I guess that’s one way to handle it?

The NFL has been struggling to deal with the number of positive covid tests, and resulting players deemed inactive, and therefore impacting scheduled games. And money of course.

Their answer? They pulled a page from 45s playbook. Reduce the number of tests administered, and you'll have fewer positive tests.

Problem solved!

What a stupid bunch of nonsense.

Hilarious to me

You hear the noise about conspiracy theories. Whether it's the moon landing, the kennedy assassination, or something more recent, there seem to always be people who believe there's a massive coverup and everyone is somehow good at keeping secrets.

And then you look at the insurrection, and hear "some people" saying that it wasn't much of anything, it was spontaneous, it was not planned.

But yet there are people looking to save their own hide, people who want to get attention, and stupid idiots who just spill the beans about everything.

It becomes obvious that what "they" were telling about its origin and what happened is a lie.

In other words, they couldn't keep something like this a secret for a few months, and not in the face of legal actions and a congressional committee.

So how in the world could a high profile conspiracy like the moon landing have possibly kept this up for over 50 years?

Surely someone would have talked. Tried to brag. Been subjected to something in their lives that would have had them open up. Had a death bed moment.

Same with the kennedy assassination. That had a bipartisan, bicameral committee asking questions. Ain't no way to keep those secrets.

Sure, there are questions and doubts about JFK, and perhaps the bow they tied it up with was a little too neat. But a vast conspiracy? Don't think so.

How do you like that?

True to form, the NFL decided that money was important and bent their own rules as it relates to covid cases.

They were clear early in the season that you needed to have x number of active players on your roster in order to play. And if you didn't have enough, too bad, you would forfeit.

Predictably, cases started piling up this week. And so they simply rescheduled some games. As though it was the plan all along.

They still can't follow their own rules. It's pathetic. What a bunch of knuckleheads.

Religion and vaccine

To me, the idea of a "religious exemption" to the covid vaccine and any sort of maski mandate is hilarious. This is a global pandemic, with a very important underpinning: the vaccine stops the spread of the virus and protects you from getting sick, and it also helps reduce the spread, as masks do. You are not only helping yourself, you are helping your community

Does not your bible teach you to love thy neighbor. Isn't the point of the son of god story to teach you about compassion, helping others, and yes, being good to yourself.

Isn't a religious exemption contrary to all of this? Isn't his idea of "personal freedom" the antithesis of thee teachings?

Man are people dumb. Sure let's make it all about you, and somehow being closer to god but not taking part in stopping the spread of a disease that has killed millions worldwide.

What are they trying to say?

Being drunk is the holiday spirit?

Of course the NFL is still stupid

Antonio Brown was caught passing off a fake vaccine card. You know the thing that allows him to roam freely and come into contact with others sans mask. And not have to undergo regular testing. And do on.

And the league, which had promised to take this seriously, suspended brown (as well as a few other lesser-known players) for 3 games. Because that's serious, right?

It's a health and safety measure that they pay lip service to, and yet don't seem to care about. In some states (though not in Florida), what brown did is a felony. A crime.

But the NFL shrugs because they simply don't care - because at the end of the day the mostly old white guys do what they want.

Who cares about health and safety? But heaven forbid a guy stands up for social Justice … that guy gets blackballed.

Hey NFL. Fuck you.

Listeners to my podcast

I knew that when I added "one little spark" to my podcast, where I talk about social issues, I would lose some listeners.

But I felt like it was the right thing to do, and as I've said, Walt himself was engaged in social issues - and his business and politics are intertwined very deeply.

So in spite of protests that "this is a Disney podcast! Why are you doing this?!" I pressed on and will continue to do so.

And of course, I saw a drop in listeners.

But here's where things get interesting. In looking over my all-time listener count, I saw a trend from where I started: my podcast grew, and grew, and grew.

In October of 2019, I had around 1,000 subscribers, and was regularly averaging over 1,500 listens to podcasts. It was going well.

But sometime in November, I lost about 300 regular subscribers, and the listens dropped off about 30% as well.

And that number didn't return, so it's not a glitch. It was a trend.

But why did I lose that base? My podcast remained largely the same until sometime after the pandemic started, maybe 4 months later. No social commentary. Nothing about anything Disney was doing that I felt strongly about.

I looked at the episodes and I'm pretty sure none were controversial. Nothing that would cause people to leave suddenly in large numbers.

The dropoff happened after I published a pair of my most popular episodes, about a the John Lennon visit, and a park visit.

Why would people leave after hearing those?

And then as the pandemic started taking over life in March, I started wavering, based on the world around us. I said some things about the company, politics, flori-duhs gubnor, and the dipshit in the Oval Office. I did lose a few listeners, but nothing truly out of the ordinary.

When I started the Spark segment, I saw an expected drop. And I got some harsh feedback.

But the drop didn't happen all at once, it was a downward trend over the course of about 6 months.

The numbers showed about 30% of my remaining listeners unsubscribed.

I have added and lost some listeners over the last two years, but it looks like my base might be trending upward-ish currently.

So as it stands today, I'm at around 50% of the listeners I had at the peak.

Yeah, my social commentary drove away some people (who I would argue have such small brains, they can't handle actually thinking). But many more left before I even started this segment (in real numbers it's around 300 vs 200).

I just can't figure out why so many people unsubscribed. So strange.

It could be something that happened on the interwebs unrelated to anything I did. But I can't find a cause that makes sense, even considering that. Subscribers and individual listens both went down. And never came back.