When not a problem, pal is a problem
By Bob Dorn
I’m afraid we have to give up on arguing with fascists.
We’ve got grown men in expensive suits, some of them Republican presidential candidates, willing to say in public that Obama’s deal with Iran on nuclear arms is worse than Neville Chamberlain’s famous sell-out to Adolf Hitler in 1938.
Remember death panels?
They don’t mean this shit, and they don’t seem to care a fig if they seem insane. We’re not going to convince the NRA that we need to place limits on gun sales and use. They’d rather aim a gun at you than negotiate. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll start aiming at each other, like Dick Cheney did when he shot his skeet podner a few years back.
Instead of attempting to defeat fascism with arguments, maybe we can change the atmosphere down here at ground level. On the theory that the better we are the better our leaders will become, let’s look at what you and I do, routinely, to establish our own stupidity.
1. At parties we stand in doorways to talk. To go to the bathroom or get another beer you first have to get past the pair in the doorway. Do we tend to settle in the passageway because that’s where the action is? Also, I’ve thought that the door let’s us feel like we can keep an eye on two rooms to see which offers more potential to hookup; probably one of the two in the doorway thinks the other is boring. Maybe in that location we can get a better sense of what is going on around us. None of this convinces me. I don’t know why people stand in doorways to talk.
2. Many of us still watch television. I’ll just keep this category to two examples of its silliness. For one thing, talk show hosts generally sit in taller chairs than their guests do, including Jimmy Kimmel during his March 12 interview with President Obama, and Jimmy Fallon on April 02 while he interviewed Michelle Obama. I’ll bet Bill O’Reilly didn’t stand for that shit when he was booked as a guest. And another thing, the big networks and cable stations raise the volume during commercial breaks. They want us to buy this or that brand of dick hardener but they make it painful?
3. “Not a problem.” A lot of people will say this at the end of a simple transaction, when you thank them for the quarter and three pennies change they’ve just given you. Saying thank you means there wasn’t a problem, doesn’t it?
4. Cars. Uh oh, everyone’s got something wrong with them once they’re in the car. I don’t. But you do. The car makes us act as if no one else in the world matters, or is our equal. Total separation of people, one from another, is buried in mainstream strategies, and is most noticeable in driving behavior. Here’s only some of the stupid things cars make us do.
First, the car to the right on a freeway will start to accelerate as we begin to ease past it on its left. Test this. I think half to 60% of us do this. Make it 70%. It might be that the driver on the right gets the feeling they’re going to slow. But I do believe it’s just a competitive reflex; people just don’t want their car passed.
Secondly, people who go to gyms to work out on the treadmill, bicycle, step machine, elliptical and other sophisticated means of raising their pulse rates will often search the parking lots for the space closest to the gym’s front door so that they don’t have to walk very far before they get to the machines.
Thirdly, notice how many times you’re trying to join the freeway from an on ramp and a car won’t let you in, causing you to brake to fall in behind it, then it swerves to get in front of you so that it can get off at the next exit ramp, causing you to brake again. Huh?
5. Sidewalk behavior is another rich domain. On sidewalks people want to walk side by side by side by side, abreast, in other words. If you’re walking with your partner and three are approaching from the opposite direction the three will not so much as close ranks, much less will one of them step behind the other two to let you and your partner pass. It’s worse when one of the three has a dog on a leash. The dog will strain against the leash to piss on a bush. You have to come to a dead stop, though the dogs are more likely than any of three to give way to you.
6. “Well…” This is another television thing, though it’s really a speech thing. Recognized experts invited on to help network news shows demonstrate they’re open to all points of view 7 times out of 10 will answer questions aimed at them by first saying, “Well…” It’s really just a timing grab; the brain is trying to avoid a misstep. “Well…” provides a split second in which to review which of your practiced responses will best fit this question. We’ve all done it, but most of us don’t get to tell the viewing audiences what we’re thinking. Instead, we have the luxury of saying, “That’s a stupid question,” or “I don’t know the answer to that.”
7. False bravery. This is mostly a white guy thing. When their pride is challenged or injured by another they’ll often use “buddy” or “pal” as an appendage to their retort. As in “Oh yeah, pal,” or “I don’t think so, buddy.” In a more measured way, Romney similarly appended his response to a Citizens United protestor by saying, “Corporations are people, my friend.” Definitely not part of more ethnic speech patterns.
8. You’re lying in bed and just before you fall asleep somebody driving a large bike with an open manifold exhaust system will gun it and set off a car alarm. You’re dedicating another 15 or 30 minutes to falling asleep after the car alarm goes off just so the crackhead on the bike can feel more powerful.
Maybe we can vote against this guy when he runs for president.
Bob Dorn
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Funny. Thanks for bringing up the extra-loud volume of tv commercials because I seem to remember that one of the first things Pres. Obama promised when he got into office was to regulate that.
I din’t know that. The networks probably kept their bullhorn volumes by promising Obama they’d reject Duck Dynasty, then they dropped the swamp gods on cable instead. Now, THERE was a Neville Chamberlain kinda deal.
This was an actual story on national news last year, that the FCC was to regulate the volume on television advertising to keep it the same level as all other programming. That must have been shelved, because I still hear ads at a much higher volume then the actual broadcasting. Or maybe Brian Williams was lying about that story too.
I can say this. I never heard the prez was going to take action to regulate the volume of commercials vs. the volume of the actual program and if he did talk about it, it obviously never went through. Considering the issues going on at the time (The GR) I have a hard time believing that was on his concern radar. If it was then I missed it.
Loud Commercials and the CALM Act
FCC rules require TV stations, cable operators, satellite TV operators and other pay TV providers to ensure television commercial advertisements have the same average volume as the programs that they accompany, in accordance with the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Act (PDF). A commercial may have louder and quieter moments, but overall it should be no louder than the surrounding programming, which may mean that some commercials will comply with the rules, but still sound “too loud” to some viewers.
Equipment may help with overall volume
If you are experiencing problems with spikes in volume across both programming and commercials, you may be able to activate certain settings in your television or home theater system to help stabilize overall loudness. Many televisions and home theater systems have features to control loudness, such as automatic gain control, audio compression, or audio limiters, that can be turned on to provide a more constant volume level across programs and commercials. These functions usually need to be activated through the equipment’s “Set Up/Audio” menu.
Filing a complaint
The Commission relies on consumer complaints to monitor industry compliance with the rules. The information in your complaint helps the Commission identify possible patterns or trends of noncompliance for a particular station, pay TV provider or commercial and take appropriate action.
You have multiple options for filing a complaint with the FCC:
File a complaint online
By phone: 1-888-CALL-FCC (1-888-225-5322); TTY: 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322)
By mail (please include include your name, address, contact information and as much detail about your complaint as possible):
Federal Communications Commission
Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Inquiries and Complaints Division
445 12th Street, S.W.
Washington, DC 20554
What to include in your complaint
If you watched the commercial on pay TV (cable or satellite) or if you watched it on a broadcast station
The name of the advertiser or product promoted in the commercial
The date and time you saw the commercial
The name of the TV program during which it aired
Which TV station (by call sign and/or channel number and the station’s community) or pay TV provider transmitted the commercial
If you watched the commercial on pay TV, the channel number on which you saw it and the cable programmer or network
Accessible formats
To request this article in an accessible format – braille, large print, Word or text document or audio – write or call us at the address or phone number above, or send an email to fcc504@fcc.gov
Print Out
Loud Commercials and the CALM Act Guide (pdf)
Updated: December 30, 2014
http://www.fcc.gov/guides/program-background-noise-and-loud-commercials
Thanks for this information, it was very helpful. I knew I had heard this news story last year. Now, if I would actually take the time to report it or not to the FCC remains questionable. Thanks again!
I noticed the commercials being louder so it’s good to know it’s not just my set up at home.
Truth be told, I’ve been guilty of 1, 3 and 4.
Hey, Goatskull, you stand in doorways to talk at parties? Of all the tendencies that’s
the one I haven’t a clue about. Is it, like, no man’s land?
Well I’m just saying I have. I wasn’t saying that’s some regular thing I do at parties. When I did it’s just because I happened to get in a conversation with someone that that’s where we were. I never gave much thought at to why we stood there.
Actually, it’s not the networks or the individual stations, but the makers of the commercials that increase the volume. It’s because the sound engineering on any previously-produced spot can be tuned to closer to zero-db than any real or live program. IOW, if the show were that loud, you’d turn it down, but the commercial spot can get away with it.
Of course, in these days of remote controls, we can simply MUTE all spot announcements — if we aren’t watching on DVR, anyway.
On an entrance to the freeway that merges from 2 lanes to one, cars are always trying to pass to get to the one lane first. Passing on a merge doesn’t seem to phase them, and I’m surprised there aren’t more accidents there.
The northbound merge to I-5 from Florida Canyon/Pershing isn’t exactly a two-into-one but it’s much similar. If you want to continue northbound on the 5 you have to heave your carro across three lanes of fast moving, often heavy, traffic to avoid, first, the two-lane entrance to 163 and, second, the off ramp to Hawthorne in order to continue your journey. Your cousins on the road get pissed off at you when you do that. They think you’re being aggressive.
I’d hate to be a bicyclist entering downtown from Pershing or Florida Canyon more though.