Signs of the Times: Green Potato Cowgirl

 

Weird box at my local Food Lion.

 

This potato box illustration is vaguely unsettling and I have no good reason why that is..

NFL 2012 Q1 Report

As usual, the people who are paid to prognosticate started making concrete judgements on the NFL, minutes after Week 1. Football teams were "who we thought they were".. the rest were huge surprises or disappointments. Remember: Week 1 had just ended.

On one sports radio show, the co-hosts joked about our amnesia-riddled, kneejerk society.. and within two minutes were rethinking their preseason predictions because of the first game's results.

Like every specialty channel, ESPN has twenty-four hours per day to fill, on multiple platforms. So there is simply no time to let things lie. Talking heads have to be definitive at all times, and perspective is useless (until time forces it on us). Pump out enough information/trivial tidbits to drown us, and we either won't remember or won't care how many times you were wrong. Numb us in the cool waters of River Terabyte.

This is the name of the game from CNN and FoxNews, on down the line. ESPN is only following the lead.

Random flashes on the 2012 National Football League campaign:

• Watching Tom Brady toss the pigskin around to Gronkowski, Woodhead, Edelman and Welker nearly always gives me the giggles. The N.E. Patriot offense makes me think of a big brother, or the older neighborhood cat who was simply cooler and more athletic than any kid around. The guy all the other guys are copying. I always have the impression Brady's out there playing with midget versions of himself. (Yea, Gronk is physically larger, but it's all about their collective body language.).. why are the Pats funny to me? Maybe it's because Welker and company are like Mini Coopers out there, zigzagging around, their drumsticks spinning like cartoon character legs. The opposing three-hundred-pound defensive players look like they are trying to grab speedy toddlers.
• For a long time, the AFC seemed deeper, top to bottom, than the NFC. That's clearly shifted over the last few seasons, and the switchover looks to be complete after the first four weeks. Every NFC team is dangerous on any given week. The AFC has a few dogs: the Jets, the Browns, three-quarters of the AFC South.
• I don't understand the surprise at the NFC West's rise. This league is all about complete flips in stature. There are a handful of perenially-good teams that benefit from good owners and management; otherwise, terrible teams are constantly struggling to their feet before sinking back to the floor. Did people really think the NFC Worst West would collectively stink for decades?

• Washington Redskins rookie Robert Griffin III has been around just long enough for the scrutiny to worm into him. He's almost too engaged with the media and the public--too open with them/us. Meanwhile, fans and 'heads are dividing into underrated/overrated camps already.. I was thinking Griffin is so savvy, and then he got jumped for criticizing things like the opposing teams' style. At some point, everyone in the public eye seems to get swallowed up. Truly, no one is immune: you are caught between being honest, true, 100%, and realizing that the honest and true you is bound to be crushed by the cwuel cwuel world. And as intelligent as RG seems to be, he doesn't appear to understand how delicious his every word and deed have become. This is why the Bradys and Derek Jeters are who they are. They are normally silent, or they're slippery when they must speak. Athletes try to emulate their play, when it may be their off-the-field persona that needs copying.
• Back to the NFC West: specifically, the St. Louis Rams. For years I've thought it a shame that running back Steven Jackson be wasted on this team. RBs only have about four or five peak years, sandwiched between a few seasons on each side. Jackson has a few eye-popping stats, like 2,334 from scrimmage back in '06. He tends to rush for over 1,000 even when missing games because of injury. But the Rams seem to be milking this man's talent.

Dupes and Traitors: Slashing Pennies From the War Budget

On today's episode of The Situation Room, CNN's Wolf Blitzer introduced a story about the Pentagon's budget potentially being slashed by $500 billion over the next decade. Apparently this worries some of our warmongering traitor political and military leaders. For perspective, keep in mind that our nation's 2010 military budget was nearly $700 billion!

Another jaw-dropper from the Center for Defense Information's Winslow Wheeler: "Various media reports cite a per-unit cost from $4 million to $5 million. They are quite incorrect," Wheeler wrote. Using the example of the MQ-9 Reaper drone, which entered service in 2007, he estimated the true cost of the aircraft at a stunning $120.8 million dollars. Part of the reason for the gap, according to Wheeler, is that other estimates ignore the support costs required to keep drones flying.

Lockheed Martin Corp bigwig Robert Stevens made a point of telling media about cutbacks the company has already made. Stevens told the Wall Street Journal:  "the additional cuts would be a "blunt force trauma" to the industry." What did you expect the Pentagon's most lucrative client to say?

Better question: Why is this made into a crybaby story about "tens of thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of pink slips," as Republican Mike Rogers said on Blitzer's panel, being handed out to defense contractors and weapons builders? Every other sector of our economy has been hatcheted into splinters, and the Pentagon, other military, et al has been largely immune. On an individual basis, it's a shame that anyone loses a job.

But it's difficult to muster sympathy. This is made into a simple economic downer, instead of what it is--a plea to keep us at war in perpetuity. Just as some doctors and pharmaceutical companies would never want true cures for HIV, cancers, etc., you know Stevens and his ilk profit from death too much to want an end to America's war machine. Therefore, any crocodile tears about the business Lockheed may lose are lost on anyone who doesn't fall for the lie.

All is not lost for the contractors. Congress may overturn the budget cuts, even in an election year. Even if our military is already spread paper thin and is eyeballing Syria and Iran. Even though our constant fighting and globetrotting has ground the American populace into powder. We are already sliding toward Armageddon. So the war profiteers need not worry. They're going to get their blood money sooner, not later. 

LeBron James is Heating Up

The position of LeBron James's head, with both the halo and flames framing him, is no accident. Ever consider that his white headband has the same effect?

These images are from an ESPN3 story about LeBron's "Q" rating, or his likeability to the general public.

That team name, "Heat", always was a little too convenient. I mean, a flaming basketball. Yea. Let's play some 21 in Hell. Make-it-take-it.

"Heat" is only a little better than the name it beat out in a contest: The Miami Vice. Imagine those headlines:

Vice On A Winning Streak.

Vice Win it All.

"The Vice" would have eventually been reconsidered and changed. Maybe. At one time, people got vocally righteous about removing the old Washington, D.C. franchise name: The Bullets. And what did they change it to? THE WIZARDS! So we are okay with warlocks? Yes, we are. That's old news.

<sup>10 There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.

11 Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

12 For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
(Deuteronomy 18:10-12, KJV)</sup>

There is a small movement to change the Wizards name, back to the Bullets. That may well be for the best. We now watch so many murders, and listen to such depraved music, that "Bullets" won't offend people anymore. Especially when the team plays in the White House's shadow.

Signs of the Times: T-Shirts

Saw a couple minutes of BET's 106 & Park this week. Had to laugh at what this co-host was wearing. Because nothing says "Stay Humble" like a t-shirt that says...

courtesy Black Entertainment Television

Freelance Writer Life: Year One

The online freelance writer seems to have peaked a few years ago, around the time President Obama was just getting comfortable in his first term. Jobs got scarce. I finally decided to augment my income with online writing assignments in May of 2011. Apparently the bubble had just burst. I charged in anyway.

One year later, the dozen or so sites I registered to write with has shrunk to several main pillars: Suite101, Associated Content (Yahoo!), and Examiner . And then, there is this very blog.

What have I learned?
That it takes a LOT of articles to make this worth your time, if you're in it for the money.

If you want to get your name out there, or just love to write, you will love the nature of freelance writing. You can be as casual or focused as you want. Serious freelancers who want to make a real living should find clients who offer contracts. But if you have no writing portfolio, one of the sites mentioned above can help build some credibility.
Most viewed/read articles:
On Waffle's Shaddai, the "quarterback Sam Bradford v. entertainer Seth MacFarlane" doppelganger post has pulled a lot of people. Probably lots of Family Guy fans. "Is Kobe a Vampire?" was the top attention-getter for a while, but Sam & Seth passed it in spring on 2012.

Associated Content must have temporarily spotlit my "best actor-athlete of the modern era" article. It leads second place, about underrated films, by a 5-to-1 margin.

On Suite, a news item about Eurobasket 2011 spawned several high-ranking articles. A story about Macedonia's upset over host Lithuania actually beat ESPN's comparable stories, in the days after the game. Suite has reset the entire site and erased all of the social network approvals, but Facebook and Twitter really pushed that article... As for long-term articles, an article about the children of the rich and famous continues to draw readers months after publication.

Examiner has been a time-eater, as I am covering a local minor league baseball team. Too much competition from news outlets with more access. This was a gig I didn't think through very well. I could just quit and lose the few dollars I have queued in their till. Or try to switch over to video game reviewer, which is not dependent on other people's time. We shall see. Probably one of my most popular articles there was a short history of the Salem Red Sox franchise. The editors there liked it, anyway.

Have I made any money?
Not really. Let's check the numbers:

About fifty-five weeks.

Maybe fifty articles/posts across all platforms.

Total from pennies-per-view and other assorted ways to get paid: $15. (Doesn't include interested surfers who checked out Alexandr or the fiction. Still nothing to write home about.)

Not bad for the first year, considering I didn't take the freelance commitment as anything more than a tool for brand exposure. Name recognition was the original goal and it proceeds....

Signs of the Times: Baphomet in the School (hand sign)

The first thing I thought when I saw this illustration on an elementary school wall: WHY?

Why did the artist portray the uplifted hand on the left, in this particular way?

Lots of people still believe that this satanic hand signal means "I love you". (The deception was intentional.) Some of us think that because of Helen Keller, a known occultist.

The "El Diablo" hand sign often is confused with the deaf hand signal of the phrase, "I love you."  While at first this appears an odd resemblance, we register an "ahh, I get it!" emotion when we discover that the person who invented, or created, the hand sign system for the deaf, Helen Keller, was herself an occultist and Theosophist. Did Keller purposely design the deaf's "I love you" sign to be such a remarkable imitation of the classic sign of Satan? Was Keller saying, basically, "I love you, Devil?"

SOURCE: Texe Marrs, CODEX MAGICA

The Theosophical Society was officially formed in New York City, United States, on 17 November 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge, and others. It was self-described as "... an unsecterian body of seekers after Truth, who endeavour to promote Brotherhood and strive to serve humanity." --Wikipedia

Blavatsky was a witch. By that we mean, she practiced actual witchcraft, and there are accounts of wonders she performed before the eyes of others. Theosophy: That's the name of the group Helen Keller was linked with.

Keller helped a lot of people, and her admirers don't want to hear anything negative. (Always true of our 'heroes.') But is it a coincidence that her universally accepted sign for love matches the representation of Satan? Of course not.

This sign is everywhere in our pop culture today. All you have to do is keep saying or doing something over and over, and eventually it becomes reality. It becomes tradition and harmless, acceptable to children that don't know any other 'reality.'

Many of those children have grown up to display the Baphomet hand sign at concerts and in other situations to show approval. They have no idea that they are paying homage to a being that hates humankind.

If you know Satan exists, you know he delights in capturing our kids. Their minds are like sponges...everyone acknowledges that.

But what are they soaking up?

Horned Hand or The Mano Cornuto:

This gesture is the Satanic salute, a sign of recognition between and allegiance of members of Satanism or other unholy groups. 

Notice the winged female's hands. Not only is she performing this salute to the devil, but doing an "as above, so below" with her arms. 

This issue was part of a story run in the comic book, X-Men, in 2001. Now the main writer was a man named Grant Morrison, a proud occultist/witch. Check for yourself.

Some of you don't think that stuff is real. You don't believe in Satan, witches, nor magic. You are deceived. Are all of these admitted sorcerers just having you on? Or are they onto something?

Further reading:
Symbology in advertising