Captain Digital

Random musings on politics, society, and pop culture from the Internet's marketing curmudgeon.

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Got MLK?

Today our country celebrates/commemorates/observes the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Coincidentally, it’s the last day of the Bush Administration, and the Eve of the ObamaNation. (Ahem.) The Chosen One has been busy in the last two weeks, with his faithful media lapdogs casting him as a combination of the second comings of Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and Jesus Christ. Pretty big boots to step into, if you ask me, but the media assures us that he’s up to the task. We’ve been treated to breathless stories of how Obama has but four years to “fix” global warming or we’re all doomed, and how the Messiah is going to undo eight years of the “evils” of the Republicans.

I find it interesting that everything Obama has done so far, has been of a symbolic nature. [Read more…] about Got MLK?

Read All About It.

I hear that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, like many other once-proud newspapers, is up for sale. Even worse, if it’s not sold inside of 60 days, it will cease to exist in print (but might continue in a greatly scaled-back online form).

Sad. Very sad.

I was thinking the other day about how the newspaper biz has changed since I was a kid, throwing a paper route in Shreveport, Louisiana. It’s changed a lot – and not for the better. Of course, you could argue, and many do, that the Internet killed the Newspaper, just like it’s kill(ing) CDs and will soon kill DVDs. But if you’ve ever tried to get all your information from the web, you’ve probably seen that there’s something that you lose, when you ditch paper. So, I’m not convinced the problem with newspapers lies at the feet of the World Wide Web alone. No, I think it’s something(s) much deeper, and will, in fact, cause the destruction of an entire industry in no less significant a way than what happened to the dinosaurs. [Read more…] about Read All About It.

Homeland (In)security.

Living in Texas, I’ve given a lot of thought on the issue of homeland security, especially as it applies to the border. Admittedly, here in the Panhandle, we’re about as far away from the Mexican border as you can be, and still live in the great State of Texas. However, you might be surprised to learn that border security is an issue that has a direct effect on where I live. For instance, while the majority of the population in the Texas Panhandle is Anglo/White/Caucasian (I’m not up on what the P.C. crowd is calling us homies nowadays), the second-largest ethnic group is not Black/Afro-American/Whatever is the P.C. Term, but Hispanic. A surprisingly large percentage of our local population is comprised of those who have entered the company without the benefit of immigration papers. In other words, illegal aliens. (I’m aware the P.C. term is “undocumented workers.” That’s a load of male bovine excrement. If they are from another country and are here without following our immigration laws, they are illegal aliens.

You may have noticed in the news lately, that illegal alien immigration is way down in the past fiscal quarter. I’d love to be able to report that this is due to stepped-up patrols, the long-awaited, controversial border fence, or something we did to directly affect the problem. Nope. It’s because our economy (like the rest of the world’s, mind you) is in the baño right now. (For you gringos, that’s the toilet.) Seems as though all those low-paying jobs that are typically beneath the dignity of us naitive-borns are suddenly looking muy bueno right about now, and the depressed job market has not the siren song call to our Neighbors to the South.

Still, we need border security, to serve both economic security and national security goals. I think I have the answer, and – with appologies to Jonathan Swift – I’d like to share my idea with you.

Annex Mexico. [Read more…] about Homeland (In)security.

New projects…

I have a couple of new projects to talk about. I’m a member of an indoor pistol/handgun range, set up as a non-profit. They had a really bad website, in desperate need of an update. I”m still tweaking the new stuff, but here’s a before-and-after look at the project:

The old site: http://www.lsgc.org

The new site: http://www.letsshootgunclub.com

Part of the challenge is going to be to get the old site (as well as another one on Tripod.com) shut down, as the people that set those sites up are no longer with the club – and apparently there’s some bad blood between folks that’s caused these sites to remain in limbo.

Another project I’ve been working on is the recently-updated site for my church: http://www.allsaintsamarillo.org. I’m using the Slideshow Pro  Flash component to deliver not only a picture gallery, but a front-page “splash scren” style rotating banner thing, that can be updated by way of SlideshowPro’s excellent CMS tool.

I’d be interested to get some feedback on both projects, if you’re so inclined.

Life is just a Bowl (Game) of Cherries…

I like football. Not exactly your garden-variety, Earth-shattering confession. Perhaps I should ellaborate. I enjoy watching football. In my younger days, I used to enjoy playing some sandlot games at parties, largely because as a 6’4″, 200+ lb. guy, I was fast enough to knock a quarterback or two on their lower posterior regions. Never played ball in High School (broken bones being a potential career-ender for musicians) or college (never took it seriously, nor did I go a school that had an NCAA team). Nonetheless, I enjoy watching the game, but you’d hardly call me a fanatic. I follow the Cowboys and UT, and try to keep up with LSU, and that’s about it. Watched the Fiesta Bowl tonight, and was struck by a couple of things…

  • Colt McCoy is a pretty amazing quarterback.
  • It was a trip, watching Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer sitting next to each other in the Fox studio, and having to pretend not to loath each other.
  • The second half of the game was really exciting (the first half, not so much).
  • UT deserves to be playing for the National championship.
  • The BCS system is a complete joke. [Read more…] about Life is just a Bowl (Game) of Cherries…

A Tale of Two Satires.

Over the weekend, I rented a slew of movies for me and my family. (It beat contending with the drunks and nutjobs on the road for a meaningless New Year’s celebration. When we rent movies, we get some for my daughter that we can watch as “family fare,” one that I can enjoy as a “guy thing” (in this case, Death Race), and a couple that Mrs. Digital and I can enjoy when our daughter is asleep. I chose a couple that looked promising, War, Inc. with John Cusack, and the Cohen Brothers Burn After Reading. Being a card-carrying conservative, I’m used to having to put up with movies that espouse a liberal/secular/progressive point of view, and movies that hit you over the head with their liberal’s-eye view of the world. I’m resigned to having to filter out the liberal subtexts, and laugh off the obvious, ham-handed attempts to make conservatives look stupid/incompetent/lazy/criminal. It’s not fair. I don’t like it. And I wish they wouldn’t do it. But I’m resigned to it. Having said all that, allow me to compare and contrast these two satirical flicks for your edification. [Read more…] about A Tale of Two Satires.

Billboard logic.

I was driving down the street here in Amarillo (Centrally Located Between Two Oceans!™) the other day, and spied a billboard for the U.S. Border Patrol. The board promised an exciting career in law enforcement keeping our borders safe for legal immigrants and travelers, and keeping the illegal aliens out.

Pause with me for a nanosecond, and let’s consider what they’re asking. [Read more…] about Billboard logic.

Flying blind…

I recently (four days ago, to be exact) updated the software this blog runs on, to the latest and greatest version – i.e., WordPress v.2.7. The upgrade was surprisingly easy to do, and by all appearances, went off without a hitch. Um…ALMOST without a hitch. Seems that one of the things that got trashed along the way was the settings for my Google Analytics code. Whoops.

I usually check my GA stats on a daily basis, just to see what’s going on. Check more often, and it will drive you nuts. Less frequently, and you stand to miss a trend…or a problem.

It had been four days since I’d checked my GA account. Color me “surprised” to learn that I’d (according to GA) gone from a significant readership to ZERO hits for the last four days. That’s like going from 60 to zero in, oh, about 0.0 seconds.

Once I saw the stats, I knew something was wrong. I dialed up the New! Improved! control panel, and found that my GA settings were pooched. No code – no tracking. No tracking – no results. No results – unhappy blogger.

I’ve restored the tracking code, and all should be right in my world.

But I’ll keep checking. As Joe Bob Briggs (Drive-In Movie Critic of Grapevine, Texas) says, “Without eternal vigilance, it can happen here.”

The following post is closed-captioned…

…for the thinking-impaired. 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON D.C.: Today the President [who is suddenly worried about his ‘legacy’] announced that the [lame duck] Administration has put together a plan to give GM and Chrysler a loan [throwing bad money after good] of 17 Billion Dollars [further devaluing our currency and likely triggering inflation on a scale not seen since Carter and the 1970’s] to help them avoid bankruptcy [which, paradoxically is the only thing that would save them from annihilation]. The plan calls for the companies to submit a turn-around plan [which won’t work without bankruptcy] by March 31st [long after Bush is gone, and it’s Obama’s problem], or they will have to give the money back [as if they’d have anything left, at the rate they’re bleeding red ink]. United Auto Workers head [bully] Ron Gettlefinger immediately stated that the Bush plan was unworkable, and had far too many restrictions [that might result in the UAW having to accept salary and benefit cuts]. Gettlefinger offered that they would immediately demand that the Obama Administration rewrite the plan to remove the offending restrictions [and thus keep Gettlefinger’s job safe, and force the Big Three to continue to dance to organized labor’s tune].

Here’s the truth, people. The Big Three will not be able to avoid bankruptcy, sooner or later. The union will not allow any kind of meaningful compromise. Gettlefinger doesn’t get it – times have changed. There’s a healthy automotive industry in the USA. Just not in Detroit – and it’s one his union has nothing to do with. The 800 pound gorilla in the room that nobody – Republican OR Democrat – wants to acknowledge is that the only way to save the Big Three is to kill the union. Without the union contracts, union pension plan and union health plan, they can survive. With them, there’s no way to make it work. Period. [Read more…] about The following post is closed-captioned…