“The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker.”
~ Helen Keller
The tail end of ‘winter storm Virgil’ is upon us this morning, with brisk breezes and churned up seas. St. John looks to have gotten some much needed rain yesterday, although we got barely a dribble here on Peterborg. I hope it clears up for all of my friends who are out boating or beaching it this holiday weekend !!
I couldn’t remember what The Weather Channel had decided to name this storm, so I googled it, and happened upon an interesting article …
Did you know that TWC owns 89% of the weather market? Their site Weather.com now draws some 163 million monthly unique visitors, and its digital app has been downloaded 106 million times. In Nemo there were 400 million tweets and a little over 400 million Instagram photos posted. Half of all digital subscribers check the weather daily. And TWC recently bought out their biggest competitor – my trusted source – WunderGround.com. Talk about media prowess!!
So yesterday, I’d finally had enough of “public opinion” here on Facebook. There is so much information out there, and it’s confusing sometimes. Is half of this stuff really even true? We share what is going on in the world … Monsanto, fiscal cliff, voting on gay marriages. It’s as though I’ve turned on the news when I get on here, something which I try very hard to avoid.
Almost all personal development guides list TV and news fasting as a sure fire way to increase ‘happiness’. Why? Because the news leans towards propaganda. It’s generally depressing, and leaves people feeling discouraged and powerless to do anything.
While we share all this information to the point of overload, I think what troubles me is that there is so little focus on what we can do to change these things we feel so strongly about. Honest workers, making tiny shoves…
In 1964, 66% of Americans said that our country was run for the benefit of all the people. Today that number is 20%.
80% polled said the country is “pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves.” 64% chose the position “The parties fight for their narrow interests, the will of the people is ignored, and the results do not serve the people.”
“Based on numerous polls, it appears that citizens in democracies believe that the antidote to the disproportionate influence of special interests is to give the citizenry as a whole a clearer voice in the public policy process by having policymakers actively consult the people on the key decisions that they are considering. ”
Hummmm … Why doesn’t The Weather Channel create a Public Opinion Barometer ??
‘People Storm Brutus’ is on it’s way. Maybe that would get the attention of these idiots we vote into Washington …
Ok, ranting over. Time to change the emotional channel 😉
Have a wonderful Saturday everyone … And do yourself a favor and turn off the news ♥
