It reminded me of something I’d thought about in the past. I wonder how much impact the advent of photography and, eventually, video has had on our brains and emotional well-being?

Before these things were invented, time was much more abstract. We knew that it was passing, since we saw the things around us changing and witnessed our friends and family growing older, but it was on a continuum, with subtle changes occurring, often with little notice, over a long period of time. With the advent of new technologies, we can now see those changes in stark, jarring detail. There was now a record of our lives as time marched forward. We could see ourselves age and be reminded of the people we once were, and of how our parents and grandparents, whom we always thought of as old, were once just like us. I’ve got to believe that this ability has profoundly changed us.

Going back even further, there was a time when we had no knowledge of what we looked like. Before the mirror was invented, unless you happened upon a still stream and got a glimpse of your distorted reflection, your appearance was a mystery to you. You could have been the most beautiful person to ever grace the planet or a hideous monster, but the only clue you had was given by the way others reacted to you. Just imagine going through life and never knowing what you looked like. Would that be good or bad?

Going forward, things are going to get even stranger. With the advent of AI and its ability to generate realistic images and videos, the reality of our past can now be fully distorted. People who didn’t exist will now exist. Events that didn’t happen will have taken place. Will future generations have any clue what the world was really like, or will their history be a fantasy generated by a computer?

There’s little doubt that all the technologies I’ve mentioned above have changed us and the societies in which we live. Has it been for the better or for the worse? Since we have no way of measuring it, we’ll probably never know.

Recently, John Deere paid $99 million dollars to settle a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission and the Attorneys General of Illinois and Minnesota. Deere was accused of restricting farmers’ ability to repair their equipment by preventing them from accessing diagnostic software and tools needed for repairs. Because of this, farmers had to rely on John Deere dealers for repairs. Not only was this more expensive, since the dealers essentially had a monopoly on the service, but it also delayed repairs because there were often waiting lists for access to their services. Imagine being a farmer with a crop to harvest, your very expensive Deere tractor is on the fritz, and you find you’ll have to wait a month before you can get a technician out to fix it. Not good.

While it worked out for the farmers in the end, it’s not so good for homeowners and small businesses that use John Deere products. The company has apparently made decisions to maximize profits at the expense of consumers. While they’re allowed to do this, some of the things they’re doing are pretty sleezy and they may pay for their short-term profits with fewer customers in the future. It’s really sad that they’ve chosen this direction.

I’ll give three examples of this, one of which I’m dealing with now.

First is their Easy Change Oil System. The idea is that instead of having to do an oil change, you can just replace the oil filter with one of their special filters, and not only will you have changed the filter, but you’ll also have performed an oil change. Sounds good, but there are multiple problems with this. First is the price. The proprietary oil filter costs more than a standard filter and the oil it uses. The price difference can be small or significant, depending on whether you used OEM parts or third-party parts. Over the life of the tractor, the difference in price can cost you a lot of money.

The even bigger sin, in my opinion, is that the Easy Change Oil System changes less than half the oil. A typical JD tractor takes about 2 quarts of oil, but the Easy Change Oil System only holds 0.8 quarts, so you’re only doing half an oil change. This is bad because you’re always operating with dirty oil, and even if the filter prevents this from becoming an issue, it doesn’t address that the oil is chemically breaking down over time.

The Easy Change Oil System seems like a scam by JD to increase profits by selling expensive filters and causing engines to wear out prematurely, requiring replacement.

John Deere claims to have tested the system and that it isn’t an issue, but common sense tells me otherwise.

The only legitimate reason this might be considered a good feature is that some owners neglect their tractors and never change the oil, and having a system like this might encourage them to do it from time to time. For the rest of us, though, I think it’s a bad idea.

There are ways to fix this problem. You can buy kits that let you switch the Easy Change Oil System for a standard oil filter. It requires you to change the base to which the oil filter attaches and also replace the drain plug. It’s not that big a deal for someone who’s comfortable doing that sort of thing.

Since I typically put less than 20 hours on my tractor per season and John Deere recommends changing the oil at 50 hours, I chose to replace the drain plug with a drain hose and leave the existing filter in place. Once a year, I completely drain the oil, replace the filter, and add additional oil to the system. While it costs me a bit more, I believe I get the best of both worlds: a complete oil change and a better quality oil filter.

The second place where JD cheaped out was using bushings on their front wheels instead of bearings. Even if you’re good about lubricating the bushings, they tend to wear quickly, leading to front-end problems. Again, this can be modified by the user with a bit of work, but it would have been even better if they had just gone with the slightly more expensive bearings in the first place.

I could have avoided both of the above problems by purchasing one of their more expensive tractors, and I would have done so if the dealer had informed me of these issues, but he didn’t, and since I was in a hurry (my existing tractor had died and the grass was out of control) and didn’t do my usual amount of research, I got burned.

The third problem, which I think is really crappy of Deere to have inflicted on their customers, has to do with the fuel level/hours meter. The meter on the dashboard shows how much fuel you have in your gas tank and how many operating hours the tractor has. Both are pretty important things to know. It turns out these fail after 2 to 3 years, not because of a defect but because they use a CR2032 battery. The CR2032 is one of those disk-shaped batteries used in cameras and remote controls, and it costs about seventy-five cents. Deere uses one of the to power the meter, but instead of making it replaceable, they have chosen to seal it in the meter, apparently pot it in with epoxy, and then glue the whole unit shut, making it impossible to replace. The only solution is to purchase a new meter from them, which will cost about $55. What a disgusting thing to do to your customers!

When I started my tractor up for the season yesterday, I noticed an error code on the fuel gauge indicating a dead battery. I have ordered a new meter, which I’ll pick up today. I’m not happy about this.

Overall, John Deere makes a pretty good lawn tractor, but it’s infuriating that they treat their customers the way they do. I really hate dealing with sleazy companies, which, sadly, John Deere appears to be.

This isn’t the country that I grew up in. We used to have standards. My family was poor, but we had middle-class values. The house was kept clean, the children were fed and well dressed, and we knew that if we got into trouble, we would be shaming the family, which in my household was one of the worst crimes you could possibly commit. We weren’t the only family like that. Most of the neighbors were in a similar lot financially but had decent ‘American’ values. There were some exceptions, of course, but those people were looked down on and considered trash by the rest of us.

I won’t go into what I believe are the causes for what has happened in this post, but there’s little doubt that our country is in much worse shape than it was before. A lot of it is because our population has somehow been convinced that what is happening is normal. It isn’t. This is not the way decent people live, but for various reasons, our leadership has decided this is how we should live.

The graphic at the top of the post shows one example. The woman, whether sane or insane, was a threat to the community and those around her, yet some liberal judge let her back onto the street. Why? Again, I have my opinions on the reasons, but I’ll share those at a later date. For now, I just want to say, it doesn’t have to be this way. We need to demand more from our government and our neighbors and not let our way of life be destroyed. We own our country, not the politicians and freaks that have set out to destroy it. We need to let them know we will no longer stand for this, and they either need to shape up or find some other type of work. This needs to end.

As I posted early this week, I purchased an air fryer in the hopes of having a somewhat healthier diet. I’ve been experimenting with it and so far have cooked some chicken breasts and French fries, both of which were quite good. One of the great features of the air fryer is that it crisps food, giving it a nice texture and adding a great deal of flavor. I was thinking about it and decided that using an air fryer might be a good way to cook shaved steak for a cheese steak (I know, not exactly healthy, but I’m in the experimental phase).

When I was growing up, most of the steak used in cheese steak subs had crisp, well-cooked edges, which gave them great flavor through the Maillard effect. The Maillard effect is a chemical reaction between amino acids and sugars that occurs when food is heated, resulting in the browning and development of complex flavors and aromas. It makes a huge difference in the taste of food. For years, I’ve been unable to get a cheese steak with crispy meat; most of the time, it tastes like the steak was steamed rather than grilled. I’m not sure why this is; maybe it’s because they’re using a different type of steak, or maybe it’s a regional thing, and in other areas, good cheese steak is still available.

Anyway, I figured the air fryer’s ability to crisp up foods might be the key to making an old-fashioned cheese steak. Since I didn’t know what type of steak was used, I did a web search, and I found that the meat of choice is ribeye. Then I looked at the price of ribeye. At the local discount store, it sells for a ridiculous $15.49 a pound. I’m in a fairly good financial place; we saved for our retirement and will not starve, but I’m just not willing to spend what I consider excessive amounts on food when there are cheaper alternatives that, while not quite as good, are good enough.

But cheese steak, my new air fryer, and my ability to purchase or not purchase expensive meat are not the point of this post. What is the point, though, is that the advertisement for ribeye states it’s SNAP EBT Eligible. Curious, I dove a little deeper and found that North Atlantic Lobster Tails, which sell for $34.99 a pound, were also SNAP EBT Eligible.

Now, I don’t want to be mean, but this is insane. I don’t want to deny anyone food, and if they legitimately need it and are unable to provide for themselves, I’m willing to see taxpayers’ money used to help them out until they’re back on their feet, but this is ridiculous. What an insult it is to take money from hard-working taxpayers and allow people on the dole to use it to purchase luxury food items. It was bad enough when we were allowing our own citizens to take advantage of this type of thing, but now we’ve opened the door to the third world, and the US taxpayers are expected to pay the bill for them as well.

How about we allow them to purchase things like chicken breasts, $3.29 a pound, pork chops, $2.39 a pound, or ground beef, $6.29 a pound, and save the luxury items for people who have actually earned them?

When you’re getting a handout, you shouldn’t live like a king. Not only is it unfair to those who are giving you the handout, but it’s also unfair to you, since you will have no incentive to better yourself and become a productive citizen rather than a parasite. This sort of thing has to stop.

At the time of its original airing, it was way beyond anything on TV. The stories were well done and thoughtful, the characters were interesting and likable, and the special effects were cutting-edge. Like all of us, though, age has not been good to it. Even with remastering and new special effects, it looks dated, and while it’s still fun, the stories often don’t hold up in today’s more sophisticated world. That said, I still love it, and I’m willing to look past its flaws because of all the good things that it still brings. I also don’t doubt that my opinion is in some ways influenced by my nostalgia for the show. For someone who was about to enter his teens, Star Trek represented the adventure and possibilities of the world ahead.

On occasion, I will still watch an episode. Yesterday I watched the season 2 episode called ‘The Apple.’ In which the Enterprise crew visits the planet Gamma Trianguli VI, which they first believe is a paradise but quickly learn isn’t. Not only are there dangerous plants and exploding rocks that kill multiple members of the crew, but there are also natives whose lives are controlled by an entity called Vaal.

Vaal takes the form of a cave in the shape of a dragon, and in exchange for the natives feeding him, he takes care of all of their needs. While making for an easy life, Vaal’s influence prevents the natives from growing, experiencing love, and pursuing personal growth, leaving them with a stagnant culture.

Vaal views the Enterprise and its crew as a threat and traps the Enterprise in a tractor beam that’s pulling it closer and closer to the planet, which will eventually lead to its destruction. He also has the ability to cause earthquakes and control the weather, and at one point strikes Spock with a lightning bolt that somehow doesn’t kill him but ruins his uniform and leaves him with second-degree burns.

To save the Enterprise and crew, Kirk devises a plan to prevent the natives from feeding Vaal, which weakens him sufficiently to allow the ship’s phasers to destroy him.

The villagers are free but confused without their god, and Kirk promises to send help as they learn to survive.

The episode is called ‘The Apple’ because the planet Gamma Trianguli VI stands in for the Garden of Eden, and Kirk has acted as the Serpent, who, while giving them the gift of free will, has stolen their innocence and made their lives harder.

As was often the case with Star Trek, the writer’s lazy use of science resulted in a weaker script. We’re expected to believe that Vaal, who has the power to capture starships, control the weather, and call down lightning at his will, can be destroyed by missing a single meal. It makes little sense.

First, it’s hard to believe that the meager meals the natives brought to Vaal would be enough to give him the energy to do what he did, although I guess if he didn’t process them chemically but instead used them to fuel a nuclear process, it might work. But the bigger issue was that Vaal, with all his incredible powers, didn’t have any backup power source to sustain him if he missed a meal. Even I can function a few days without food if needed, but Vaal apparently was unable to do so.

It was still a fun episode, though, and I thoroughly believe that the real reason for Star Trek’s success wasn’t the stories but the relationship among the three main characters, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. The characters come across as friends, each with strengths and weaknesses that complement one another, and it’s a pleasure to watch them interact.

Although dated, the series still holds up, but I wish the writers had put in just a little more effort to close some of the script’s loopholes. It would have made them even better than they already are

That was a long time ago, and now I’ve grown old. A lot of the things I read about as a child have happened in my lifetime. Not only do I have multiple computers, I also have conversations with them. When an event happens just about anywhere on Earth, I know about it in minutes and can often watch it unfolding. I’ve put up satellite dishes to receive video from space and have entered into virtual worlds to have experiences that no one ever would have dreamed possible. Machines, able to peer into my body like magic, have saved my life multiple times. I’ve written code to control robots, flown drones, and have a computer in my pocket way beyond anything that was ever imagined. All of these things are wonderful, but sadly, the space thing never really worked out.

After the initial promise, our space program stalled; actually, it was destroyed by liberals who once again used the politics of envy to keep the country from moving forward, and although we’ve had a space station in orbit for many years now, we really haven’t ventured far from our planet.

When I was young, I believed a permanent lunar colony was just a few years away. I also believed that people would be living on Mars in my lifetime, and perhaps I would even be one of them. I also hoped we would someday contact aliens.

Some of these things might still happen in my lifetime. Under the visionary leadership of Elon Musk, our ability to get into space is commonplace and relatively inexpensive. The NASA Artemis mission reignites the promise of a lunar colony that could serve as a stepping stone to the stars beyond. As for the alien thing, well, that’s still unlikely, but a story in today’s New York Post is kind of interesting.

The New York Post story is based on an interview with Rep. Tim Burchett on the Rob Finnerty Show. After reading the article, I went and watched the original video, and here’s what I learned:

Burchett (R-Tenn) says that we’ve already had contact with aliens and that the U.S. government has been covering it up for years.

He first gives a list of a number of higher-ups involved either directly or indirectly in the government’s UFO program that have recently disappeared or been killed. That list includes:

Retired US Air Force General William McCasland, who has been missing from his Albuquerque, New Mexico, home since February 27. McCasland was once the commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson in Ohio, which is believed to be the site where alien bodies are held.

Monica Jacinto Reza, a NASA engineer who worked under McCasland on advanced propulsion engines. Reza disappeared in June while hiking with some friends, who claim she vanished and have no clue what happened.

Nuno Loureiro, an MIT scientist who was assassinated in Brookline, Mass, in December, supposedly by Claudio Valente, a former classmate from Portugal who apparently held a grudge against him from their college days. Loureiro was the director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at MIT, and he was working with technology that some say was obtained from aliens.

Finally, there’s Carl Grillmair, a renowned Caltech astrophysicist known for his work on the search for water on distant planets.

Rep Burchett claims that all the deaths are tied together because all the people involved are working on things related to outer space or nuclear secrets. He also said, “I’ve been briefed by just about every alphabet agency there is. And, I’ll just say this, if they were to release the things that I’ve seen, you’d be up at night, worrying about, thinking about this stuff.”

Not to be outdone, Matt Gaetz, a former United States Representative from Florida, said, ‘I had someone come and brief me who was in a military uniform, worked for the United States Army that was briefing me on the locations of hybrid breeding programs where captured aliens were breeding with humans to create some hybrid race that could engage in intergalactic communication.’

Another interesting turn in the story is that People Magazine reports that the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has registered the domains aliens.gov and alien.gov.

Finally, there are rumors that the soon-to-be-released Steven Spielberg movie, Disclosure Day, about alien contact, is actually part of a government plan to soften up the public before the big reveal.

While I’d like to believe all of the above, I’m skeptical.

First, the missing and dead people that are connected under the common umbrella of the search for extraterrestrial life are not all that closely related. Most worked in different facilities and different programs. If you looked on any given day, I suspect you would find many people who are missing or dead that are connected by some common bond. It doesn’t mean anything; it’s just a coincidence. This is similar to the birthday paradox, often presented in statistics classes, which shows that it only takes 23 people for the probability that two of them have the same birthday to exceed 50%. Intuitively, it doesn’t seem possible, but when you work the numbers, it is.

If there is a connection, it might be between McCasland and Reza, who worked together for many years in the same facility. Could they have run off together? Probably not, most likely just another coincidence.

As for Burchett and Gaetz, while I believe they’re telling the truth about their experiences, it would not surprise me in the least bit if they’re just being played as useful idiots. The establishment is not happy about what’s going on in Washington and views Trump and MAGA as their enemies. To protect their territory, they may have presented these men with false information, hoping they would go public and make themselves look foolish. If that was the plan, it worked.

Finally, the Spielberg movie story seems more like marketing hype than anything else. The studios want a big opening day, and a rumor that the movie was in some way connected to reality would certainly help their box office numbers. If you had some friends working for the government who spent $20 from petty cash to register a couple of UFO-related domains, it would certainly help make things sound legitimate.

Sadly, I don’t believe we’ve yet been in contact with aliens, and I doubt we will in my lifetime. I do think there’s a much greater chance we’ll find microscopic life under the surface of Mars, and although it wouldn’t be as cool as aliens, it would prove we’re not alone in the Universe, and that would make me happy.

My wife and I started watching ‘According to Jim’ a little over a year ago. She bailed out after about ten episodes because she found the title character so repulsive. She had a point. Jim, the lead character, is an obnoxious, spoiled brat who’s loud, overbearing, egotistical, and always needs to get his way. However, he’s also very funny, which is why I stuck with the show to the end.

The show revolves around Jim, his wife Cheryl, their two, three, five kids (depending on which season you’re watching), and his brother-in-law Andy and sister-in-law Dana.

Cheryl, the wife who is out of his league, puts up with just about everything Jim does because, even though he’s obnoxious, she loves him dearly. Dana, the sister-in-law, is not a big fan and is constantly trading barbs with Jim, although in one very funny episode, we find out she’s having sex dreams about Jim. Finally, Andy, Jim’s brother-in-law, is his sidekick and best friend throughout all his antics.

Every episode pretty much has the same plot: Jim, with Andy’s assistance, does something selfish, stupid or crazy, Cheryl gets angry with him about it, but eventually she realizes she loves him even though he’s a horse’s ass. It sounds boring and repetitive, but because of the great scripts and comedic talents of the actors it isn’t.

While the whole cast does a great job, Jim Belushi and Larry Joe Campbell are standouts. They’re funny and will do anything for a laugh. A lot of the episodes involved physical stunts, and both men, although very large, do a great job pulling them off.

I really recommend this show, but like the ‘Three Stooges’, it’s probably more for men than for women. It’s also not a good show to binge-watch. The characters are funny but can be grating, and watching them one after another, for a lot of people, could be stressful. So watch it, enjoy it, but take your time with it.

Depending where you live the Big Arch will cost you anywhere from $7.46 to $12.99. The even bigger price is the number of calories it contains, which comes in at a whopping 1020.

I’ve posted an article in the past about how much I hate McDonald’s. Their food is lackluster compared to the competition, their fries, which once set the standard by which all fries should be judged, were destroyed once they capitulated to the woke crowd (why would you listen to people who have no intention of ever eating your products?). I also believe that their management team doesn’t deserve the salary they get, since they’re just caretakers, not innovators. Year to year, they serve up the same old products with no improvements and just rely on good locations and inertia to keep them going.

Anyway back to the main topic. Since the reviews are everywhere and pretty much 100% positive, I have to believe that this is part of a marketing campaign, and so called ‘influencers’ are either getting free food, McDonalds swag or cash to create a ‘viral’ campaign. I have no direct evidence for this, just a hunch and my hunches are usually pretty good, since I’ve been around a long time and seen just about everything.

This sort of thing is not uncommon, camera manufacturers will fly ‘influencers’ to exotic locations, pay for their logging and food and give them access to the latest and greatest cameras so they can shoot the location. Most of the reviews end up being positive and I’m sure the reviews, even if they’re trying to be honest, have it in the back of their mind, that if they give a negative review, they won’t be included in the next excursion.

From what I’ve seen the only person online that doesn’t like the Big Arch is the McDonald’s CEO who released a video of himself trying out the new burger but barely biting into it and looking like he was being held hostage and forced to eat it. He also couldn’t get himself to refer to it as a burger, instead calling it ‘the product’ throughout the video. To be fair, the guy has the look of someone that’s probably a vegetarian, so eating meat might have been way out of his comfort zone. It’s pretty amazing the marketing department released it since it’s so uncomfortable to watch.

While I might try a Big Arch, it certainly won’t become a staple in my diet since the 1020 calorie count is way too high for my tastes. I also have to wonder why they didn’t release a Little Arch (single patty, one slice of cheese) alongside the Big Arch since I suspect they’d have a lot more takers. But that would require some forward thinking, something that the McDonald’s management appears to be incapable of.

we are a society circling the drain…

Today’s generation is the inevitable product of decades of liberal indoctrination, soft parenting, and a media culture that prizes emotion over intellect. They’ve been spoon-fed victimhood, wrapped in moral superiority, and taught to mistake ignorance for virtue. The result? A generation that’s both arrogant and uninformed — loud enough to preach, but too shallow to think.

Social media has crowned this generation’s new prophets: influencers and activists whose only qualifications are vanity and outrage. The self-proclaimed “enlightened” class now leads a digital mob of followers incapable of independent thought, marching proudly under the banner of feelings over facts. The modern Democrat base is no longer a political movement — it’s a cult of perpetual adolescence, driven by resentment, insecurity, and the need to appear virtuous online.

The real rot runs deeper than politics. It’s in our classrooms, where indoctrination has replaced education; in our culture, where mediocrity is celebrated; and in our mental health industry, which now validates dysfunction instead of curing it. Liberalism has metastasized into a belief system that rewards fragility, punishes strength, and confuses narcissism with compassion.

America is paying the price. We’ve raised a generation of emotional children in adult bodies — defiant, delusional, and utterly unprepared for the real world. They lecture the rest of us about justice while chasing TikTok fame and pretending their hashtags make them heroes. If this continues, the country won’t collapse from external threats — it’ll rot from within, smiling for the camera all the way down..

If you think he’s over exaggerating and things aren’t that bad, the article on which this was posted was about a woman who rents Airbnb’s, films herself urinating on the various objects within the owners homes and sells the videos on fetish websites as a way to make money.

I know that this is just one example and the vast majority of people are decent but whenever I hear that defense I bring up this thought experiment…

Imagine you have a classroom of children and two new students are transferred into the class. One of them is smart, well behaved and a decent person, while the other is disruptive, a troublemaker and a wise ass. The teacher is weak willed and allows both of them to do their thing.

Where will the class be in a short period of time?

Anybody, whose ever been in a situation like that knows the answer. People tend to devolve, rather than evolve when given the chance and in a short period of time, more students will be rowdy and out of control than studious and decent.

Liberal tolerance is like the weak willed teacher, it’s allowed actions that were once considered unacceptable to become common and our society is degrading because of it. Some people believe that this is the result of misplaced liberal compassion while others believe that it’s part of a bigger plan to destroy western civilization. Whatever the case, in the end it will destroy us.

Why is it that so called ‘creatives’ always feel the need to get together, pat themselves on the backs and tell the world how special they are? Possible low self esteem? You don’t see awards ceremonies for plumbers, factory workers or garbage men and I would say that each of those groups do more to benefit society than any of the people that play pretend for a living. It’s not bad enough that they’re obsessed with themselves, but they also believe that their ability to act somehow gives them the right to lecture the rest of us about politics and social issues. Can’t they just shut up, take their awards and be done with it?

The there’s the foolishness, like ‘And the Oscar goes to …’. It used to be when someone won and Oscar it would be announced with the phrase, ‘And the winner is…’ but that wasn’t good enough. Even though someone had ‘won’ an Oscar, it was decided that saying that they were ‘winners’ was somehow too offensive and competitive and it had to be toned down and changed to ‘And the Oscar goes to …’. What a bunch of overly sensitive losers.

The final straw for me was when they instituted diversity requirements for Oscar eligibility. If your movie doesn’t meet their standards for representation and inclusion it can’t win an award. It doesn’t matter if you’ve produced the best movie ever made; unless your production includes one from column A and one from column B you’re out of luck. Liberal fools!

They have four standards that films must meet to qualify for an award:
– On-screen representation, themes and narratives
– Creative leadership and project team
– Industry access and opportunities
– Audience development

I won’t go into the details of all of the above foolishness, but it’s about what you would expect from liberal out of touch fools.

Here’s an example from their website…

At least one of the lead actors or significant supporting actors submitted for Oscar consideration is from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group in a specific country or territory of production.

This may include:

• African American / Black / African and/or Caribbean descent
• East Asian (including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian)
• Hispanic or Latina/e/o/x
• Indigenous Peoples (including Native American / Alaskan Native)
• Middle Eastern / North African
• Pacific Islander
• South Asian (including Bangladeshi, Bhutanese, Indian, Nepali, Pakistani, and Sri Lankan)
• Southeast Asian (including Burmese, Cambodian, Filipino, Hmong, Indonesian, Laotian, Malaysian, Mien, Singaporean, Thai, and Vietnamese)

How freaking obnoxious, not only do they dictate diversity, but they tell you exactly which type of people you need to hire.

Then there’s this gem:

At least 30% of all actors not submitted for Oscar consideration are from at least two underrepresented groups which may include:

• Women
• Racial or ethnic group
• LGBTQ+
• People with cognitive or physical disabilities, or who are deaf or hard of hearing

How Orwellian that the Academy believes that it can dictate to artists what their art needs to include. You would think there would be some push back on this, but no, the liberal sheep fall right in line.

My hope is that the future will be brighter. I suspect that in the not too distant future all of this will end. AI and modern technology is giving the average person the ability to produce films that currently would require hundreds of people and millions of dollars to make. The barriers to entry in the entertainment industry are falling and soon people will be able to produce movies that they want to watch instead of being force fed movies and propaganda produced by out of touch, liberal fools. I can’t wait.