Captain Digital

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

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Jeep Takes a Left(ist) Turn

I’ve held back from commenting on the SuperBowl Jeep ad for a bit, because I wanted to see if others felt about it the way I do.

Weirdly, both Leftists and Conservatives seem to feel the same way. They hate it. But for different reasons.
If you haven’t seen it, it features Bruce Springsteen as his trademarked character, the Working Man™, riding around Kansas, in a Jeep that’s gotta predate the Vietnam War. He’s drinking a cuppa Joe in a diner, driving the backroads, and (metaphorically) wrapping himself in the American flag, all the while staking a claim for unity in America.Lots to unpack on this one. So let’s get started.

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Lying is bad. Lying to yourself is worse.

How to tell if someone is lying:

The old answer about politicians is, “If their lips are moving.” Funny, and often true, but how can you tell if someone is lying in print, especially here on Facebook. Another political axiom springs to mind, namely: “If you don’t like the question you’re asked, answer a different one you do like.”

In another post on my wall, some friends have gotten into a ‘spirited’ discussion on a scientific/political issue. I asked a question of one of the people on the opposite side of the issue. He has now ducked my question at least four times, trying to evade the question by changing the subject. I know why. To answer my question means he would have to expose one of the leaders of his side as a fraud, or at the very least, a raging hypocrite.

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Everything That’s Old is New Again

Sen. Joseph McCarthy
Senator Joseph McCarthy, 1908–1957

I was born in the late ’50s, a little too late to experience the McCarthy Era firsthand. For those of you not familiar, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-IL) saw his political career rise, then fall, much like Daedalus, soaring high, then quickly crashing and burning. McCarthy was convinced that there were Communist sympathizers in both the Federal government and in the entertainment industry. Turns out, a couple of things were true: McCarthy was right, in that there were Communists and Communist sympathizers, in both the government and in Hollywood. He was also wrong in the way he pursued them, in what came to be called the “Red Scare” and the “Witch Hunts” of the 1950s.

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How to light for online video (on the cheap)

I get a lot of people who ask me, “What should I buy to light myself, when I’m on a Zoom call?” Good question. Lighting is most of the battle, when it comes to looking good online. (Cleaning up the area behind you and dressing appropriately – from the waist up, at least – being the other critical factors.) There are a LOT of solutions you can find online, none of which appealed to me, because of the cost. So I set out to create my own, out of things I could find for cheap on Amazon. Here’s what I created.

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Got Soul?

I love animation. It’s part of my day job, and I don’t get to do enough of it. But I love watching animation from others, too. Have since I was a little kid. Saturday morning cartoons? I lived for that. Today, the best of the best in 3D animation is, indisputably, the work of Pixar. There, the story is the thing. From Toy Story to The Incredibles, Cars to Coco, they all have two things in common – great animation and story über alles. The Great Pandemic of 2020 screwed up almost everything, but movies were hit particularly hard. Who wants to go to a movie theatre and sit for two hours breathing other people’s germs, right? Even if you are (like me) someone who believes we all need to get on with our lives where we can, and go on living, a movie theatre seems like a big risk. So it’s particularly sad that Pixar’s latest will likely never get the attention it so richly deserves, because Soul is an absolute gem.

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I Wonder, Woman?

It’s hard to capture lightning in a bottle, two times in a row. When Warner Bros. announced the sequel to Wonder Woman, I was interested to see if Patty Jenkins and Gal Godoy could pull it off – come up with a second film that would meet or exceed how great the first one was. There were high expectations for this one – the first WW movie was also the first in the DC character universe since the Christian Bale Batman trilogy to seem like anything but a dreary sodden mess. Then, the coronavirus happened, and suddenly, going to the movies was not something most people would be able to do. When Warners announced they would release WW84 on HBO, December 25th, they admitted that the movie would lose money without a theatrical release. In fact, they agreed to compensate Jenkins, Gadot, and the others with a piece of the profits, in order to take it to streaming right away. 

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Modern Fairy Tales: The Wolf Who Cried “Boy!”

The Wolf Who Cried "Boy!"

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a continuing series of updated fairy tales, for the new millennium. Think of them as “living tales,” where we adjust the story  – and the moral – to suit the times in which we live. 

Once upon a time, there was a young man, who lived in a village. The lad came from a very traditional household – family values, church, traditions, belief in self-reliance, and all that jazz. But he grew up in an era where the old ways were looked upon first as “old fashioned,” and now “outdated,” “outmoded,” and flat-out “wrong.” Day after day, he was chided, criticized, and even mocked for his beliefs. The peer pressure was almost unimaginable. He couldn’t walk the streets of the village, go into an inn, or attend school without hearing his values torn down. He felt ostracized and unwelcome everywhere but his home.  [Read more…] about Modern Fairy Tales: The Wolf Who Cried “Boy!”

Wanna know what’s wrong with education? Here’s “Exhibit A.”

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Full disclosure: I am a parent of a high school student. I have been both a teacher in the public school system, and of course, at one time, I was a student. I’ve seen education from at least three different perspectives. And let me tell you, education today has gone so far off the rails, I’m convinced that, save for a few dedicated teachers who bravely buck the system, kids learn in spite of their schools…not because of them. [Read more…] about Wanna know what’s wrong with education? Here’s “Exhibit A.”

Terrorism with a Happy (Bureaucratic) Face

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Thank you, please be seated. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Abby Normale-Pharse, and I’m the Under-Under Secretary of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, and I am the bureaucrat in charge of the Bureau of Undocumented, Radicalized Islamic Affairs. I’m very pleased today to announce a new program, that we in the Obama Administration believe will have a dramatic effect on reducing terrorism in this formerly-great nation of ours. We call it, the Terrorist Reintegration and Immigration Program, or “TRIP” for short.  [Read more…] about Terrorism with a Happy (Bureaucratic) Face

Flavor of the Month.

Something weird is going on. I can feel it. But I can’t really figure out exactly what…or why. I’m not a big “conspiracy guy.” I’m a believer in Occam’s Razor, and I think it’s nuts to see a conspiracy behind every tree and under every rock. Still, there is something weird happening, and I’d like to know what is the deal, here. I am speaking, of course, about the selection of flavors found in over the counter medicines and oral care products. Here’s what I mean… [Read more…] about Flavor of the Month.