sociotectonic shift

Center for Media Research, today, reporting on Pew Research Center's Trends 2005:

....beliefs about national security are twice as important to the American public as economic, social or religious values in shaping people's partisan identification. Five years ago, these national security attitudes barely registered as a correlate of partisanship.

....Notwithstanding a sharp partisan divide over national security, the survey found that fundamental American values still reflect a mix of both consensus and contention; there is, for example, broad public agreement about the importance of religion, the power of the individual and the need for environmental protection.

Depite the fact that the great majority of Americans are religious and believe in God, whether a person regularly attends church correlated much more strongly with his or her vote for president last year than did such demographic characteristics as gender, age, income or region.

In the past two decades, the public has lost more confidence in the media than in any other major institution in American society - including government, business, religion, education, the military and others.

On a typical day at the end of 2004, 70 million American adults logged onto the Internet, a 37 percent increase over the number who did so in 2000. The basic ways that people use this technology have remained fairly constant over the past five years. For most people, the net functions primarily as a mail pigeon, then a library, then an amusement park, then a shopping center.

At the end of 2004, 40.4 million Hispanics lived in this country, 14 percent of the total U.S. population. Latinos are now not only the nation's fastest-growing minority group, but also it's largest. Latino immigrants have birth rates twice as high as those of the rest of the U.S. population, foretelling a sharp increase ahead in the percentage of Latinos who will be in schools and the work place.

Anti-Americanism is deeper and broader now than at any time in modern history, fueled by a perception that the U.S. acts only in its own interests and is indifferent to those of other nations. Even though people around the world are increasingly distrustful of U.S. foreign policy motives, these same publics believe the world is safer because no single nation can challenge the U.S. militarily.

DougDay

God opened the door but teacher Doug still "wakes up in the middle of the night and worries about his lesson plans."


[cross-posted from DougDay.org where "every Doug has his day"]

DougDay

Selling suits can be boring, admits Men's Wearhouse Inc. clothing chain chief operating officer Doug .

[cross-posted from DougDay.org where "every Doug has his day"]

DougDay

Mayor Doug says it's time to do something about that pigeon poop on the courthouse clock tower.

[cross-posted from DougDay.org where "every Doug has his day"]

gauging the vibe

N.S. Sidorenkov, Head of Laboratory of Planetary Circulation and Heliogeophysical Research, Hydrometeorological Center of Russia:

It will be possible to forecast any natural or social cataclysm by attentively observing the speed of the Earth’s rotation and shift of its poles.

. . . via AlphaGalileo press release from Informnauka (Informscience) Agency, no obvious url. . .

One-quarter to one-third of the day spent with media. . .

Bob Jordan, president of International Demographics, said that data gathered from their recent syndicated reports shows that "adults with a household income of $75,000, in the markets surveyed, spent between 6 and 8 hours with the media on an average weekday. In almost all markets, radio and television occupied 3 to 5 hours of the 6 to 8 hours total per adult. . . .Jordan points out that using more than one media at a time is apparently becoming increasingly common. "Some adults listen to the radio or watch television while on the web. Some may do all three."

...Media Habits of Affluent Adults, Center for Media Research, 22 February 2005

R.I.P. Hunter Thompson

Sad news.



[image source]

Too sad, too close to home.

Teen grieves, writes after pal's suicide

flash photography on a cosmic scale?

Update:

"It was the mother of all magnetic flares — a true monster," said Kevin Hurley, a research physicist at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory who leads a major international team studying the event.

Thought to be a mighty cataclysm in a super-dense, highly magnetized star called a magnetar, it emitted as much energy in two-tenths of a second as the sun gives off in 250,000 years. Its intrinsic power was a thousand times greater than the power of all other stars in the galaxy put together, and ten thousand times brighter than the brightest supernova.

... earlier:

From the Royal Astronomical Society (link to images and animation):

Scientists have detected a flash of light from across the Galaxy so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth's upper atmosphere. This "giant flare" was the brightest explosion ever detected from beyond the Solar System. For over a tenth of a second the remarkable flare was actually brighter than a full moon.

DougDay

Decatur Doug 's story of lost dog reunited with its owner in Green Bay, Wisconsin stuns Chamber of Commerce.

[cross-posted from DougDay.org, where "every Doug has his day"]

DougDay

Good neighbor Doug gets more Sunday morning excitement than he bargained for.


[cross-posted from DougDay.org, where "every Doug has his day"]

secret history of the 1950s, cont'd

Who knew? EthicsDaily.com reports that the title of Ricky Ricardo's signature song, “Babalu-Aye,” lauds "a deity of an Afro-Cuban religion called Santeria."

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Asian Lunar Year 4703, Year of the Rooster on the Chinese calendar:

Roosters are said to be independent and flamboyant, and they like to showcase their talents. They are hard working and unwavering. At times, they may be overconfident or too detail oriented. Famous roosters include actress Michelle Pfeiffer, musician Eric Clapton, actress Katharine Hepburn and statesman Benjamin Franklin. People born this lunar year, or who are turning 12, 24, 36, 48, 60 and other multiples of 12 are all roosters.

We ate sweetened, stir-fried nian gao rice cakes for breakfast, after the traditional new year's eve family banquet last night.

South Korean scientists create fluorescent green chicken
(Korea Times)

DougDay

Social Security public affairs specialist Doug knows - if President Bush doesn't - that the Social Security Trust Fund is solvent and trustworthy.


[cross-posted from DougDay.org, where "every Doug has his day"]

Online casino purchases advertising space on pregnant woman's belly

Internet casino GoldenPalace.com has made yet another eccentric buy on eBay. The casino has made headlines by buying many oddities like the Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich, Ghost Cane and Weeping Jesus Rock, but now they're extending their marketing reach by buying advertising space on a pregnant woman's belly for $4050 USD.

As the winning bidder, GoldenPalace.com now has access to 8-month pregnant Amber Rainey's stomach, and intends to use natural Henna to temporarily tattoo its web address on her belly. Rainey proclaims on her eBay auction page that people can't help but look at a pregnant woman's bump. GoldenPalace.com agrees.

The mother-to-be will be walking around her native Myrtle Beach, speaking to locals and getting their opinions on the unusual form of advertising. The new owners of her belly will also be complying with her wishes to be sent to the upcoming Super Bowl. She will be showing off her tattooed belly to as many people as possible.

GoldenPalace.com will need to make the most of their ad space as Amber's baby is due March 21.

...from: Goldenpalace.com scars child for life, a press release - with a surprisingly honest headline - issued by the offending casino, which offers video footage to interested journalists.

DougDay

Magazine editor Doug reveals that licking catfish slime won't get you high.


[cross-posted from DougDay.org, where "every Doug has his day"]

Sick day.