Frontiersman, July 2024

only about changes in motions that already exist. If the crust of the planet suddenly slid sideways on the mantle, then that wouldn’t be a change in its behavior, only a change in the magnitude of its behavior. It’s already moving, and we’re doing things that might possibly make it move even more.

Legends and ancient history are filled with accounts of cataclysmic environmental events and Earth changes. Maybe some of those tales grew in the telling. Maybe some of them are true. Maybe such things could happen again. I don’t know but, if any of this stuff actually comes to pass, then look at the bright side. Maybe it will reduce the number of nitwits in the world.

Closing Credits
Sam Aurelius Milam III

I see various things that suggest to me that there are problems at PBS. For example, the morning edition of BBC World News America on Wednesday, May 1, was a rerun of the same program from the previous day, complete with the same live reports and breaking news. PBS runs those programs twice each morning, one after the other, on different broadcast channels. That morning, both programs were the same reruns with the same live reports and breaking news. On Tuesday, June 11, the first showing of that program wasn’t even a news program. After the normal opening credits, the entire program was three women discussing their job histories. The second showing that morning was the normal news program. I don’t know if those reruns and the glitch were caused by a failure of BBC to provide the correct content or by a failure of PBS to present the content when it was provided. Either way, it seems to me that PBS is having some difficulty in finding or scheduling relevant content.

There are also a lot of reruns. The British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances is one of many good examples. There are about 40 episodes of that comedy but PBS shows the same half dozen or so over and over again. PBS uses short clips from Rick Steves’ Europe as fillers, between programs in the morning. I’ve seen them run one or the other of the same two clips, for months at a time. For more than a week, recently, Amanpour & Company, a current events interview news program, was reruns from several months earlier.

I’ve been watching PBS for several decades and I’ve noticed, lately, what appears to be a reduction in the number of documentaries and an increase in the number of propaganda pieces. In case there’s any doubt, a documentary provides information. A propaganda piece promotes an agenda. Maybe PBS is losing control of its programming. I can remember when PBS was a non-commercial network. Nowadays, it seems to be about as commercial as the commercial networks. It’s also sponsored by a large number of “foundations”, and so forth. The sponsors always make the rules.

Here’s another observation. The network has four broadcast channels in my area, one of which shows cartoons and other kid’s shows, seven days a week and 24 hours a day. Even so, the main PBS channel shows cartoons from 6:00 in the morning until 2:00 in the afternoon, five days a week. Isn’t there something more important that they could show during that time? Maybe not. I don’t know.

Speaking of cartoons, I can remember when they were funny. What little I’ve seen of them on PBS lately, just clicking past them, suggests that, nowadays, they’re mostly propaganda pieces, brainwashing kids with an agenda of political correctness. I can still see the old cartoons on Saturday mornings, but not on PBS.

I can only wonder about the problems at PBS but it seems to me that something is amiss. I wonder if it could be part of a larger institutional malaise. Maybe the worldwide socioeconomic Ponzi scheme is failing. See Essays About Money, Taxes, and Corporations, in Pharos.

Two Sides of the Same Coin
Sam Aurelius Milam III

For many decades, women have demanded the same considerations in the workplace that the men are getting. That could be a real bummer for the women because, in the name of gender equality, the men could demand the same considerations in the workplace that the women are getting.

Women have always insisted that the woman gets to decide whether or not she was sexually harassed, regardless of the man’s opinion. For the sake of gender equality, the same consideration should exist for men. A man should get to decide whether or not he was sexually provoked, regardless of the woman’s opinion.

When a woman sashays into the cubicle and causes a man to feel sexually provoked, then he should be able to have her reprimanded for sexual provocation. Her opinion in the matter should be irrelevant. The man should get to decide. That’s the way that it works for sexual harassment of women and that’s the way that it should work for sexual provocation of men. Provocation and harassment are two sides of the same coin.