Bitchin Dave's newsletter

Housekeeping: there will be no newsletter next week.  Happy Thanksgiving! More housekeeping: I realized I edited out a Disney article last week.  Oops.  Please enjoy two Disney-related stories this week. Sometimes it's interesting to see the world through other people's eyes.  I recently watched a video about the "rise and fall of ESPN." It was interesting and covered all the broad points, talked about how they changed their model from a financial standpoint (moving from cable to streaming), how the studio shows and hosts changed with the times (more discussion panels, and more social-media focus), and how they've paid more to get rights to games.  Honestly, I thought it was pretty even in the way they laid it out. However, there were a series of comments attached to the video that explained in MAGA-related terms why ESPN failed !  In summary: They are "woke" (yeah, this was a one-word comment left several times by different people) They went away from j...

Over the last few weeks, we've heard all manner of seemingly ridiculous news... from a government shutdown for spurious reasons, to sending money to a foreign country (while thumbing the nose at Americans), to hosting a very tone deaf "Gatsby party," to remodeling the whitehouse (taking money from unknown people AND circumventing congress in making changes to "the peoples house"), to allowing a foreign military to operate on our soil, to literally stealing from the treasury, to questions about T-rumps mental fitness to serve (yet again, and still!), to possibly being awarded a "FIFA peace prize."  Every day feels like a lot. Yes, these things are terrible. And yes, there is no actual end in sight.   But we have to keep it all in perspective.   There is always some amount of optimism and hope.  We had an election last week that showed that perhaps the people are starting to tire of it all.  He was booed at a football game (lustily as I hear it). There a...

There's this weird thing going on (among the many things). It's this idea that we should always live in fear. That the boogeyman will get us.  I follow some of the people who talk about "ugly Americans" and the things they hear from some of those among us who travel outside the country.  The comments often focus on this notion of "personal protection" and not appreciating that other countries don't have an equivalent of the second amendment, and frankly don't feel the need to arm themselves. The locals in the countries mostly coexist and (with a few notable exceptions) feel safe and live their lives. Of course, there are occasions where things go wrong. But when they do, it garners a serious discussion and there is public outrage. Not simply thoughts and prayers, but an outpouring of emotion. Elected folks actively care about the people they represent and don't have to kowtow to a lobbying group that essentially promotes mass murder. It's wei...

This coming weekend, we once again change our clocks. What you may not know is that Benjamin Franklin is kind of the originator of the idea for Daylight Savings Time.  It comes from his time in France, as a new candle had been invented that didn't produce smoke.  He was captivated by it and it stoked his imagination. Being a thinker and a scientist, he considered how important candles were to life.  Once it got to be dark, you had to light one to see anything.  And over the course of an evening, a week, a month, or a year, he ran through many candles.  How many?  He ran the numbers.  And then he wrote a short piece about how if there was more daylight, then the need for candles would be reduced.  He determined that Parisians could save millions of French Livre every year if they had an hour of extra daylight, and didn't have to buy candles for that period of time with more light. That was pure Franklin magic.  He was good at dissecting a topic and giving a point of view that wa...