ScottSevener.com

Wishlist for a Better Democracy – A Diligent, Nonpartisan News Media

Posted on November 12, 2016 by Scott / 0 Comment

I may end up writing a whole series of posts on this topic – we’ll see how it goes – but in spending a lot of time over the last couple of days thinking about how both our election process as well as the day-to-day democracy in general could be improved, I feel like a BIG AREA that is ripe for improvement … though I admittedly don’t know exactly what these improvements are … is around the area where a lot of folks from both sides of the aisle have been pointing their fingers – the media.

Especially here in the age of information where groups of all sizes, individuals, and even people just creating memes can be “news sources” for people online, it seems like it’s more difficult than ever to get information in front of people that’s unbiased and factual…

For those who still get their news from TV, it doesn’t help that more likely rely on commentators than actual reporters – arguably because that’s what happens when you’ve got 24 hours to fill with coverage without 24 hours of legitimate reporting coverage to offer.

And for those who get their news from the Internet … whoa boy! Where to even start?! Almost every site sways one way or the other, some quite blatantly so, some are deliberately just spreading fake news and not with humorous intent like I do, and social media can be an absolute mess – as Facebook is currently arguing right now – with regards to best distributing the posts of the users while also taking care not to promote false and defamatory content along the way.

I certainly won’t go so far as to say that online and especially social media doesn’t still offer news value, however I think it’s reasonable to say that regardless of format, what the American people need more than ever is news outlets who can be relied upon to report the news and do it fairly, accurately, and reliably … which admittedly gets tricky in this divided country that we currently live because right now so many people want their news slanted the way that they do, which just exacerbates the problem of having highly polarized news outlets catering to party lines instead of ones down the middle that report on the entire landscape equally.

Even when we have those professional sources to fall back on, that still doesn’t help the fact that far too many Americans literally get their “news” from soundbites and memes and Facebook shares where they don’t even necessarily read the article as much as they allow themselves to get riled up by the headlines that show up in their news feeds as they scroll for the next issue that queues up in their social media echo chamber.

I really don’t know how you ween people off of unreliable social media “sources,” but I’ve got to think that it starts with having solid, reliable news sources for both sides that you can point people to as an alternative.

Right now I hate the idea that in a way people are really able to “choose their own facts” because each side has their networks and websites that lean in their directions which reliably contradict the other side, so it’s easy enough to just label the other side as liars whenever any conflict comes up and they’ve almost automatically got “news sources” that they can point to in support of their position whether in reality something is really actually true or not.

We need to get past this desire to spin every story in the direction of the target audience and instead be able to rely on our media to report the news in the best manner fit to serve the facts that are actually present.

I think only when we can get the people back to a point where both sides can trust a single news source collectively instead of their own niche versions can we expect them to really come together and realize that maybe the two parties’ beliefs aren’t all that different after all. But as long as people have their own version of the truth to point back to, we’re never going to get anywhere.

In short – there’s only one true version of fact, and we need to be able to rely on our news media to deliver that information to the people.

Day #2 – A Trumped Stream of Consciousness…

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Scott / 1 Comment

Last night’s post really blew up on Facebook in ways that I didn’t intend. I purposely made it public instead of using off my No Politics filter and the result was a lot of name calling and fighting, and even a really nasty exchange with my Dad.

It still shocks me how anyone could look at so many examples of violence and hate and have their first response be anything other than shock and disgust.

That said, late this evening it was reported that one of the stories about a Muslim woman getting her Hijab torn off was fabricated, and I fear that people will use that example to assume that every last story they hear must also be false.

I refuse to believe that.

It’s also been hard for me to process people arguing that the protests taking place are “just sore losers” and not a legitimate voice worth listening to. If nothing else, our own Constitution guarantees people the Freedom to Assemble, and though it doesn’t condone any violence or destruction of property, I think compared to people actually getting hurt in the name of racism/sexism/etc… it’s a minor concern at best.

That said, with all of the negativity and fear being harbored, I’ve found comfort in a smaller group of likeminded friends and family whom I respect and trust on social media – many of whom are also struggling with how to process everything that’s taking place – and it’s nice to see that there are others who also deem what’s taking place to be something serious that shouldn’t just be swept under the rug.

I also took a lot of comfort in this compilation of stories from teachers about how they’ve addressed their students’ responses to Trump’s election from pretty much all grade levels. As much as I worry about youth hearing the horrible things that are being said and parroting them, the fact that many children identify that this sort of behavior is wrong and are willing to help support one another across demographic barriers gives me hope.

And finally, in that same story I came across a quote by Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu that I liked quite a bit:

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

As I walked through Walmart late this evening, I found myself reminding myself that there are so many good people still in the world – complete and total strangers, with no idea how or if they even voted – and it made me think of the things that I can do to help try to see that light among the darkness…

Be kind to people, especially those who I’ve never met … because why not?
Heaven forbid I witness something, be the person who steps forward to call out bigotry and not the one who turns a blind eye.
Don’t allow myself to become complacent should these bad stories continue to surface.
Use this passion for what’s right to make good art, whether it’s humor or editorials or just my own processing, and encourage my colleagues who strive to do the same.
Look for the best in people, in society, in our future, even when all signs point to chaos. Have faith in America.

President-Elect Donald Trump – Day #1 Hate & Violence

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Scott / 2 Comments

This is disgusting – a collection of the abuse shared by minorities from Trump supporters only a day after he is elected president – as found on social media…

A Muslim American is confronted by a woman in Walmart who pulls off her Hijab and tells her, “These aren’t allowed anymore, so go hang yourself with it around your neck, not your head.”

A group of white men on the subway sees a woman by herself in a dress and joke about “grabbing her by the pussy,” and one physically tries to do so as she walks by. She yells as they laugh it off until the group is kicked off the subway by some onlookers.

An African-American woman in Indiana is approached by some white men in a truck and taunted, “Fuck you, nigger bitch. Trump is going to deport you back to Africa.”

A Muslim woman in Louisiana is assaulted by two men and has her Hijab and wallet stolen.

A woman is presumed Hispanic when she has a cup of water thrown in her face by an older white man after he tells her, “I can’t wait until Trump asks us to rape your people and send you back over the biggest damn wall we’re going to build. Go back to hell, wet back.”

An African-American woman in Michigan is taunted by a group of men while pumping gas, “Yeah, we were talking to you, nigger – go back to Africa, Trump doesn’t want you here!”

A woman in Philadelphia finds her car graffitied with “Trump Rules” and “Black Bitch.”

A Muslim woman at San Diego State University is assaulted by two white men making derogatory comments about the Muslim community as they take her purse and backpack, and then proceed to steal her car.

An African-American woman is confronted in line by two men, “I’m so glad Trump won. Now all the niggers can go back to where they came from. Y’all don’t belong here. You shouldn’t even be able to vote.”

A gay man finds a note left on his car that reads, “Can’t wait until your ‘marriage’ is overturned by a real president. Gay families = burn in hell. #Trump2016 #REPENT #GODBLESS”

Multiple stances of school kids as young as kindergarteners teasing their Hispanic and Latino classmates about getting sent back to Mexico.

A Hispanic boy is beaten by his classmates and told they can’t wait until Trump deports him. When reported to the police, they deem it a school matter and do nothing.

Many of these stories were shared via @ShaunKing on Twitter, though I can imagine that even more occurred that weren’t shared at all…

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild trailer

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Scott / 0 Comment

How am I just now seeing this?!

The trailer for the next Legend of Zelda game (on the Wii U) looks gorgeous – it’s really amazing how far that franchise has come in 30 years…

If I’m being completely honest, even though I’ve swooned over all of the artwork and game play from Skyward Sword, despite having that game sitting on my shelf for years now, I’ve yet to actually crack it open and play it for myself! I think it’s just because I hardly have any time to play video games anymore – I spent a bit of time with Hyrule Warriors when we first got our Wii U and really enjoyed that, but I also liked how I could pick up and just play for a little while whereas it literally feels like starting a quest when I sit down with a traditional Zelda game.

Maybe I’ll have to find some time around the upcoming holidays … in the evenings after the house has gone to bed … to get myself caught up on the franchise a bit so that I can justify picking up a copy of this whenever it comes out next year!

You’ve Gotta Keep ‘Em Separated…

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Scott / 0 Comment

What do you do if you’ve got two kids that for the life of them just can’t seem to get along and only want to FIGHT any chance they’re near each other???

No, no – this isn’t a parenting post about my newborn twins, who are still in the NICU and thus separated by a good five feet as well as a partition at all times anyways!

In fact, we’re talking about adults … who argue … on Facebook, specifically, because not to defend the other quadrants of social media or anything, but I’ve never seen half the arguments on Twitter that I see boil over on my Facebook posts. I’d like to say that I don’t know what it is about Facebook that makes it different from other platforms, but I actually know exactly what it is because honestly it’s the same thing that makes Facebook attractive to me for entirely different reasons…

Simply put, Facebook is where I have friends and family from over the years; Twitter is where I have the people who are most like me.

And so whereas from one angle I love Facebook because it connects me with relatives and distant friends who otherwise aren’t really online people so they can still see family photos and the goofy humor stuff that I write, but in a way it’s also a bane because when we start to get into messier topics like, oh say, POLITICS, we often don’t share remotely the same opinions and sometimes people aren’t very civil about it.

…which I hate.

I shouldn’t have to apologize for what one of my Facebook friends says to another, nor should I have to play referee between people that have taken political passions to an entirely unhealthy level.

I’ve also found very recently that it’s stressful/painful/whatever you want to call it when close friends and/or family make comments about your beliefs that you once would’ve thought above the types of conversations that you’ve had with them.

I don’t want to go into anymore detail for fear of outing anybody, so instead let’s just say enough is enough and I’ve finally decided to do something about it. And luckily, Facebook actually makes that pretty easy…

Up until this week, all of my Facebook posts have always been public because I’ve been publishing to the Internet since back when it was text only and I don’t really believe in walled gardens. Still, my own sanity is worth twisting that perspective just a bit, so I made me a list and checked it twice … and ultimately came up with about 20 people on Facebook who I’m flat-out just tired of arguing about politics with during my time spent there.

I’ll still set most of my Facebook posts to public, but now when I have something I want to share that I just know is going to elicit undesirable comments from these same people who always get into the same arguments, I can set those posts to be Friends only – excluding those on my No Politics list – and BAM!

Peace and quiet on Facebook at last.

Now a couple of points to close on:

As to whether you’re on this list if you find yourself reading this on my blog! Let’s be honest with ourselves – you’ll probably know it if you are, and if my Facebook posts have seemed less controversial to you lately … no, I haven’t gone conservative – I’m just tired of arguing about it with YOU.
If bullet #1 there raises the argument that I only want to discuss things with people who agree with me, I’ve actually already written a fine editorial about this so feel free to go read that if you’d like.

At the end of the day, I’ve only got so many hours and though I welcome a good discussion, it does either of us little good to keep having the same ceaseless comment threads over and over again. So maybe you can just gush over my latest family photos or that funny thing that I wrote about farting at the library instead.

But if you take offense to farting, too, so help me god if you don’t wind up on an entirely new list altogether!

censoring yourself for Google AdSense…

Posted on October 13, 2016 by Scott / 0 Comment

So the other day I got an email from Google AdSense that was frustrating, to say the least…

…frustrating because admittedly until earlier this week, I haven’t even posted anything to Just Laugh for a good six months, so for the most part it’s barely even on my radar. Yet I use the same Google AdSense account for all of my sites and I don’t really want to get the thing suspended … what, for the whopping $100 in ad revenues that I somehow collect every year or so at a couple of bucks in random visitors each month!

Also, it’s stupid because the post that apparently flagged this “mature content warning” was published a year and a half ago and never got a complaint until now, but whatever…

Now I just use simple text widgets to insert AdSense blocks around Just Laugh and being a WordPress site, it’s all done through templates so it wasn’t easy to just “remove ads from the violating pages.” I looked around, but surprisingly didn’t find any plugins that would allow you to omit specific URLs from receiving ad code, and apparently AdSense itself doesn’t have anything either – you can block advertisers, but not specific content on your site.

This seems weird and dumb because no doubt there are plenty of sites that publish “adult content” with “adult” meaning 18+ … not for kids and not here’s where you can buy vibrators and inflatable sex toys!

…I wonder if just mentioning those words will get this blog post flagged … in a year and a half…

Anyways, I found this simple write-up that basically has you create a new custom field and then uses an if/else condition in PHP to determine whether or not to display the ad code that you choose…

http://www.ampercent.com/show-prevent-adsense-ads-on-selected-posts-wordpress/5053/

It’s not perfect – at least not in my layout – because I suppose if I really cared that much I wouldn’t want the Sponsors widget to display at all if it’s going to be empty anyways. An alternative would be for me to insert a house ad or something into that block so that it isn’t empty for that one post, but honestly according to my stats this specific post has gotten viewed a total of 39 times since it was published last spring, and 8 times this year … so I really don’t care right this second as long as it prevents Google from suspending my account whenever they get around to rescanning the page!

One note – if you use a widget-based solution like I do, you’ll need a widget that can parse PHP because the regular Text widget in WordPress doesn’t and I made that mistake the first time around, not noticing it until I reloaded the page and saw the actual code everywhere. Fortunately I already had the Enhanced Text Widget plugin installed and it works great.

I suppose if I get more notices down the road about other inappropriate content, I can go back and add alternate ads to load as I flag the new posts, but if you just need something quick and dirty because Google randomly crawled an old post and is complaining about it, this works just fine in about 10 minutes time.

Samantha Bee is WONDERFUL

Posted on October 12, 2016 by Scott / 0 Comment

It may be a day late, but Samantha Bee’s entire show addressing Trump’s pussy-grabbin’ antics is absolutely fabulous. I don’t think I’ve ever watched her standalone show before, but after this I may have to set my DVR or whatever to watch…

No punches pulled, which is what any presidential candidate deserves … much less Donald Trump.

President Obama on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (sorta)

Posted on October 11, 2016 by Scott / 0 Comment

I don’t think that I caught this when it was first released last Christmas, but boy is it joyful to watch!

President Obama is definitely the coolest president we’ve ever had…

Dream Journal : Humor for Rent

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Scott / 0 Comment

I’ve always fantasized about making Just Laugh real by having an actual office and employees and whatnot, so this was a surprisingly fun dream to find that I had not only found an office to work out of, but also someone to share it with in our humor writing adventures!

Apparently the “space” that we had found was more of a spare room or two that we’d found in the unused wing of a local hospital that we’d somehow convinced them to let us use for cheap.

VERY CHEAP!

For the most part we had the place to ourselves, though occasionally we’d hear doctors and nurses walking by our hallway late at night on their way out to the parking lot.

This became noticeable after being awoken one night overhearing them outside … because apparently I was single, so why wouldn’t I just sleep in this awesome place where I worked into the wee hours of the night to make humor for the masses, anyways?!

Well, the next day i came in to find plastic draped everywhere because our wing was now under construction, and upon confronting the lady with the clipboard in charge, she made it clear that they were ready for us to go so that they could start using our space for actual hospital business again…

I argued that we had a lease, even though it literally had us paying something like $5/month or $50/month whereas the lady claimed that something closer to $5,000/month was what was fair for the space! Eventually the guy who our agreement was with showed up and sided with her, but said that if we really wanted to stay we should make a realistic offer for the space.

At one point he snickered that if we didn’t like the $5,000/month, maybe we could give them a percentage of our gross income, which even he knew sounded ridiculous … but that’s when my co-worker pulled me aside to point something out…

They didn’t actually know what our gross was – they just assumed that it was big because they saw us as this Internet company mooching off of them and not a couple of guys writing humor on the Internet and sleeping in our offices.

So I went back and told him that we’d do it for 1% of our gross, but there had to be some guarantees. Namely, we wanted it locked in for several years and if they wanted to reclaim our current space, they had to find us a better one – possibly over where they had some unused offices that had direct access and didn’t require walking through the hospital to get to them.

The guy snickered again because he thought he was pulling one over on us, whereas in reality we were just barely making enough money to pay for Hot Pockets and server fees and that was about it! We figured that 1% would actually be a decrease from the rent we were already paying, and if things really took off we could still handle it for a couple of years…

So in the end they fell for it and we got to move to an even better office that we stayed in until we were able to bring on two more people full-time. And even though the construction lady was being kind of a bitch, even she admitted that she read our site and thought we were really funny, so that was pretty satisfying, too.

Anniversary #9 … More Memories

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Scott / 0 Comment

I honestly didn’t realize until going to type this up that literally I did the exact same concept last year for my 8th wedding anniversary, but for the most part we came up with a list of memories that was a little different than last year’s … and not for nothing but life has kind of been more than a little crazy lately! … so let’s just enjoy this little stroll down memory lane for what it is and leave it at that…

October 2008 (St. Pete Beach) – This was one of the last photos we took out on the beach with the sunset to our backs before heading aside to join our wedding guests in song and dance and good eats, save for the Swedish meatballs that I’m still bitter about almost a decade later because I never actually got one at my own wedding and they were delicious at the tasting! Still, it was a pretty magical night … even if we had technically already been married for a year because we’d snuck off and eloped on the exact same day a year prior for the insurance benefits…

September 2016 (Tampa) – Barely three weeks ago, just before we welcomed our twin sons into the world! This was after Sara had spent nearly a month in the hospital, so tensions were at an all-time high to say the least, but a few hours later once the boys were all nestled snug in their incubators in the NICU and we all had a chance to catch our collective breath, it still ended up being a pretty swell day!

May 2015 (Walt Disney World) – This is arguably one of my favorite family pictures that we have right now, taken the weekend we went over for 24 hours at the Magic Kingdom during a period when we, err, weren’t at the Magic Kingdom. We were actually just killing some time outside of Fantasia Gardens Mini-Golf waiting for our tee time here, and at one point we decided it would be fun to take a little family selfie … and here is the result!

December 2014 (Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort) – Christopher’s very first Christmas!!! We celebrated with a trip over to Disney with Lori, James, and Madelyn for Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, and of course we had to spend at least a couple of hours the next day taking in all of the fun decorations elsewhere around WDW, including a visit to the biggest gingerbread house you’ve ever seen! Little baby Christopher (~9 months?) seemed to have a pretty good time, and this was even before I slipped him a tiny bite of gingerbread…

October 2011 (Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge) – A quick, overnight celebration for anniversary #4 took us over to one of our favorite Disney resorts, which though it pretty much rained the entire time did end up featuring what was pretty much the best dinner we’ve ever had. And honestly I think that’s probably still true – Jiko: The Cooking Place at AKL is amazing – we got a nice, secluded table in the corner of the wine room that was nice and intimate, we got to splurge on a fancy bottle of wine from South Africa, and the food … so good!!!

May 2011 (Home) – Can you imagine our crazy dog laying peacefully on a float in the pool these days?! Neither can I, but back when she was a sweet, although admittedly destructive puppy she was pretty easy to toss around like this and so one afternoon while I was at work Sara sent me this pic of the two of them lounging out in the pool just like any good dog and wife duo should be accustomed…

May 2007 (Discovery Cove) – One of Sara’s dreams has always been to swim with the dolphins, so the day after I proposed to her, we went and did that, too! As if she couldn’t have gotten any giddier after I somehow managed to surprise her with the same ring that she had all but picked out herself something like a month or two earlier, waiting around to pet and pose and even swim alongside of one of these 800-lb beasts was pretty amazing and needless to say, she seemed to be in a pretty good mood for the rest of the vacation.

October 2006 (Epcot) – And here we are celebrating our six-month DATING anniversary, together at Epcot – which was coincidentally also the site of our second date! Believe it or not, by this point we had actually already moved in together and met each other’s parents, so you could say that things were moving pretty fast … but just look at those two happy kids!!! Skinny and surrounded by tropical drinks, with their entire lives ahead of them…

June 2006 (Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort) – And finally for this particular trip down memory lane, here we see our first overnight trip to Disney World together, and in fact this was actually when I first met Sara’s younger sister … who five years later would end up living with us for a few years when she finally moved to Florida! In this picture we’d probably been dating for about a month and a half, not counting the weeks that we’d chatted online before working our way up to meeting in person. AND THEY DIDN’T SPEND ANOTHER VACATION NOT AT DISNEY WORLD SINCE…

So that’s all for anniversary #9 – it’s kind of crazy to think that next year will be the big NUMBER 10 … hopefully we’ll be able to do something extra special for that, though with a three year-old and two one year-olds on the docket … I sincerely have no idea what to expect! But maybe one could argue that surprise can be part of the fun, too, because I certainly could’ve never expected how things played out thus far over the last nine years and that seemed to turn out quite well.

Onward and upward, to bigger and even better anniversaries in the years and decades to come!