If something in fact does happen on that submarine where those billionaires are, the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV isn't so sure he's going to shed a tear. He reminds us that those people knew full well what they were getting into when they signed their lives away on that one piece of paper going in, so he objects to *his tax dollars* going toward a mount of a heroic rescue of some sort. He's also calling on the entire press corps to turn in their Fourth Estate Moniker in what he sees as biased reporting on apparently how 'important' these guys are. What he asks is, what about the four people who are *already dead* when that e-bike repair shop they were living over burst into flames? He also asks us to remember what was written, that a rich man has less of chance to get into Heaven than a camel does to walk through an eye of a needle. The four people who died because of the bike fire TSV counts amoung those who've actually *served* their communities and devoted love to their families. These are people like firefighters, EMTs, nurses, custodians, landscapers, and food and store clerks. These are people who on their days off devoted their time to their families for whom they're working hard for the rest of the week to make sure everyone has a roof over their head and food in their mouth. TSV contrasts these to those sheltered, spoiled and obnoxious poor little rich types who get the press to cover concepts such as The Power Of Positive Thinking. He tells us not to be too surprised to see special coverage on visual about how "you can visit the Mona Lisa, you can launch into outer space, you can even take a submarine to visit the ruins of the Titanic, if, and only if, you have The Power Of Positive Thinking." So any time TSV hears the phrase The Power Of Positive Thinking, he's brought back to when he was made to lose his job eight years ago during a 'great economy.' And just by chance those billionaires do get saved, TSV reminds us all that for every one billionaire that's saved from that sub, it's 100 of the whole lot of us who will inevitably die in tragic circumstances. The rest of us don't have the monetary power or fancy connections to get 24 hour coverage of 'will the nurse mom of three make it.'

So it certainly hasn't been uneventful, what with the new charges against Trump and smoke from the Canadian forest fires, etc. But the one thing that the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV was listening for, particularly this past Tuesday, was hearing on audio about The Tenth Anniversary Of Ed Snowden. They even did a Today In History that day and talked about things like the D-Day landings and a jewelry heist or something back in 2015. No even a peep about Ed Snowden. It seems poignant to TSV that history seems to see the jewelry heist as more of a thing than Ed Snowden, maybe more like Ed Has-Been. But this was -not- what you were hearing 10 years ago. Everything was Ed Snowden, the "Relevations Of Ed Snowden," etc. TSV doesn't remember the 10th Anniversary of the Pentagon Papers as -not- mentioning Daniel Ellsberg, though admittedly he doesn't remember them mentioning Ellsberg in 1981 or so, since that was just a little before TSV's time before he followed current events a little more. He's pretty sure they'd talk about the 10th Anniversary of the Pentagon Papers the same way they talk about an anniversary of 9/11. So all reporters on audio who -never- talked about Ed Snowden every June 6, TSV wonders, were they really onto something? Did they know why Ed Snowden wasn't really a thing since whatever was the first year they decided not to talk about him? If so, TSV would very much like to know, because he can't assume he can just "move on" from Ed Snowden if in fact "everyone else" has if there's that one year in the future when you see Snowdenmania come alive all over again. Ed Snowden didn't just leak the surveillance program. He also stole other classified documents, but it appears as though the same can't be said about Daniel Ellsberg. As far as TSV knows, Daniel Ellsberg -only- leaked the Pentagon Papers, and nothing else of confidentiality, so maybe that's an incident of ethical restraint, and maybe that's why history's been kinder to Ellsberg than to Ed Snowden. It indicates to TSV that the press understands the need for classified confidentiality except in cases of reasonable questions about ethics. The press was more prepared to do the Pentagon Papers than to ever reveal anything about, for example, American spies in the then Soviet Union or Vietnam. So on an ethical scale from most to least, the TSV sees them going in the order of Daniel Ellsberg (ethical), Ed Snowden (semi-ethical), Scooter Libby (unethical). TSV will have to think about the above over time before he's got further thoughts to get me the Mentor to talk about.

The Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV doesn't make it a habit of getting me the Mentor/Happy Bachelor to talk about his workplace helping customers. But a verbal disagreement between one of the workers and one of the customers for him highlighted the importance of walking with principle and propriety and forsaking personal corruption. He's not going to get into any details as to who was right and who was wrong, but he perceived an importance among some of the customers at least that workers in general abide by a propriety that TSV as per walking with principle tries to adhere to every day of his working life. Not everybody agrees with that, because instead of doing one's best to follow instructions and expectations like TSV tries to, there's a tendency reflected by today's corrupt society to try to get away with -not- following instructions and expectations or doing one's due diligence accordingly. This is why he believes that the Judge Not decree is often misinterpreted. It's not about not having an opinion others may perceive as judgmental, as much as actually -carrying out judgment- is not the job of mere mortals. Only one can judge, so those people TSV sees running around in today's society saying things like "I can do anything I want," or "I can shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and no-one can stop me" will, in fact, be stopped accordingly. But TSV believes it's still within his right to take the position that they should not think for a second their lives are not being watched, as per the Holy Joe comic strip.

The Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV caught Bloomberg Radio trying to carry astroturf for big tech. He heard them do a "report" on the supposed dangers of "check washing," and their "contact" in the report recommends doing all payments electronically as a supposed "safe" alternative. This is about four months after an astroturf TSV heard on another station about favoring card-tapping over card-stripping, and here's how you know it's an astroturf on audio. They never repeat the report more than once in a row. TSV saw it both with the checkwashing report and the card-tapping report. They don't want the reports to be open to scrutiny, and hence for people to find out that these are not true PSA's. They're just infomercials for big tech possibly because people in general are justifiably not sold on card tapping or exclusive electronic payments. In contrast, TSV recommends -against- overreliance on electronic payments or card tapping. These practices will expose you to hacking by the Kremlin, including but not limited to being victimized by ransomware. That's a far more likelihood than some Giuliani type trying to take your check out of your payment to the power company, and trying to wash out all but your signature so as to give himself free money at your expense.
The Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV has observed the Ed Snowden Caucus flying its proverbial vultures around the White House -in expectation- that Biden will blink with respect to the debt ceiling. TSV doesn't know what the final agreement is, but he's reasonably optimistic that we won't "default," as per visual's wishes so they can go sensationalize. He doesn't think it's as cut-and-dried as visual portrays. He sees Biden and Kevin McCarthy saying things like well if you give up this we'll agree to raise the ceiling by that. Biden may agree to -only- give up things that are not in and of themselves that controversial to give up, but will earn a bombblast from the Ed Snowdens all the same. Let's say Biden agrees to raise the debt ceiling by 8% if he gives up his pinking shears. Once he does that, the Ed Snowdens will bombblast him for giving up pinking shears, and will make a big deal out of pinking shears that they never did before. All of a sudden the public will have to be "educated" as to what pinking shears are and why it's a "bad thing" that Biden had to give them up. But here's one thing TSV knows he'll never hear from either visual or the Ed Snowdens. Once the debt ceiling is raised, Biden is absolutely free to take back anything he has to give up, so once he takes back his pinking shears, not a peep out of the Ed Snowdens. TSV will himself corner the Ed Snowdens in the halls of the Capitol for comment, and all they're going to have to say is, well it doesn't matter that he got his pinking shears back, because he should never have given them away to begin with. Anything to maintain such a fanatical purism.

Now that Daniel Penny has turned himself in, accused of choking Jordan Neely, the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV reiterates the case as an ultimate tragedy. One person's dead, at least one more person's going to jail, and TSV does not see us as having a better understanding of issues like excessive force and self-defense than we did before. TSV's attentions, therefore, are not with the immediate case at hand, but with some of the protests that were going on, like reports of protestors standing on subway tracks and delaying arrival and departure of trains, and a Molotov Cocktail being recovered during arrests of the more disruptive protestors. TSV wants to track those two cases in particular, because he wants subway passengers riding on the protestor-delayed trains to know that they have rights too, and it's within those rights for them to take legal action if they were delayed in getting to a job, resulting in less pay for that day or lowered standing with their employers. In the case of medical professionals being delayed on the trains, their delays threaten the lives of patients at the hospitals where the medical professionals work and care for the patients. As for the case of the Molotov Cocktail, it's not yet known whether cops have someone in custody accordingly, but that person would ultimately be charged with explosive device/weapons charges and possibly reckless endangerment of life. TSV believes these cases may very well go to trial after the Neely/Penny trial proper is over, and will be the cases of focus accordingly. But because TSV sees the Ed Snowden types getting involved in the Neely cases for some reason, he thinks very little of inflammatory comments coming from both AOC and the Neely family attorney that could very well taint the jury pool for both the trial proper and the protestor trials. TSV doesn't see either figure as satisfied over Penny being charged with -second- degree murder or manslaughter as opposed to -first- degree.

It was roughly a month ago that SVB collapsed and had to be rescued, but the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV didn't have a chance to talk about it at the time. But now it can be told. SVB stands for Silicon Valley Bank, and as such TSV heard on AM Newsradio that it was a bank for tech startups to retain their capital and revenue as they grow. TSV believes that SVB failed because it was the chickens coming back home to roost on the business model of forced obsolesence, so even though there was also New Republic Bank, TSV reassures investors that banks are -not- failing left and right just because of SVB. For anyone to believe that TSV sees as the moguls of forced obsolesence trying to make -their- problems into -everyone else's- problems. -Our- plans failed so therefore -you're- doomed. Not so much.

The Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV warns people to be criticially thinking when it comes to what he sees as below-the-fold press claiming that China is somehow a far better international negotiator than he believes it actually is, and is somehow "catching up" with the U.S.. In fact, those made to present such spin TSV sees as retaining the right to outright go "Oh this is B.S." before storming out the studio, Robert Novack -style. The example he heard in passing which was on a -non- business segment of Bloomberg business newsradio had to do with China making some kind of negotiation between Saudi Arabia and Iran on some kind of dispute, and TSV is pretty sure the anti-Biden NPR likely also echo chambered it for Morning Edition when they too did a segment on China The Great Negotiator. But if this is the only example they can come up with, TSV sees that as a very weak case, and not worth using Argument By Repetition over with the echo chamber, because let's look at it this way. These are what TSV observes as two totalitarian dictatorships being negotiated by, wait for it, -another- totalitarian dictatorship. TSV doesn't see this as all that significant, particularly if China hopes to get Ukraine to give up sovereign territory to Russia as part of the Great Negotiation. When President Xi visited President Zelensky, TSV didn't hear on the radio what the results of that visitation was, but does not believe China got Ukraine to give up territory. So that particular negotiation likely has failed with TSV, so so much for The Great Negotiator.
"Hey China, take your Great Negotiation and shove it."-Zelensky very likely

A few days ago, the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV saw a Colbert skit on an apparent report that Gen-Z's forming a taste for "vintage" tech. TSV thought long and hard as to how Gen-Z could know that old tech -ever- existed, because their only information source would otherwise be their smartphones. TSV is also sure that big tech would constrain their algorithms to not include mention of any media tech that existed before 2007, so TSV would think that any search results that a Gen-Z would see onscreen would either disinclude the tech they were looking for -or- display a blurb that says they shouldn't be interested in anything old because One Thing Shall Replace Another. After all, big tech is -terrified- at the prospect of having the old and the new exist together side-by-side. Not only is it a form of competition, but big tech wants to have a -mental- monopoly and not just a monetary one. They're worried about losing social power that TSV still sees them as hoarding dictatorily. So he's trying to figure out how Gen-Z could have ever found out about older tech, and it occurred to him that one thing grownups don't understand about young people is that at least a signficant minority don't value their phones as much as their gaming consoles and gaming laptops. As for the latter, TSV gets the impression that gaming laptops can also be used like ordinary laptops, kind of like before there were smartphones, so big tech's constrained algorithms would have no effect, because they're not searching for info on old tech on their phone as much as on their gaming laptops. That's why contrary to the impression that Colbert's report might leave, TSV's 80% sure that maybe only 20% of Gen-Z would care about old tech, because that's the 20% nerd slice. You got to be a "nerd" in order to show interest, so TSV's pretty sure Gen-Z isn't going to be sexting using semaphores any time soon.

What the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV considers as the 'yammerings' of this one 'futurologist' downplaying the importance of AM radio and also ostensively attacking AM's coalition of the faithful comes across to him as astroturf. It sounds to him something like someone is paid to say as a fake 'equal time' to a point of view some commercial interests worry as enjoying majority support. However, to the futurologist's credit, TSV did -not- hear anything to the effect of, well why would today's teenagers looking at 5 videos at once on Tiktok while filtering themselves with dog noses and dog ears should even care there was -ever- a thing called AM radio? That doesn't matter, because, yes, someone -is- going to ask that question, and TSV considers it to be just as replete with logical fallacies as the futurologist's comments. Now here's TSV breaking down those fallacies. When the futurologist claims that he did not hear any emergency information on maybe a non-representative straw poll of AM stations he tuned to, he may very well have picked out those stations -least likely- to do so outside of EAS, because they're not necessarily newsradio stations. There are also sports, religious, gospel, talk, cultural and even still the occasional music/various station. A lot of the cultural ones are not even in the futurologist's native language of English. There are Spanish and Hindi and Mandarin stations, so how's an English native speaking futurologist supposed to know when an announcement in Spanish somehow doesn't count as an emergency bulletin just because he doesn't understand the language? They're not always going to preface such a bulletin in Spanish with 'Hay una emergencia,' and TSV doubts the futurologist knows enough Spanish to know how that translates into English. As for a number of the stations being 'automated,' he depicts the automation per se as somehow being the same thing as being incapable of putting out emergency information. Some degree of automation on both AM and FM (not to mention Sirius-XM -and- Internet radio) has been around for decades, so if TSV gets the impression that the futurologist is expecting that it -has- to be like how they did it in the 30s 40s and 50s, TSV does not consider that realistic. While TSV also wants to question the very concept of 'futurology' as necessarily a valid science, it's more of a priority for him to point out that radio's death has been predicted ever since TV started showing up in people's homes, and it's still there today. People also predicted the death of newspapers and vinyl records, but they too are still around, though TSV doesn't see them as 'trendy' as Tiktok with its 5 videos at once with dog nose and ear filters. So when someone says something is 'dead,' what they really mean is that it's not trendy enough for greedy companies to try to exploit at that thing's expense. TSV asks that people in general try to look at it with perspective and not hear someone go 'X is dead,' just to repeat that person and go around saying 'OMG did you hear that??? X is dead!!!' Just remember it's strictly a business phrase.

There's a lot to unpack for the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV with the latest Pentagon hack, now that they have a suspect in custody, and TSV needed to first put out a PSA about not relying on your smartphone as a -sole- means of information about current events, which we did here the other day. TSV expects investigators to comb through Jack Texiera's (sp?) social media to find out whether he's either been in contact with Ed Snowden or with Snowden sympathists. TSV's not sure about Chelsea Manning, and as far as he knows Julian Assange is still in jail. But even if investigators don't find any Snowden links, it's clear to TSV that this hack would not have happened if Ed Snowden did not do -his- hacks 10 years ago, thereby making classified breaches more socially acceptable than pre-Snowden, propagandizing to young people that hacks and breaches are somehow a form of social service, biased in favor of 'you're being lied to' or 'you're being spied on,' or just plain 'the enemy has something to hide.' But TSV is encouraged that at least on audio he's not hearing sympathy for the suspect, but apparently also an awareness of how classified breaches are actually -dangerous- to the citizens of the free world. Not every breach is about the Pentagon Papers, and in fact TSV sees it as -the exception to the rule.- It looks as though foreign policy hawks like TSV are finally getting their message across 10 years later. See? The hawks told you so.
One Year And We Are All Still Ukrainian

So are you the kind of person who -only- gets their news through their smartphone, specifically those system notifies? If so, then it's by the Heir's/Tropical Soulvangelical's/TSV's estimation that you did -not- hear about an alert notice cybersecurity experts put out about charging your phone on one of those charging stations at an airport or a mall or any other public space. The alert has said that people doing so stand a greater than likely chance of having hackers access your username or password or possibly credit card numbers. This got TSV to reason that the hackers have already hacked, and in doing so disabled any notifies coming to your phone about security regarding your phone. TSV had continued to listen to business newsradio at 7.30am sharp, and has also reasoned from his listening that public businesses have an interest in encouraging/pressuring their customers into using their charging stations, because those businesses have a relationship with those providers who installed and maintained those stations. To have people not use those stations means that the businesses won't get a return on the services they've paid for. Cybersecurity has encouraged people to bring their own charger to plug into a standard outlet, and TSV also recommends bringing a charging bank for those instances where you don't have an outlet available but you -do- only have those vicarious charging stations available. TSV is encouraged by cybersecurity recommending something old school, rather than that 'retired intel officer' whom TSV caught carrying water for Apple Pay in suggesting tap-to-pay as an alternative to using your credit card strip, as opposed to your credit card -chip-. This all goes to show that if you're relying too much on smartphone notifies as your mostly sole source of news, you're not getting reliable news, and TSV again recommends using an actual radio to listen to A.M. newsradio first thing in the morning.

So, yes, people, you can most -reasonably- say that this is a good day for the country, but the Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV emphasizes it's a good day for the children. That's because TSV observes the children understanding that it's -not okay- to not report hush money payments to a porn star as election spending. For Trump to get a perp walk or dress in an orange jumpsuit or flexing his hands around a set of jail bars isn't as priority to TSV as the moral health of our children. Sure Trump's only indicted, and he hasn't been tried or convicted or jailed, not yet. TSV wants to reserve comment on those last three until/unless they happen. But he takes exception to all this good-for-Trump's-fundraising kind of talk, because he sees those doing that kind of reporting as not really getting it as to the importance of personal accountability. We still have an epidemic of personal corruption that TSV sees as having started roughly 10 years ago with Ed Snowden, and until yesterday hasn't slowed down, and in fact TSV sees it as speeding up. There's a metaphor that world leaders used at the climate conference that TSV would like to borrow. And that's that personal corruption is like heading towards a cliff and instead of braking or slowing down, we're pushing down on the gas pedal and accelerating. Incidentally TSV got a text on his phone asking for campaign money which he will refuse to honor for at least one ''news cycle.'' He observes that nobody's talking about poor kids serving felony sentences for misdeanor offenses or going to Riker's Island as somehow being good for the poor kids' fundraising efforts. So it isn't just about Trump, because TSV wants the system to change so that you can't just run for public office as a get-out-of-jail-free-card, and make your campaign about accountability somehow being a 'witch hunt.' TSV vaguely remembers Al Capone or Charlie Manson actually trying to do that, and he's pretty sure you can't do that in Europe. In that sense at least, there's something endearing about cobblestone streets and fine wines and chocolates and cheeses.

The Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV wants to say a few words about what he calls Beijing Balloongate, and he doesn't care if this were a month and a half ago. He derides Beijing's response of "calling for calm" as an unaccountable response, and he was hoping that defense officials would say the same thing. He understands full well there are times for a defense dispassionate, but that wasn't one of them. He knows they don't want to be responding to "provocations," but they are the collective voice of America in response to Balloongate, and as far as he's concerned, their response was not strong enough. He also believes that those 2-3 other balloons that got shot down -also- came from hostile countries, and he dismisses a report that one of the balloons was supposedly a ham radio experiment. TSV keeps up on the Glenn Houser radio show, where he heard about the report, but TSV believes that the ham radio people actually lost their balloon in a tree somewhere, and was not one of the balloons that got shot down. Maybe some info would become declassified in coming weeks, but until then, he believes that each of the other balloons came from Russia, Iran and North Korea, respectively, and someone needs to -prove- to him they weren't until he's ready to believe otherwise.

The Heir/Tropical Soulvangelical/TSV wants to say a few words in support of the A.M. dial in contrast to the apparent social myth that "nobody" listens to A.M. or that A.M. is somehow in "decline." He gets about 85% of his information first thing in the morning on an A.M. newsradio station, and reception is considerably better than on a given news station's corresponding F.M. station, which is often unstable. But he also wants to sign on at least one petition letting elements like carmakers and media companies, and maybe his own congresswoman, know that he's an A.M. listener seeking to be counted accordingly. Let's also not forget that he listened to the last 10 minutes of this past Superbowl on A.M., and plans to listen to sports games on A.M. once he gets his DIY music player finished, so that he'll have a duofecta of a music/audio player and an analog terrestrial radio to spend extra time with. Right now he watches a lot of Youtube videos, and he really wants to get away from that at the right time. And because the Internet is mostly a source of misinformation, with few exceptions, he outright refuses to use the Internet for his first hand reports, no matter what media executives at least seem to think.
One Year And We Are All Still Ukrainian