The article which sparked the debate concerned a very large rock which passed close to the earth in 2017 – not as large as the one which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, or even the Eltanin impact but larger than the object that damaged Chelyabinsk or than anything that has been confirmed to have struck earth in historic times.

Two characteristics of this object, dubbed Oumuamoua, distinguish it from the many space rocks that come close to the earth every year. First, although there are now more powerful means of detecting objects of this size range than were available even thirty years ago, and a global network of astronomers, professional and amateur, scanning the heavens for them, it was only detected when outward bound. We didn’t see it coming.

Consequently, even if aiming nuclear missiles at an incoming space rock which would otherwise hit us is a viable strategy, it could not have been brought into play in this particular instance. Such a scenario has been seriously proposed by policy makers at NASA, possibly to create the impression in the American public that otherwise esoteric space efforts are worth funding because they have the capacity to protect us from a grave, albeit low probability, threat.

Second, this rock came from an unexpected direction, in an orbit that strongly suggests that it originated outside the solar system. Most meteors, comets, and asteroids come from within the solar system and orbit roughly in the same plane as the planets. The ones that pose a potential danger to earth are believed to originate in the Kuiper belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune, and to be deflected into elliptical orbits by forces that may include a hypothetical planet within the Kuiper belt. They have relatively short lives in cosmological terms as orbiting objects before they crash into Jupiter or the sun, or, if they are predominately icy, melt and evaporate. Whatever forces projected a small asteroid from a more distant star in our direction, they are beyond our current capacity to model or anticipate.

What, you may well ask, is the inconvenient truth here? A subtext in any discussion of anthropogenic global warming is the question of what forces shaped warming and cooling trends in the historic and geologic past, which of them may be contributing to the present warming trend, and which non-human forces might reverse the present warming trend. One inconvenient truth is that a massive volcanic eruption, on the order of the Rinjani eruption which abruptly ended the Medieval warm period in 1257 would dwarf human efforts to stop global warming, especially if it coincided with a solar minimum. Such eruptions occur every few hundred years; the most recent one was Tambora in 1815. Volcanologists have identified a number of candidates for a large eruption in the next 50 or 100 years, but they can’t predict when. What is reasonably certain is that some volcano will inject massive amounts of sulfur dioxide and ash into the atmosphere, far more than emanated from Pinatumbo or even Krakatoa, before the doomsday scenario of global warming runs its course.

Bolide (meteor/asteroid) impacts, the focus of the article, are an even bigger unknown. The possibility that impacts by small asteroids had a profound effect on climate and human history is controversial, but cannot be entirely ruled out. There is a theory, for example, that a bolide impact in the Indian Ocean in Neolithic times caused megatsunamis and climate change giving rise to numerous flood myths, including the Biblical Noah story. Some details supporting the theory are suspect, but others make sense.The role of asteroid impact in geologic time is more firmly established.

One thing is certain, or rather uncertain, and that is, that geologic and cosmic processes are utterly beyond human control. Science gives us increasingly accurate ways to predict them, but the information is of limited use in the case of large-scale events. Since marketing something with reference to a threat requires a belief that humans are in control, the marketplace prefers to bury or marginalize knowledge of uncontrollable events.

Scientific discoveries which reinforce the dominant paradigm become enshrined in the public consciousness, to the exclusion of scientific discoveries which may be as well or nearly as well grounded in rigorous observation and experimentation. Challenges to the orthodox model of anthropogenic climate change – which ascribes all of the current warming trend to human activity, projects a doomsday scenario, and maintains that only expensive coercive actions on the part of a few major industrial powers, actions which incidentally generate wealth for the elites of those countries and may not be very effective, will save the planet – quickly get labelled pseudoscience and climate change denial.

It is easy to find tabloid-style, obviously flawed presentations of the opposing non-mainstream arguments, often framed in rhetoric and a world view (for example Biblical inerrancy) which Americans are taught in school to reject. It tends to be much more difficult to find information of a more sober and rational description, and one is left with the impression that the opposite camp is comprised entirely of illiterate yahoos. Is this a conspiracy? I have seen this phenomenon ascribed to the censorship of the marketplace – to the popularity of tabloid-style sensationalist reporting – but I am not sure this is the whole story. Hence my modest “moderate” conspiracy theory – that there is something about the information channels on which we rely which conspires, not entirely to suppress inconvenient truths which challenge the dominant paradigm and its bottom line, but to present opposing viewpoints in a biased way which leads people, without realizing it, to reject those inconvenient truths and hold them in contempt.

Photo Credit

Photo is from Volcano Cafe

There may be some people that live in walking distance of a physical casino but this is not the case for most people. Many people do not even have a casino in their town and so they would have to travel some distance in order to visit one. Any time that you have to use any form of transport other than walking, you will be contributing to global warming. Not so when you stay at home to play at an online casino.

Global warming is also increased by the amount of electricity that is generated from fossil fuels. If you think about a traditional land-based casino, there is an awful lot of electricity that is used. There are usually rows of slot machines that have flashing lights and loud sounds. Some casinos will also have the air conditioning running all day to combat the heat that is produced by these machines and to keep their visitors comfortable. Having a desktop switched on, or charging a laptop or mobile device hardly uses any electricity at all and so you can play online at Vegas Palms safe in the knowledge that you are helping the environment.

Travelling in cars and planes, and producing electricity releases greenhouse gases which damage the ozone layer. This means that solar radiation can get into the atmosphere but it is not so easy for it to escape again. The consequence of this is that the earth warms up slowly. This may not be the kind of temperature rise where you notice that it is suddenly getting hot, but the temperature of the earth is increasing and this will cause serious problems for future generations.

We are already starting to see how the earth is being affected by global warming. Ice caps are melting at both poles and glaciers are suffering the same fate and this has led to the sea level rising. The temperature of the earth is rising and this is leading to extreme weather conditions. In the last few weeks, we have seen the Caribbean and areas of the mainland United States suffer considerable damage due to two hurricanes occurring one after an other.

When online casinos first launched getting each game to load was a long process. Thankfully, this is no longer the case. Online casinos such as Vegas Palms have spent vast sums of money on making their sites as good as possible for the user. In the past, there was no comparison between playing at a real casino and playing online. Now you can even play with a live dealer online and this makes everything seem even more real. Advances have also been made in broadband speeds which allow games to load much quicker and this improves the experience for the player.

We all need to try and do our bit to reduce our carbon footprint. The good news is that this can be fun at the same time. The next time you want to enjoy a game of poker or some table games, instead of heading to the nearest casino log on to your computer or pick up your phone instead.

Photo Credits
Green feet – pixabay creative commons
Roulette – pixabay creative commons

Guest Author Bio
Daniel Thompson

A huge fan of Real Madrid FC, Daniel is mainly interested in writing about European soccer, green technologies, environmentalism and environmental science. Daniel is currently working on his bachelors degree in Civil Engineering.

From Boys Vs Girls, a short 4D film

1. Have a really great show reel

This is the first thing we will look at, so for starters make sure you have one, and then make sure it’s really good. It doesn’t need to be overly long – pick the highlights of your best work and show us some variety. Highlight your best skills, and demonstrate the work you are looking for. It’s no good showing us concept work if you’re a rigging artist. Open with your strongest work – the person watching will probably be extremely busy, so you need to wow them quickly.

2. Get your basics right

Don’t just be influenced by what you’ve seen in mainstream films, have your own voice and style and execute it really well. We’d much rather see something basic done impeccably, than an attempt at something more complicated with lots of problems. The old cliché of the bouncing ball is a perfect example – how well can you do something that simple? Can you bring it to life and give it personality? That’s the test of a great animator.

3. Draw, even if you can’t

You really don’t have to be good at drawing to make a good animator – but you do need to practice thinking and working creatively. Experiment with different art styles, and create your own characters and worlds. Constantly be designing, creating, making. It’s all great experience for the working world and the animation pipeline.

4. Work on stuff all the time

A lot of show reels we get sent are quite sparse – recycling the same handful of projects. This is fine, but it stands out when somebody has obviously been working on projects in their own time, pursuing their own ideas. We’ve even been releasing some free assets that you can download and have a play with, so you can get right into animating.

5. Stand out in your covering letter

It often feels like almost every job request we get is a regurgitation of the same template, and so when somebody mixes it up a little bit it makes all the difference. We’d much rather hear something interesting about you, than a breakdown of all the grades you got throughout university. In fact, it doesn’t even matter if you have been to university or not. Be the wild card!

The Ship, a short made for The Channel 4 Random Acts Project

6. Look further than anime and Pixar

They say if you want to write, read. If you want to make films, watch films. So if you want to be an animator, watch animation. This does not just mean watching your favourite anime or Pixar over and over again (not that there is anything wrong with that), but consuming a huge range of styles. Keep an ear to the industry and check out what other people are talking about – watch the staff picks on Vimeo, find features from other countries, live and breathe your craft. By drawing from a wider range of inspiration and finding your own voice you give an employer a specific reason to hire you over someone else.

7. Have passion, and show it

This is maybe the most important point of all. Let your creativity, hunger and know-how shine through in your work. We’d always go with someone who has passion and spark over someone with the right credentials or experience on a piece of paper. We can fine tune your techniques, but we can’t change your enthusiasm.

Photo Credits

Images are from Engine House – All Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio
Natasha Price

Natasha Price works for Engine House, an animation and VFX studio based in Cornwall. Engine House have worked on projects for Ogilvy HK, Assassin’s Creed and Hodder and Stoughton.

Boko Haram Bombing

On November 13 in Paris, more than 125 people were killed in at least five separate coordinated attacks by terrorists. As news of the attacks broke, the attention of the world was focused on the City of Light and the unfolding tragedy of yet another terrorist assault. News outlets were flooded with reports, photos, and commentary as regular programing was suspended so that the networks could provide ongoing coverage of the developing situation in France. World leaders, like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, American President Barack Obama, and British Prime Minister David Cameron, issued statements of condolence and support for the people of France.

In early July, 145 people, including children and women, were shot to death in mosques by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria. Later the same month, 100-180 people were killed by a car bomb in Khan Bani Saad in Iraq. In mid-August 96+ people (presumably civilians) were killed by air strikes carried out by the Syrian air force in Douma. In September, Boko Haram killed another 145 people in Nigeria, this time with bombs. On October 10, 102 people were killed and 508 injured by suicide bombers in Ankara, Turkey; the victims were participating in a peace rally. On October 31, 224 people died on Metrojet Flight 9268 over the Sinai, Egypt, likely as a result of a bomb.

I do not watch a lot of TV, but I do not recall all regular programming being interrupted for hours following any of these tragic acts of terrorism. Nor do I recall world leaders holding special news conferences to express their regrets or condolences and offering assistance to the people and leadership of the countries or communities affected.

The morning after the Paris attacks, the top five news items in “Today’s Headlines,” an e-mail I receive daily from The New York Times, were related to the Paris attacks. All of the major news stories on the website of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation concerned Paris. Eight out of ten items posted to my Facebook page are related to the incident in Paris; most are expressions of grief, outrage, or sympathy.

I cannot remember seeing the same level of concern for the other victims of terror mentioned above.

I wonder why Paris is different.

Of course, we grieve for the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris and for their loved ones, as indeed we should; the events that occurred there yesterday are truly tragic. But where is the intense global mourning and outrage for the victims of Boko Haram in Nigeria? For those who died in the central station in Ankara? For the victims of Flight 9268? Is our grief for them less because they are geographically farther away from us than Paris? Or is there another reason? Is our grief for them less because our deepest empathy is reserved for those who share our culture, our religious beliefs, or our skin colour?

We are all—French, Nigerian, Turkish, Russian, Iraqi—brothers and sisters. All who suffer as a result of tragedy deserve our empathy equally.

Image Credit

“NIGERIA-UNREST,” by Diariocritico de Venezuela. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.

A toy store we occasionally patronized shared a storefront with the Magazine Exchange, where I discovered the world of National Geographics. The older ones were more exciting. Most of my modest allowance went for used magazines, and I amassed quite a collection, which I still have. Not only that, but I read a significant portion of it, and that miscellaneous information is still floating around in my brain.

From time to time I look at those shelves of yellowing magazines and wonder if I should get rid of them, but nostalgia always gets the better of me. That and realizing that something I read more than fifty years ago has become relevant, and that I know approximately where to find it. For example, I wanted to make the point that the fancy clothing on peasants in medieval illuminations like the Luttrell Psalter most probably represented not wishful thinking, but putting those peasants in their Sunday best, and I dimly remembered seeing examples in old National Geographics. This Rumani woman from Greece, who appeared in the December 1930 issue, obviously put on all her finery to pose for the camera.

At one time I routinely purged printed material in my house on the assumption that I could always rely on either the Eugene Public Library or the much larger collections of the University of Oregon library to have what I wanted, when I wanted it. Now I’m much more cautious. The University of Oregon library, in particular, increasingly substitutes subscriptions to online digital archives to paper holdings. The problems with this are numerous. Unless I am a student or faculty member, I can’t access the digital archive, although I could formerly go to the library and take the book off the shelf. If either the university or the archive provider decides to discontinue the relationship, access is completely lost.

Digital archives tend to have arbitrary cutoff dates, which make it difficult to research the history of ideas. The picture one forms of the state of scientific knowledge in the 1920’s, based not on what was published then, but on what has been published about it since 1980, is bound to be biased. There is also the problem of rapidly changing formats, and of one’s computer, or operating system, or internet connection suddenly becoming obsolete because the other end of the equation has upgraded. Unless both the database and the access point are constantly maintained at considerable expense in money and labor, the information becomes inaccessible in a way no printed or handwritten page can match. It is easier for me to access Thomas Condon’s (died 1907) original manuscripts on Oregon paleontology, housed in the University of Oregon’s rare book collections, than it is to get at my own research data recorded on magnetic tape for use by an old mainframe computer in 1971.

Because electronic databases contain vast amounts of material, people tend to assume that they are complete or at least do not contain systematic omissions. Because search engines operating on these databases return such a plethora of matches, most of them seemingly irrelevant, people tend to assume that they are thorough and have no biases of their own. American scholars, if they recognize these limitations of information retrieval at all, are apt to relegate them to the realm of identifiably totalitarian countries with no pretense to freedom of information.

The drawback that prompted writing this essay, however, is the ease with which a text that exists only in electronic form, or is disseminated principally electronically, can be altered and the altered version substituted for the original. For an information sponge like myself, this creates considerable dissonance. I have a distinct memory of something, but, when I want to use it and revisit the electronic resource, it isn’t there. For example, I have a clear recollection of reading a chapter in a book on urban health from the late 1990’s discussing how mortality from every infectious disease except polio had declined drastically before there was a specific medical intervention for the disease, and citing the 1957-58 measles epidemic as a prime example. I remember that epidemic well – it put me in bed with a fever of 105. I wanted to cite that epidemic in a discussion of vaccination during the recent measles hysteria, so I went to the Center for Disease Control website , which I have found to be a reliable source for medical information, at least below the most superficial layers. I could not find anything about the 1957-58 epidemic on the site, although there was plenty about epidemics earlier in the 20th century which had high mortality rates, and an epidemic in the 1990’s, after vaccination was introduced, which affected mainly poorer Americans who were not vaccinated. It appeared that someone had gone in and rewritten the CDC web page to reinforce the impression that vaccination, and vaccination alone, was responsible for the large drop in measles-related deaths between 1940 and 1980.

The more I use electronic information, the less comfortable I am with relying on it. I want my decision-making in matters of consequence to have a solid grounding, and that means grounding in a medium which is not ephemeral, and is not easily manipulated and altered by shadowy forces behind the scenes.

Photo Credits

National Geographic Magazines – Martha Sherwood

Rumani woman – National Geographic, December, 1930.

Media Coverage of Boston Marathon Bombing

There is a cliff-hanger at the end of the first season of Aaron Sorkin’s television series The West Wing. As President Bartlet is leaving the building in which he has just given a campaign speech, shots ring out – and we fade to black. We learn in the first episode of Season Two that there has indeed been a shooting and the president has been slightly injured; a key staff member has, however, been critically wounded. Naturally, there is a great deal of news hype around the incident (the target was not the president but his African-American valet), and Bartlet’s press secretary C.J. Cregg is kept busy providing updates on the president’s condition, the staff member’s condition, and the manhunt for the suspects.

But in one of her briefings, C.J. gives the sensational-starved press corps a little perspective by pointing out that while “it would be easy to think that President Bartlet, Joshua Lyman, and Stephanie Abbott were the only people who were victims of a gun crime last night, they weren’t. Mark Davis and Sheila Evans of Philadelphia were killed by a gun last night. He was a biology teacher, and she was a nursing student. Tina Bishop and Belinda Larkin were killed with a gun last night; they were 12. There were 36 homicides last night, 480 sexual assaults, 3,411 robberies, 3,685 aggravated assaults, all at gunpoint. “

While C.J. was making a point about gun control, there is clearly another truth contained in the statistics she cites: the story of greater value – in this case the tragic impact of gun violence on average Americans every single day – is most often lost in the noise surrounding an incident that involves a celebrity or an incident that occurs at a public event.

I have long been sceptical of the journalistic values of the new media, particularly television network news. And I have been thinking recently of one real-life example of C.J.’s comments: the Boston Marathon bombings, which occurred on April 15, 2013. Three people died in the bombings; some 264 were injured. In addition, a police officer was allegedly killed by one of the bombers, and a suspect died in a shootout with police. The bombings and the subsequent manhunt resulted in the evacuation of buildings, the closing down of a large area around the site of the attacks, the restriction of airspace, the cancellation or postponement of sport and cultural events, and numerous other emergency precautionary measures.

News coverage of the event was immediate, massive, and sustained, resulting in outpourings of sympathy from around the world; the victims, as well as first responders, were honoured at various events throughout the rest of the year; by November, One Fund, a charity established by Boston mayor Thomas Merino to aid the victims of the bombing, had raised $71 million.

On the same day in April, 75 people died and 356 were injured in a series of bombings and shootings in Iraq. The following day 22 people were killed in suicide bombings in Pakistan; 49 were injured. In 2013 there were 40 homicides in the city of Boston (down from 58 in 2012); in only 16 of these homicides were suspects identified. None of these incidents, apparently, merited the level of coverage afforded the Boston Marathon bombing.

The power of stories such as that of the Boston Marathon to continue to deliver traction for news organizations is demonstrated by the massive coverage of the one-year anniversary of the incident and, two years after the bombing, of the trial and subsequent sentencing – to death – of the surviving perpetrator, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev’s youth, his foreignness, his Islamic faith, and the fact that there is “no death penalty for state crimes” in Massachusetts and that “residents overwhelmingly favored life in prison for Mr. Tsarnaev” (he was tried on federal charges) only served to intensify the drama of the trial.

There is no question that the Boston Marathon bombings constitute a tragedy; any time life is lost or injury sustained in senseless violence a tragedy has occurred. One does wonder, however, why an incident in which only three people died required such extensive news coverage, while other issues of human suffering – homelessness, domestic violence, youth suicide, poverty – with equally tragic results receive little national, regional, or local air time.

None of us is naïve enough not to believe that the television networks are aware, thanks to billions of dollars spent on market research, of what kinds of incidents and events merit the level of coverage given to the Boston Marathon bombings. They know that their breaking news stories will spark conversations in work places, bars and restaurants, schools and colleges, faith communities, and so on, conversations which will cause millions of people to turn on their television sets to learn what all this is about and to keep those sets tuned to this or that network in response to highly effective manipulation of their emotions. So we can pretty confidently say that network executives see increased viewership, and thus increased ratings and revenues, when these incidents occur. They also know exactly how much mileage they can get out of the incident before toning down the coverage and moving on to other news stories. 

It can be argued that news coverage of this incident led to tens of millions of dollars in aid donated to the victims, and such an argument would not be without merit. But we might also argue that few, if any, of the other victims of violence in Boston – or anywhere else in the United States – in 2013 received such beneficence. Were they not equally in distress and deserving of aid?

News organizations depend on our uncritical consumption of such stories as the Boston Marathon bombing and on their ability to manipulate our emotions through carefully selected imagery, sound bites, and the testimony of victims, bystanders, and “experts” of all kinds, in order to sell the products that are advertised during the coverage of such tragic spectacles. In the meantime, as our attention is focused on these tragic events, the larger ongoing tragedies – homelessness, the dominance of gun culture, economic and racial inequality, among many others – go virtually unremarked. The very fact that they are ongoing, the everyday reality of existence, relegates them to the realm of the banal, less worthy of our attention than spectacular events like the Boston Marathon bombing.

Image Credit

“Kendall Coffey on MSNBC’s Morning Joe (2)”, by Kendall Coffey. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Television is my game.

And a fascinating one it has been for the past 67 years. I entered the field in 1948, the same year that Milton Berle, comedian, and Ed Sullivan, Broadway columnist, did. Their shows, more than anything else, spurred the sale of TV sets to a mass audience which in turn launched television as a major advertising medium. This attracted performers, writers, and production talents from the stage, movies, radio and sports, who at first saw television as a threat. In the beginning advertisers would sponsor the entire show until rates climbed so high that they could not afford to do so. The pattern then changed to buying commercial spots on various programs to reach their targeted demographics.

Early CBS Color Camera – Image © CBS – Reproduction Courtesy of Bob Harris

So Berle’s show was the Texaco Star Theater on NBC Tuesday nights. The format was slapstick comedy mixed with extravagant musical production numbers. Berle not only became “Mr. Television” but Mr. Tuesday nights. The paucity of customers at restaurants, the movies and other events on that night made his dominance evident. His popularity lead to other nicknames too. Affectionately, he was known as “Uncle Miltie” and since he boasted about stealing jokes, “The Thief of Badgags”.

Sullivan’s The Toast of the Town variety show (Later called The Ed Sullivan Show) on CBS became a Sunday night habit in millions of households. He was stiff and awkward in his role as MC but, perhaps because of his influence as a columnist for the Daily News, New York’s largest circulation newspaper, he brought top talent to the show when interest in them was high. He was the first to present the Beatles in this country and gave Elvis Presley his first network exposure. This, combined with a mix of top vaudeville acts made for, as he promised, “A Really Big Shew”. The way he slurred the word became a big joke but his show was a big hit, the longest running variety show on television.

As an editor of the highly regarded trade magazine Televiser, published by Irwin A. Shane, I had a golden opportunity to meet and interview most of TV’s key players. The pioneers in all aspects of the medium read the publication and many famous and historic industry leaders wrote featured articles. The behind the scenes stories of these pioneering people and events, as well as exclusive drawings and photos, you will see no where else, are the material of this “Notebook” which I hope to add to periodically.

March 1950 Televiser with William Adams and Grace Kelly in “Ann Rutledge” written by Norman Corwin – Image © NBC-TV – Reproduction Courtesy of Bob Harris

Here then, just as it appeared in the June 1950 issue of Televiser, is my “Off Camera” column containing notes I took while observing Milton Berle rehearsing and directing his Star Theater show that would air that night live.

Off Camera Column

MILTON BERLE is quite a man. You cannot appreciate how truly he is “Mister Television”, unless you can penetrate his TV “Maginot Line” and catch a rehearsal of the Texaco Star Theatre.

COLORFULLY DRESSED in maroon slacks, a blue jersey, and brown suede jacket, Berle inevitably has a cigar in his mouth and whistle strung around his neck. The whistle quickly summons attention when his verbal directions cannot be heard.

BERLE CREATES and molds the show from beginning to end. He books the talent, works closely with his writers, and is his own director. (Arthur Knorr is the producer, Eddie Kahn is the T.D.)

SITTING IN THE FIRST ROW of the studio before a TV set, Berle is able to speak through a microphone to both the performers on the stage and to the men in the control room. “Dissolve to a medium shot on camera three and pan down”; “Start from the fourth bar and play it legato”; “Kill the spot and bring up the stage lights”; “Paint those dummy cameras so that they look real”.

ONE MOMENT BERLE is on the podium leading the band much to the astonishment of conductor Allen Roth, the next he is on stage demonstrating to dancer Lou Wills, Jr. how to segue into his specialty from a dancing stage entrance.

WHENEVER POSIBLE Berle has a stand-in go through his own routines while he views proceedings from the director’s chair. When actually on stage, he is able to call shots by watching another receiving set located behind the footlights. He directs with a firm hand and is easily upset by interruptions or the failure of anyone to follow directions. However, he frequently breaks the tense atmosphere prevailing in the studio with an ad lib gag.

ZANIES DEAN MARTIN and Jerry Lewis really give Uncle Miltie a hard time when guesting on his show by keeping in comic character at all times. Lewis, when not making faces at himself in the stage monitor, might poke his head through the stage curtains and call out “Hey, porter, what town is this?” He’ll suddenly turn to the studio assembly and say in a straight face “I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you here today.”

LEWIS’ FAVORITE PRANK is aping Berle’s serious manner of giving directions. He’ll latch on to the boom mike and scream “Hey, Arthur, bring in the zoomar and dolly out the cathode ray tube”. In a desperate attempt to get order, Berle said “If you don’t cooperate Jerry, after the show you’ll be saying the cameras missed a lot of your stuff.” “Oh you said that last time, Berle” replied Lewis, “and we went over PRETTY big.”

DEAN MARTIN, who is no slouch at ad libbing either, interrupted Lewis’ antics. “Come on, Jerry. Leave Mr. Berle alone,” Martin said, “after all, we can do anything but this is his only means of livelihood”.

Guest Author Bio

Bob Harris © Sheila Harris

Bob Harris
Brooklyn native and television pioneer Bob Harris began his career in the media arts as a political cartoonist and columnist for the Hollywood Sun in Hollywood, Florida, in 1941 at the age of 14. He joined and soon became the managing editor of Televiser Magazine in 1948. From 1950-1955, he joined the Radio Advertising Bureau as a publicity and promotion writer. In 1955 Harris became the advertising sales presentation writer for the New York World-Telegram and Sun until 1958 when he moved over to WNTA Channel 13 as advertising-promotions director. In 1960 Harris, his wife Sheila and their two children moved to California where Bob joined KCBS Radio in San Francisco followed by KLAC in Los Angeles as their promotions director. In 1970 Harris opened the Bob Harris Agency where in addition to his ad clients he represented three national television publications – Back Stage, Shoot and Emmy Magazine, and the London-based international television trade publication, TV World. After closing the agency in 1993, Harris went freelance as an entertainment writer as well as becoming an art docent for the Getty Center and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Contact Bob Harris at: bharris7@pacbell.net

 Part 2 – On Track to Color Television

There have been a few key players over the years, smart people who have shaped the direction of advertising using psychology. Harlow Gale was perhaps one of the first psychology professionals to make the crossover to advertising. John B Watson said in 1920 that successful advertising appeals to three key emotions: fear, rage and love. These experts formed the basis of the psychology behind adverts. Here are some ways in which advertising uses psychology to help drive sales.

Catch Your Attention

The first thing that an advert needs to do is catch your attention. If an advert doesn’t stand out then it won’t get noticed. The audience needs to be sucked in by something in the advert. Think about the adverts you have noticed recently – what did you first notice about them?

Appeal To An Emotion

As mentioned above, Watson said that advertising needs to appeal to three key emotions. Adverts can appeal to fear, rage and love but more recently it seems to be humorous adverts that have become popular. People really like to laugh and watch amusing adverts, then talk about them and share them with their friends. A great advert will always appeal to one of your emotions.

Leave You Wanting More

Another aim of adverts is to leave you wanting more. They should tell you enough about a particular product to make you want to discover more about it, or even better, buy it. The best adverts will get through to you and convince you that you need their product. Adverts that leave you thinking about them for moments after you have watched them are always going to be successful.

Memorable

People get hundreds of advertising messages every day from lots of different platforms. TV, internet, mobile phones and outdoor advertising – with all these mediums it can be very tough to stand out. The key aim for most adverts is to make the consumer remember the message.

Things That Will Improve Your Life

Adverts need to make you believe that your life will be better if you have their products. They need to appeal to your desires and interests. For example, this advert by Quicksales appeals to people by suggesting that everybody can use the help from a bit of extra cash.

Persuasive Commands

You probably don’t even notice, but most adverts will contain subtle commands. They will use persuasive language to encourage you to buy. This includes phrases like ‘your life will be easier with’, ‘you’ll love this product’, ‘get yours online today’, ‘sale ends tomorrow’. All these phrases are persuading you to buy something. Some advertisers will be more bold and pushy whereas others will use subtle persuasion techniques.

These are all common techniques that smart advertisers use to make their advertising more powerful. In order to successfully market a product to people you have to really get inside their minds and this is what the most memorable advertising campaigns have done. It certainly pays to do your research and find a way of capturing the emotions of your audience.

Photo Credit

1890’s Coke Poster –  Wikimedia Public Domain

Guest Author Bio

Rachel Nowak
Rachel Nowak is a freelance writer specializing in marketing and travel.

As a blogger who aims for integrity, and views blogging as part of his spiritual practice, I have found myself drawn to the discussion around the blog “A Gay Girl in Damascus.” Obviously, things have gotten pretty awful over in Syria, and there’s no way to know if it will take a turn for the better anytime soon. “A Gay Girl in Damascus” became an overnight sensation, gaining a large following, as well as positive coverage in the mainstream,”Western” media. In fact, when the blogger was reported kidnapped a few weeks ago, thousands of GLBTQ folks and their allies hit Twitter, Facebook, and other social media outlets, creating petitions and writing impassioned pleas in hopes that it might lead to the woman’s safe return.

As the protests and Syrian government crackdown advanced, the blog seemingly offered a window, from the point of view of someone whose very existence is considered immoral by many in her society. There was only one problem. Last week, the Washington Post revealed that the blog was a fake, and that it’s author was a 40-year-old white male from Virginia.

Tom MacMaster admitted his blog "A Gay Girl in Damascus" was a hoax.

The man, Thomas MacMaster, wrote an apology on his blog which included the following: “While the narrative voice may have been fictional, the facts on this blog are true and not mısleading as to the situation on the ground,” he wrote. “I do not believe that I have harmed anyone — I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.”

When I first heard this, I thought, yeah, right buddy. Then I thought, but maybe he did open a space for dialogue on some of the issues brought up in the blog. And then I started reading some other reactions to the whole thing, as well as seeing more of what the guy has said about his blog, and all I have left now is a sick feeling in my stomach.

Consider this, from an article on the webjournal Colorlines:

Yesterday Salamishah Tillet, the anti-rape activist, Africana Studies professor and a friend whom I can say I’ve seen in person, texted me about how the MacMaster and Graber hoaxes remind her of the 1838 James Williams Slave Narrative most likely penned by a white abolitionist. “Like in the controversial and fake 1838 ‘Narrative of James Williams,’ these [modern] white men posing as oppressed people makes it even harder for people to take ‘real’ concerns, demands and freedom writing seriously,” she wrote. (Seriously, she texts this way!) “Now, actual Arab lesbian bloggers will have to go to greater lengths to prove that they are in fact Arab and lesbian, and they’ll have to prove why their radical to liberal politics should be taken seriously. Aaargh.”

Or this, from the magazine Just Out:

Nothing about the progression MacMaster describes in his apology letter seems accidental. While misrepresenting himself in online discussion forums may have begun as a relatively benign experiment, no one forced MacMaster to contribute columns to Lez Get Real as Arraf, to create a blog to support the false identity or to accept interview requests with major media outlets like CNN and The Guardian.

McMaster, who admitted he “enjoyed ‘puppeting’ this woman who never was,” even went so far as to establish involved online relationships with Sandra Baragria, a Canadian woman sometimes identified as Arraf’s girlfriend, and Israeli blogger Elizabeth Tsurkov.

The whole thing reeks, absolutely reeks of privilege. White privilege. Male privilege. Class privilege. And straight privilege.

Beyond that, however, it is incidents like this that make it even more difficult for a blogger who might have something vitally important to say to be taken seriously. For all the inroads bloggers have made in recent years, blogging is still commonly considered to be solely the stuff of vanity writers and nerdy hobbyists.

My own experiences have turned me from a curious dabbler into a spiritually-motivated blogger. Readers and fellow bloggers have reminded me in various ways of the value that patience, fact checking, and compassion have in creating material that supports the kind of world I wish to live in. Even though this blog is a fairly small pea in the huge pod of the blogosphere, I feel a compelling responsibility as a Zen practitioner, yogi, and writer to offer a blog with integrity, to avoid misrepresenting who I am, and to respond to comments with respect and honesty, even if the same hasn’t been given to me. It’s not always easy, and sometimes I flop a bit, but that’s all part of the process as I see it.

Perhaps MacMaster’s blog can be used as a tool for speaking up about the value of blogging with integrity, and as a demonstration of what can happen when integrity is tossed aside.

The life of a foreign correspondent is one of repeated compression and decompression. Like a deep sea diver, a reporter like CBC’s Stephen Puddicombe descends into places of extreme mental and emotional pressure. For 24 years, Puddicombe has covered scenes of horrifying disaster, both natural and man made, most recently the earthquake in Haiti, the tsunami in Indonesia and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

When he returns to his wife and three daughters in Halifax, Nova Scotia, he comes home a different human being than the one who left. Over time, he’s found the tools to decompress without succumbing to the constant pressure shifts and the post-traumatic stress.

When Puddicombe was 13, his father died of multiple sclerosis, leaving his mother to raise him and his sister. “I don’t know how,” he says, “because I was a typical brat; thought I knew everything. I give my mother a lot of credit.”

Speaking of his father’s influence on him, Puddicombe says, “He sat me down in front of television when Kennedy was killed, when Martin Luther King was killed, when the first rocket went to the moon. He brought us to Europe. He always said travel was everything.”

And travel is one of the things that brought him to journalism. Puddicombe met a journalist who sold him on the job. “He got to cover history. What a cool job. They pay you to travel and learn about what’s really happening.”

Puddicombe says of himself, “I’m just curious. I remember watching the Vietnam war on television. They talked about the numbers. Nobody ever talked about the people. The old lady with the two kids in the hut and how the bombing and napalm affected them.”

There is a measure of empathy that informs Puddicombe’s reporting, a quality not typical of hard news journalism and one that, when present, is very difficult to pull off without seeming condescending or opportunistic. Puddicombe’s empathetic journalism is always genuine, sometimes bordering on a kind of anger against tragic circumstances. “I try to do all my stories through someone’s eyes, how it affects them. I’m the luckiest person in the world. I get to tell stories about these absolutely outstanding people surviving in the most horrific circumstances. My heroes aren’t hockey players and politicians.”

It’s this empathic approach that’s so dangerous to a reporter like Puddicombe who receives counselling for post-traumatic stress disorder. “I see someone every time I come back,” he admits. “It weighs heavy on the mind. I haven’t slept properly in ten years because of some of the things I’ve seen. I always think ‘is there something else I could have done?’. You come out with survivor guilt. How come I’m allowed to come home to my house, three meals a day and my nice warm bed and they’re not?”

When asked to describe the work he has to do when coming home from a difficult assignment, Puddicombe said, “You come back and get your head into a different space. You realize people’s problems at home are important as well. It’s hard to get your head around things in terms of the scope. You go from an earthquake in Pakistan to a city council meeting in Halifax. Everything is important to its own degree.”

Besides the regular counselling, Puddicombe calls on his family to help with the decompression. “I talk to my family and my kids and show them pictures. I use them as a sounding board to talk about me and what I went through because the stories are never about me. A lot of people know where I’ve been so they understand why I might be off in the ether. It comes back really quick. It’s like riding a bicycle. You’re there one day and a week later you’re at home reporting about something totally different. That’s the beauty and the frustration of our job.”

Not only do his three daughters help him adjust to home life, they’re involved in the decision making process about leaving in the first place. “They have a veto on everywhere I go. Every time I’m called somewhere, I very quickly say, ‘This is what’s happening. What do you think?’”

The girls only turned him down once. “It was during a particularly nasty time in Jerusalem of suicide bombings. My eldest girls looked it up on the internet and asked me how I would know who’s got a bomb under their shirt. I said I didn’t. They told me, ‘We don’t want you to go.’ I told my boss I can’t go. I made this promise, and it’s the most important thing to me in the world.”

Ultimately, his kids keep him sane and after seeing so much horror and destruction, they also lend his work purpose. “I find young people very hopeful. They know so much more than when I was a kid. They’re so much smarter. I think they’re going to run the world a lot better than we’ve been doing.”

Photo Credits

“Desperation after the wave” by Stephen Puddicombe, CBC. All Rights Reserved.

“Muharram: Reflections of Religion” by Stephen Puddicombe, CBC. All Rights Reserved.