My blogging is changing back to the way it used to be. I have nothing in the game and nothing to lose. I owe the inspiration to AOC. If she can speak the truth, no matter what the trolls might say, then I can too. In my drama, Google and their trolls are the Repubs.#
I just completed a binge-watch of all six Sopranos seasons. One thing to note. The last season was awful. It was a total slog to get through all 21 episodes. I kept putting it down it was so bad compared to the other seasons. But the awfulness of the last season makes me think that the contentious ending of the last episode might have just been a punt by a writer's room that had clearly run out of gas. They didn't know how to end the series, so they didn't. BTW one of the great things about having a blog is that I can show you what I thought of the last episode at the time it aired. Basically I wasn't buying it: "The Sopranos was a mess, and it ended in an unsatisfying cop-out."#One thing I learned from a week of driving in upstate New York, both Google's and Apple's maps apps go crazy when the phone doesn't have an Internet connection. I had only experienced this kind of insanity once before, when driving in downtown Boston. There the phone doesn't know which level of road you're driving on. The major highways are all underground. This last week the apps kept changing their mind about which direction I should be going on a road. This not only made me miss turns, but it also drove me crazy because I never knew if I could rely on their directions. #
Owen Williams' sad tale of Google News reminds me of the scene in The Godfather where the undertaker Bonasera visits Don Corleone on the day of his daughter's wedding. Bonasera's daughter has been raped. He went to the police, they tried the rapist, but he got off with a suspended sentence. Bonasera seeks justice from the Godfather who gives his first great speech in the movie. "We've known each other many years, but this is the first time you ever came to me for counsel or for help. I can't remember the last time that you invited me to your house for a cup of coffee, even though my wife is godmother to your only child. But let's be frank here. You never wanted my friendship. And you were afraid to be in my debt." In Williams' tale of woe, the Godfather is the open web, other news orgs, his readers, and the legal system is Google. We have to work together Owen. The web made all you do possible, you can't go over its head to Google to get what you think you need. And though you disparage RSS in your piece, it, or something exactly like it, will be the glue that routes around Google and Facebook and eventually makes networked news work. BTW, the dialog is on Wikipedia and the video clip is on Youtube. #