I should know. I was a data broker in the junk mail industry for 35 years. In my later years in the business I preached protection of private information but no one listened. The situation had become so bad that I proposed that individuals should maintain ownership of their name and personal date and actually be paid for its use. My proposal, which was introduced on July 4, 2006, in my earlier blog, The Dunning Letter...
was completely antagonistic to junk mailers, the Direct marketing Assn., and many privacy groups whose purported purpose was to protect your name and personal data.
Here is an excerpt...
"There is only one answer to protecting our names and personal data, and holding Big Brother at bay when it comes to business and government usurping individual privacy. Orwell’s 1984 predicted it, and we are very close to fulfilling his prophesy, but Americans are beginning to see the light and the need to protect their inner sanctum."
Americans actually didn't "see the light" and the data selling business has roared
ahead at lightning speed and arrives at a point now where the sale of your mental health data is being promoted, bolstered by information gathered during the Covid pandemic. Washington Post researcher contacted data brokers to find out exactly what they sell...
"Joanne Kim reported that she ultimately found 11 companies willing to sell bundles of data that included information on what antidepressants people were taking, whether they struggled with insomnia or attention issues, and details on other medical ailments, including Alzheimer’s disease or bladder-control difficulties."
There's more from WaPo...
"One company advertised the names and home addresses of people with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress or bipolar disorder. Another sold a database featuring thousands of aggregated mental health records, starting at $275 per 1,000 'ailment contacts.'”
It's all about money. There is a fortune to be made in selling your private information. Just concerning personal health data, a Google search of that phrase brought up 171 million results. And by the way, I left the junk mail industry almost 25 years ago and a health database available then is still around today: Experian's Behaviorbank which offers a myriad of selections including "health problems." Trust me, there is no privacy today so live with it.
To close, you should know that the exposure of your private information is floating on clouds around the world.
I met Sam Phillips in the early 1960s when Sun Records was in its location on Madison Ave. in Memphis. The place was a former Midas Muffler Shop and Hart's Bakery that Sam gutted and turned into Sun Records. I was fortunate to have a friend, Lou Harris, one of Elvis' Memphis Mafia, who knew Jack Clement, Phillips' top A&R (artist & repertoire) man. These were the people who "rode" the board, a mechanical contraption allowing them to mix sound for the records.
Sam Phillips would have been 100 on January 5, past, but the music he gave to the world will last 100s of years longer. I was fortunate in being able to hang around Sun Records regularly with my friend Lou Harris during the early days. Lou died a few years back and is no doubt sharing a stage up there somewhere with Phillips and Clement. Jack was Johnny Cash's A&R man and I was lucky one day to walk in Sun Records during one of their recording sessions. It was fantastic.
Never was lucky enough to see Elvis there but did have the opportunity to meet
him during that period where I worked at WMC-TV. I was setting up an evening show I produced when our receptionist ushered him into the studio and told me Elvis wanted to look around. Actually Elvis wanted to know just how television worked since he was going to be on the Ed Sullivan Show the next Sunday. I showed him around. put him on camera and introduced him to the guys in the control room.
Elvis seemed almost shy but was very gracious in his thanks. Before he left, he pulled a Zippo lighter out of his pocket, held it up and asked me if I thought something like this would sell with his face on it; a Colonel Parker idea. I told him anything would sell with his face on it. He thanked me again and of course his following Sunday TV appearance is history. Sam Phillips sold Elvis' contract to RCA Records for a grand total $40,000, the largest amount paid a single performer up to that time.
Phillips saidhe was not necessarily conscious of "creating a new kind of music." His comment...
"I think I was conscious of letting out the insides, emotional insides, of people. And that was the challenge, to a great extent," Phillips added. "Oh man, I loved the music ... I dearly loved it. So this was a beautiful experience — it still is, to see the influence that it's had around the world."
Sam Phillips 100 years, a MUST WATCH...
Like many others of the early rock & roll era, much of his inspiration came from Black workers who sang in the cotton fields where Phillips worked. He said...
‘’A day didn’t go by when I didn’t hear black folks singing in the cotton fields. Did I feel sorry for them? In a way I did. But they could do things I couldn’t do. They could outpick me. They could sing on pitch. That made a big impression on me.’’
My uncle had two large cotton plantations in Mississippi and his Black supervisor, courageously in those days called Man, took me in the fields during each of my visits and I experienced the music Phillips was talking about. One thing I did realize, it was completely natural for the Blacks, the prime reason it is eternal in the music. On his way to Sun Records Sam Phillips worked in several radio stations across the South, one of which, WREC, I worked there in television.
Phillips didn't want to copy or duplicate...
“He wasn’t looking for somebody who sounded like someone who was already out there,” Roland Janes, former Sun session guitarist, said in a 2003 interview with Scripps Howard News Service. “If you had a unique sound musically or vocally, that would impress him.”
I could go on for hours with the history of this music icon but let me urge you to read the two articles here and here. There are also several pictures and more information on Sam Phillips and Sun Records here.
Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville said it best, "the level of white trashdom in the Republican Party is staggering." For openers he had Marjorie Taylor Greene in mind for her display of boorish behavior at Joe Biden's recent State of the Union speech. Only a moron like Greene would come to the event decked out in a white coat lined with a fur collar, obviously meant to display her ignorance. Carville described Republican lawmakers as “white trash.” His comment in Huff Post...
“I tell people I have the equivalent of a PhD in white trashology, and we saw real white trash on display,” Carville told MSNBC anchor Ari Melber.
Carville follows with another similar statement in RawStory, "The white trash in the Republican Party is just staggering," then...
"Let me say something about congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), she dresses like white trash. She really needs a fashion consultant. I recommend George Santos. He could do a good job of dressing up where she doesn't announce her white trashdom by her own clothes."
Carville, just before 2022, slammed the GOP for fielding “very low-quality candidates” and suggested the reason...
“They have a lot of stupid people that vote in their primaries. They really do. I’m not really supposed to say that, but it’s obvious fact. And you know, when stupid people vote, you know who they nominate? Other stupid people.”
Carville: Does Trump's GOP Deserve Marjorie Taylor Greene?...
But the ultimate put down was by Matt Lewis in Daily Beast...
Carville also quotes some very interesting Republican history on Social Security and Medicare...
"First of all, their lust for cutting Social Security and Medicare is well documented," Carville said about the GOP. "Newt Gingrich shut the government down and got defeated in the end. We know that George W. Bush tried to privatize Social Security and Medicare. we know when Paul Ryan was Speaker and John Boehner — they did everything they could to cut Social Security and Medicare. We know that that is their objective."
The conservative on again/off again with these entitlement programs is becoming very tiresome. New House Speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy said they are both off the table but we've learned repeatedly not to believe him, or most Republicans, for that matter. And Carville didn't forget Lauren Boebert...
"You cannot do anything to have low-quality people — Lauren Boebert met her husband when -- allegedly according to the police report, he exposed himself to her at a bowling alley," said Carville. "This is not made-up stuff. This is who they are! And even McCarthy, as gutless and spineless as he is, knew that they walked right into the trap. It's unbelievable."
If only the conservative U.S. Congress were like the trash bin in your computer...hit delete and it's all gone.
'This defines the Roberts Court': Chief justice's wife earns millions placing lawyers at firms that argue cases...Since SCOTUS has gone conservative, it has also gone corrupt. First, there was Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginni, now Chief Justice John Roberts' spouse can...
make millions of dollars recruiting attorneys who are placed into top law firms that argue cases before it?
Dozens of dogs left freezing to death in cold...A northwest side of San Antonio is only one U.S. city where over a dozen dogs were left out in the cold. Texas weather has been brutal and animals can freeze to death in a short while. PLEASE bring your pets in from the cold and report any strays. It could mean their life!
how far the Fla. Gov. Ron (the despot) DeSantis' wrecking ball has gone, as an example...
Books. Specifically books that make students feel uncomfortable in any way, so that their parents need never endure a more complicated discussion than “tendies or nuggies?”
Missouri dog euthanized after grooming; family calls for accountability...A mistake like this is unconscionable. In fact, any euthanization of animals should be illegal. We MUST work together; the public, animal shelters and local governments, to curb the uncontrolled populations of pets. Then, the feds can pass a law to make Euthanization against the law.
100 gun deaths a day, about half suicides, most of them men...Gun sales go up and the natural result is more gun violence. Fortunately the NRA is in its drmise so we no longer have these sayings like, 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' #1, ban assault weapons; #2, beef up background checks; #3, eliminate concealed and open carry unless necessary; #4, pass tougher gun control laws. And do it before gun violence kills more innocent people.
These are the words from Salon's Senior Writer Chauncey Devega's piece on February 7th of this year. I mention all this due to the importance and timeliness of this issue. It comes at a time when Donald Trump is losing his power and the Republican presidential primary emphasis is swinging toward the despot DeSantis. I cannot think of anything, including Donald Trump, that would be worse for this country...most certainly democracy.
There was a story back in November of 2022 on RawStory, "'Oddball' Ron DeSantis might not be a hit on the national stage: former GOP insiders." First of all, calling DeSantis an "oddball" falls way too short of describing this autocratic dictator whose actions caused 7,443,954 Covid cases resulting in 84,927 deaths. Teachers have only the books on their shelves allowed by DeSantis or face jail time. A Florida teacher rips DeSantis’ censorship, criminal threats as outrageous.
One can only hope he won't play well nationally keeping him isolated in a Florida that has so far supported his dictatorial prowess with cracks appearing recently. Here is an excerpt from a recent RawStory essay by Thom Hartmann...
"Historians and political observers have been predicting that America would get our very own Mussolini ever since the days of Barry Goldwater. And there's been no shortage of candidates: bribe-taking Nixon; Central American fascist-loving Reagan; Gitmo torturing and war-lying Bush; and, of course, Trump."
Has Ron DeSantis Turned Florida into Fascist Paradise?
And, of course, what we have been given to fill this Mussolini niche is Ron DeSantis. Hartmann makes a statement that is disturbing but not unexpected...
"But with Ron DeSantis, we may finally be facing an all-American politician who has Mussolini's guile, ruthlessness, and willingness to see people die to advance his political career..."
OMG, a willingness to let people die is just what this ogre did, along with his bogus Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo, in spewing misinformation over Covid. DeSantis and fellow Republicans are described as proclaiming Florida a bastion of "freedom" and "liberty" when in reality Hartmann calls it a laboratory for fascism. My interpretation of this comment indicates plans by this deranged group of autocrats to take their tyrannical movement national in 2024.
This country cannot survive another dictator. Florida's Gov. Ron DeSantis must be cut off at the knees and we must do it today!
Yes, there were moments, but President Biden came through in his assessment of the administration's accomplishments and then the outlook for 2024. There was heckling by the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, both Republican certified moron radicals, but it was expected. Here's an early scenario from CNN...
"A majority of Americans say he [Biden] hasn’t accomplished much, many Democrats aren’t thrilled at the prospect of him running for reelection and he faces clear disdain from most Republicans. But Biden powered through."
The President became feisty at a time when he desperately needs to display power
and the fact that he is in control. He used the phrase “finish the job” 12 times to urge Republicans and Democrats to move his issues into legislation and the law. The problem is, and has been, the fact that the American public seems to believe he has accomplished so little. There were many...
Lowering Healthcare and Drug Costs from the Inflation Reduction Act
The Most Consequential Federal Gun Safety Bill in Decades
The Most Consequential Federal Gun Safety Bill in Decades
Reducing the Cost of Gas by Releasing Oil from the National Strategic Reserve
Reforming the US Postal Service to Ensure Long-Term Stability
My report would not be complete without two distinct cries for help in the fashion world. First, Arizona Senator, Krysten Sinema, in a bright yellow dress with puff shoulders, looks like she fell in a vat at a mustard factory. Agreed, she is lousy at her job but should get an award for acting as if this is all perfectly normal. The New York Post reported: “Did the airbags on Kyrsten Sinema’s outfit deploy during the State of the Union?” user Gabe Sanchez tweeted.
And then there was Marjorie Taylor Greene dressed so that Newsweek said it made her look like Cruella de Vil. Only a misfit like MTG would come up with an outfit like this for an event like the State of the Union. In both cases, Sinema and Greene, they obviously pulled this off because they are so desperate to be noticed.
"She [Marjorie Taylor Greene] shouted "liar" to Biden after the president accused the GOP of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare. But what caught the attention of people on social media was the white fur coat she was wearing.
Oh yes, apparently Mitt Romney, amongst a group of representatives at SOTU, told another Republican lunatic, George Santos, "You don't belong here." Well said!
Republicans like this are regularly radically bizarre, but Joe Biden showed the kind of secure demeanor and disposition along with his grasp of the issues as the person we want in the White House.
I spent several years in Memphis in the 1950s, after four years in the Navy. On the G I Bill, I was able to get my degree from the University of Memphis while working as a television news producer at a local station. There was violence in those days but nothing remotely compared to the bloodshed that exists today. Most certainly nothing like the recent killing of Tyre Nichols (Black) by five Black Memphis cops. And, why would they attack one of their own and kill him?
This is the scenario from AP...
"In a terrible way, the death of Tyre Nichols brings vindication to members of the Black community in Memphis who live in constant fear of the police."
What this means is that it took the violent death of yet another Black person to once again expose the problem that African Americans have been dealing with for years. The difference is, it has gotten eonsiderably worse. I grew up in in a small town just east of Memphis, Jackson. Tennessee. When in high school there I witnessed a Black person being hanged and resolved at that moment I would never harbor feelings of racism. Lost a lot of friends but it was worth it.
The AP article presented by U.S. News is so compelling, I found it hard to believe Memphis had gotten this bad. Here are some excerpts...
"A homeowner who called the police because a young man who had been shot was on his front porch. The responding officers ignored the gunshot victim and entered the caller’s home. The caller was slammed to the ground and a chemical agent used on him as he was subdued. The officers then lied about the circumstances, but there was video.
"In police sweeps, unmarked cars roll into neighborhoods and armed plainclothes officers jump out, rushing traffic violators and issuing commands. The result is a community in fear, where people text, call and use social media to caution each other to stay inside or avoid the area when police operations are underway.
“There’s one type of law enforcement that keeps people safe, and then there’s a type of law enforcement that keeps people in check,” said Joshua Adams, 29, who grew up in south Memphis' Whitehaven, home to Elvis Presley’s Graceland Mansion, now a mostly Black neighborhood."
ALTHOUGH I MUST WARN YOU IN ADVANCE, this video of Tyre Nichols' beating death clearly confirms that cops can be violent...
Unfortunately there is more in this AP piece that will shock you. And finally, a short anecdote about one of my former friends in Memphis. We lived close to this guy and his family, partied together, went out on the town together. The closest of friends. After leaving Memphis we went back for a vacation and the same friend and his family showed us their new house. Prominently, one room was dedicated to the Ku Klux Klan with KKK sheets and a hood affixed to the wall.
I couldn't believe it but realized very quickly that the South will never change. And it hasn't. READ MORE...
