Ep. 78 Turkey Day, Elections, Parler, The Queens Gambit and The Mandalorian Plus An Announcement

Welcome to another Episode of the Modern Moron which I spend with my OP… my old radio partner down in Southern California.  We hit on the expected post Thanksgiving / Pandemic chat about how things have changed and how they are the same, and how our kids are doing with distance learning or hybrid learning and "special ed" learning all new terms to me in the past 6 months… and some of it has been for the better in terms of educating our children. We briefly discuss the effects of the recent Covid surge for which I will have a minor personal announcement about at the end of this episode… (stinger) no, it's not that big of a deal. We do talk politics, after all we did have a presidential election last month, which leads to a discussion about the media and it's coverage of the president which leads me to go on my "per-episode" soap box cry for the Netflix documentary "The Social Dilemma" and to my regular listeners… both of you… I apologize.  I'll find something new and shiny very soon.  But my OP brings up Parler… that's Parler with an "E".  It's an alternative social media site launched in 2018 and it has become a home and a platform for more conservative views.  This is what Wikipedia has to say: Parler is an American microblogging and social networking service launched in August 2018. Parler has a significant user base of Donald Trump supporters, conservatives, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing extremists.  Posts on the service often contain far-right content, antisemitism, and conspiracy theories like QAnon.  Journalists (which some of our listeners would replace journalists with Liberals or Lib-tards) have described Parler as an alternative to Twitter, and the service is popular among people who have been banned from mainstream social networks or oppose their moderation policies.  Parler markets itself as a "free speech" and unbiased alternative to mainstream social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. However, journalists and users have criticized the service for content policies that are more restrictive than the company portrays and sometimes more restrictive than those of its competitors.  Beginning in June 2020, some users reported being banned from Parler for espousing left-wing viewpoints. As of November 2020, the service had about 4 million active users and over 10 million total users.  To put that into some perspective Twitter has 330 million active users.  Facebook has 2.7 billion users worldwide with 223 Million in the U.S. But my OP makes a great observation that Parler is loosing steam because there isn't quite enough diversity in opinions, Which also addresses a point brought to you in our last thrilling episode when I read you an article from the Atlantic titled "Reading Too Much Political News Is Bad for Your Well-Being" But even when people agree politically, expressing intense views, or going on and on about politics, harms relationships. A 2018 data analysis in the journal Political Opinion Quarterly revealed that "even strong partisans dislike too much political discussion—even agreeable discussion." We wrap things up with a few streaming suggestions from the Show "Silicon Valley" on HBO to The Queen's Gambit on Netflix to The Mandalorian on Disney which is in its second season.   It's Season's Greetings on the Modern Moron and thank you for listening…  CLOSE: Full disclosure… when I was getting this clip from the end of the movie "Rudy" and finding the section to use… this is at the end when Rudy get to dress with the starting football players and he gets to play at the end… this piece of music is called "Rudy's Victory"... I was in front of my computer crying… full tears coming down the cheeks crying as I was watching the final scene from Rudy.  That movie gets me every time.  We need to do one full episode just on the movie "Rudy".  In fact.. To show you guys the moronic rabbit holes I go down… there is a great interview of Sean Astin on the Dan Patrick show about shooting the film Rudy and the "creative license" that was taken to make that larger than life character and film.  I will include a link to that interview at the bottom of the description for you. Sean Astin "Rudy" interview - The Dan Patrick Show (2015) - YouTube