over polarized political news

I found a nice CNN op-ed by Julian Zelizer that spells out many things about modern "news" that bother me but I have not been able to articulate as well.  Here is a link to the original and I have quoted some passages that stand out to me in particular below:

"The insistence on dividing politics into clear categories of "liberal" versus "conservative" ... has remained so through our current age, when everything must be red or blue. ... public opinion is often all over the place on key policy issues, news coverage, like politicians, tends to play into a more polarized vision of politics."

"The problem is that this kind of news coverage actually plays a big role in polarizing the electorate. Rather than presenting nuance and areas of agreement, television news has tended to offer politics that stress one position or the other. The divisions are further amplified by the fact that more Americans now tune in to networks, and websites, that present the news from a partisan perspective. The cycle never ends. "

"... the fight between them was more important than the substance of what they said. While humans love to watch confrontation and conflict, there were many people like ...Walter Cronkite in this formative era of news who didn't believe that it was the job of their industry to satisfy those demands. Rather it was to provide the best information and reporting about the big stories of the day. The rest was for the entertainment shows."

"Too much of television news is now about the fight between the panelists, not the issues. ... For decades, there has been a premium on panelists who can light up the airwaves with dramatic and contentious arguments. ..., viewers often tune in to see the panelists go after one another rather than try to rationally work through the problems of the day. The incentives for television hosts and panelists is to be confrontational and to be shocking. That draws the ratings."

"The medium has changed even more dramatically since the 1990s. Rather than having left and right on one show, we have now divided left and right on different networks. Media personalities ... argue about the people who are no longer in the room, ..."

"One of the worst effects of these trends has been that the public has decreasing trust in the news as an institution. A recent study by the Newseum Institute found that only 24% polled believed the news is unbiased. Last year, Gallup found that trust in the news media has reached an all-time low."

A Few Geography Questions

I have a few questions about geography that I like to ask people.  A good one to ask people in the US is "what is the capital of Canada, a country on our own border."  It is surprising how many people cannot answer that.  The capital of Australia is another one.

This one is fun: By land, what is the minimum number of countries you have to cross to get from Norway to North Korea.

Some questions do not have a single answer and depend on definitions that are not always clear.  Like, how many countries in Scandinavia are not in the EU.  Also, apart from Mexico and Canada, which the US shares borders with, what is the closest country to the US geographically.

Most people can tell you right away what the two largest countries are by population, China and India.  However, people often have a hard time saying what the third and fourth largest countries are by population.  Think about it for a moment.

Okay, I'll give away one of the answers.  Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world by population.  A surprising number of people (and not just Americans) cannot even point to Indonesia on a map.  The common language, Indonesian, is one of the easiest languages to learn.  How many people do you know that have studied Indonesian?  Can you take this as a class in schools in the US?  I suspect Indonesia will become a larger international player in the future, definitely in an economic sense.  We should plan ahead to capitalize on this.

Bonus questions: Which country has the largest Christian population in the world? What country has most of the world's Muslims? 

Trump leading the Republicans

I was really surprised to see the results of a Washington Post poll showing support for various republican candidates for the 2016 election.  Trump is leading with almost 25% support (blue upper left).  Trump, Walker, and Bush are the three front runners with almost half of all the support (blue, orange and yellow, left). 

If I were a member of the republican party I would be very embarrassed about this.  As a US citizen that cares about my country I am embarrassed that this is the best that one of the two major parties can come up with.  Again, maybe this just goes to show that we need to get rid of the party system in elections to keep it from becoming a farce of media clowns.

Here is how the democratic candidates are breaking down.

Clinton has a major lead.  I didn't used to have a problem with her until her support of the "patriot" act and Iraq war.  At this point I am either voting for Sanders or a third party candidate (which is also Sanders, he is not a declared democrat) in order to not throw my vote away showing false support for one of the two ruling parties.  The current green party candidates are Darryl Cherney, JillStein, Kent Mesplay, Bill Kreml and SKCM Curry.  The libertarian party candidates are Marc Feldman, Cecil Ince, Steve Kerbel, Darryl Perry, Derrick Michael Reid, and Joy Waymire. 

It seems self evident that no one person, or one political party, should be in control of the government pushing their agenda over other people.  Imagine if the representation of people better reflected the diversity of people in the United States. This would encourage working together to achieve common goals. 

V is graduating!

Okay, I've really dropped off with the posts over the last year, especially ones about family.  The reason is that things have really intensified at work and I have had to shift practically all of my focus to that.  However, there is something happening today that needs to be mentioned.

V has been taking CNA classes on the weekends (it can't be during the week because of my job and the little kids).  Today is the graduation.  V passed with honors and was selected as one of the three students in the program to speak today at the graduation.  Usually I drop her off in the mornings (Saturday and Sunday) for classes and pick her up in the afternoon when she is finished (so that I have a car during the day to get around).  However, today we are doing things differently.  M and T went with her in the car to see her graduate and I am staying home with the little kids.  

Rental prices in Honolulu

Here is an excerpt from an article posted a few days ago on Hawai'i News Now "Honolulu home rents go through the roof":

 "... a 3 bedroom home rental in Honolulu is now nearly $2,675 per month.    That's about $700 a month more than California and twice as much as the national average.   That's more than a 14-percent increase from last year...a trend far ahead of anywhere else."

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/29602319/honolulu-home-rents-go-through-the-roof

Bernie Sanders

I like what I am hearing and reading about Bernie Sanders for the next president.  He is an independent that was dead set against the US-Iraq war.  He is also interested in controlling the rising cost of education, creating jobs for people, and helping to build back up the decaying infrastructure in the US.  Look at some of these links for more about him:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders#Political_positions

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/liam-miller/bernie-sanders-president-2016-campaign_b_7557714.html

https://berniesanders.com/issues/

Kepler-452b

Check this out: http://www.nasa.gov/keplerbriefing0723 

NASA is announcing an earth-like planet today.  It is larger and warmer than Earth, but not that much larger and warmer.  It's star is in the same class as our sun.  It is on the edge but within the conservative habital zone and well within the optimistic habital zone.   Interestingly, it is 1.5 billion years older than Earth so there has been much more time for life to evolve.  The only problem is it is 1,400 light years away.  However, "Earths" are out there; it's only a matter of time until we find one a lot closer.  I calculated in 2011 that the nearest one may only be 155 light years away: http://ploener.blogspot.com/2011/11/fermi-paradox-and-flightless-birds.html

-----

update: I noticed this posting had 100's of views seconds after posting it.  I ran a search for "Kepler-452b" in google and this post came up on the top page!