

Mitt Romney's gaffe parade continued, as he made several more gaffes in Israel. However, since Mitt didn't start World War III while he was there, his backers seem to think his trip has been a success so far.

All this happened over the weekend - though we can understand if you missed the real information while arguing about ridiculous stuff like the Huskers' special uniforms for the Wisconsin game, where the bust of Winston Churchill is, or the stupidity of the executives at NBC Sports.

It shouldn't be a surprise, really, when those in charge of our media and information sources don't seem to have a clue of how the real world works, when we - their users, viewers, listeners and readers - don't seem to have any idea of what's important ourselves.

Take the Olympics, for example.

While the executives at NBC Sports seem to think American audiences will watch every single Olympic event, what those same execs have failed to realize is that most of their U.S. viewers are well-connected to other media sources around the globe.

Of course, we're talking about the failure of NBC to air important events from the Olympics live in the U.S. - or sometimes even air them at all.

The 7/7 subway attacks in London are the UK's version of America's 9/11 terrorist attacks. Fifty-two civilians died, and over 700 were injured in and around London. The opening ceremonies of this year's Olympics had a moving tribute to those victims - one which NBC chose not to air, because their executives obviously felt commercials by Karl Rove's anti-Obama hate group and fast food ads were more important than a moment of true human connection at the Olympics.

NBC has been paying the price for their lack of judgement, however, as American audiences have been seeking out live video streams and live news reports from other countries as an alternative to the NBC "coverage". The brand of NBC has been hurt too, as hashtags like "#NBCfail" have been flooding the internet, joining brutal takedowns of NBC's poorly handled Olympics coverage.

Giving the people what they want is important, especially if your business is in the media and entertainment field.

The problem arises when the news media tries to ignore the reality of an interconnected world, or tries to make what players are wearing more important than what and how they'll achieve on the field - or in the classroom.

Events will happen in their own time frames, events far more important than the color of a jersey or the swim times of an Olympic athlete. Our responsibility in the media is to report those stories in a factual and entertaining way, as they happen - and to make our money from providing high quality content and reporting, not from gimmicks.

If all we're going to do is promote yelling matches and scream about fashion, Kim Kardashian and Joan Rivers may as well take over doing the news.

Friday Funday: Reaching For The Gold

By the time some of our readers see these pixels on Friday, the crowds will already be gathering in London at the new Olympic Stadium for the opening ceremonies of the 2012 games.

We have to admit - for at least one American, the last few days haven't exactly been the best warm-up period. Mitt Romney's trip to London so far has been a public relations disaster, with headlines both in the UK and the U.S. savaging the former governor for a continuing series of embarrassing gaffes.

When the London Daily Mail's Political Director quotes unnamed British government officials - on Twitter - as saying that Romney is "Worse than Sarah Palin," you know Mr. Romney hasn't exactly had a great day. If positive and effective self-promotion were an Olympic sport, right now Mitt Romney wouldn't even make it inside the stadium, let alone onto the podium.

Still, as this is Friday, we're determined to be positive - and whether or not you agree with the way Mitt Romney used U.S. government subsidies to save the 2002 Olympic games, he did help those games to be very successful. In fact, the 2002 games were the last successful Olympics held in the U.S. of either kind, Winter or Summer.

For our staff, the Olympics remind us of some of the best things we enjoy about sports, media, and humanity all rolled into one.

Most of the athletes aren't highly paid divas. They're like student athletes at small schools. They have their own local fans, and they give every last drop of blood, sweat, and tears they can muster. Most people in the world still don't know them, though. That's where the modern media comes in.

On practically every screen you can imagine, and from every audio platform available, the way Olympic sports are presented to the world - especially here in America - are a true testament to what is possible in broadcasting. Nearly every athlete for the U.S. has some kind of profile worked up on them. Many have video and audio packages produced around their life stories, and their struggles to make it to The Games. Virtually every athlete from every nation has some statistics compiled from their past performances - and every nation has their own profile developed too.

Sure, there's a lot of pomp and fanfare. When the majority of the world takes a break from being our normal, antagonistic, war-like selves, we tend to agree that there are few better reasons for a world-shaking celebration.

So for today and this weekend, whether you're reaching for the gold in London, reaching for the TV remote at home, or just reaching for more political excuses wherever you are, we hope that you'll also join us in reaching out to your fellow citizens, from whatever your home country is, in a gesture of peace and friendship.

As Baron Pierre De Coubertin once said, "The most important thing is not to win but to take part!"

Fire-Breathing & Facts

For much of the summer, especially in our original home office location in Lincoln, we've been desperately wishing for rain and more seasonal temperatures. The storms that tiptoed through the Lincoln area on Wednesday evening were not even noticed in an otherwise insanely hot summer.

Feeling like we're getting blasted with dragon's breath every time we step outside - even at night - has tested far more than just our patience. Don't even ask about the electric and water bill for most Midwesterners this summer.

What some of our most arrogant right-wing Kool Aid swilling subscribers have been asking about - maybe because they have difficulties clicking links and reading in the first place - is exactly where the numbers are coming from to prove climate change is real.

Thankfully, multiple professional writers and researchers have been kept inside in the air conditioning this summer, with computers, data - and a lot of time.

To start with, the U.S. is experiencing the worst drought in 50 years as confirmed by the publicly available records used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That's the first fact.

The next set of facts was laid out by author, journalist, and environmentalist Bill McKibben in the first paragraph of his recent article in Rolling Stone magazine. McKibben's numbers can also be checked through the National Climatic Data Center's website, for those who doubt their accuracy.

As McKibben noted, "June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe."

Weather is local, as we've noted before. Climate, however, is the aggregated collection of weather data from multiple adjoining locations, looked at over a broad spectrum in time.

When a reasonable person, looks at the collection of just these few facts that we've laid out here, they would likely notice something key. Even though weather patterns change over time, and even though North America has had severe droughts like this - or worse - in the past, the rate our climate is changing in North America has never happened this fast before.

Ever.

That is climate change.

However, just because climate change is real doesn't mean we're all doomed to die as Earth turns into one giant crispy crater. It does mean we need to get moving on alternative energies, water conservation, food crisis management and all kinds of other fact-based strategies to plan for the future. And we need to do it yesterday.

So when an ignorant fool, drunk on the latest mental Kool Aid from Fox or their favorite barely educated right-wing radio blowhard tells you that this drought thing will blow over soon, just think of having another thirty summers in the future like this one.

Then feel free to take these facts, aim them at the fool, and fry their brains, just like dragon breath.