All I will say about this one here on Tumblr is…if you are interested in NASCAR or how people react to television sports production, you might want to check out this latest entry that I put up on my long-form blog at KoHoSo.us. If not, you’ll probably just want to move along.

I admit in advance it might seem to some that I am mostly avoiding answering Steve’s comment. That is sort of correct but I am instead using his comment as a springboard to get to things that maybe both sides of this argument should consider…and, why not start this from a different perspective since see-sawing back-and-forth with Steve [Byrnes] will not accomplish anything. I would also hope, just in case anybody of note actually reads this, that it might also give people reason to pause and think about the recent trend set by other Fox on-air employees that are starting to tweet and even remark on camera that people like me are not real fans, want to see nothing but wrecks, plus make excuses for bad production decisions and generally getting some of us to start feeling as if this is turning into an “us versus them” situation.

From my long-form blog at KoHoSo.us, I talk discretely about an recent incidnet that happened between a TV personality and me on Twitter and how such things fit into the big picture of how those in power are reacting badly to social media. Here is an excerpt.

Regardless of how one would label this exchange that went on via Twitter, it is actually a very small version of something that is happening all over the world right now. Those currently in power — whether it be in politics, media, or business — are late to the party regarding the new power of social media to spread critique and get people organized. Worst of all, instead of adapting to this new breath of freedom that has been introduced into public discourse, it is being attacked in all of the usual phony ways and, in many cases, attempts are being made to scare people enough to stop using social media other than to follow commercial accounts or go back to the days when nobody knew exactly what to do with Twitter other than post what they had for breakfast.

That those in a position of power would dislike and try to lessen the effects of services like Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, and even Facebook is certainly not surprising. What does surprise me somewhat is that many are taking the tactic of attacking “We the people” as being too ignorant to understand what it is we want out of Product X, Service Y, or Program Z.

In my return to my long-form blogging at KoHoSo.us after a lengthy and mentally painful absence, I talk about my experience in trying to buy a home through Fannie Mae’s HomePath program…plus, as is always inevitable with me, end up showing how it is part of the overall problems that currently afflict the United States of American that we need to start fixing before the whole country goes down the crapper.

Here’s an excerpt so my Tumblr readers can decide if they want to go read my latest steaming pile of words.

It is extremely frustrating. While wrong of others to feel that way, at least it helps me understand the more hate-tinged people in America’s political world today that gripe incessantly about how “those people” get all kinds of handouts from the government and they never get anything but a higher tax bill.

The way I see this is totally different as I have observed this HomePath process very carefully over the past four months and have come to the irrevocable conclusion that it’s not “those people” being able to take advantage of this program. Instead, it is actually the same kind of people that got us into the mortgage crisis in the first place…the speculators, the banks, and the loan officers.

While the focus of Old L.A. Restaurants is obviously on Los Angeles, it should be easy to enjoy its retro/vintage content no matter where one is from. So far, names familiar outside of the area such as A&W, Farrell’s, and Love’s have been covered along with places that were only known to Californians. Best of all, it comes with the well-crafted and informative writing of Mark Evanier who also writes the wonderful News from Me blog. Make sure to check out his story on The Lobster Barrel, a small SoCal chain owned in part by Alan “Skipper” Hale of Gilligan’s Island.

From my long-form blog at KoHoSo.us, I discuss my deep worries about today’s announcement that college radio stations are going to start being added to Clear Channel’s IHeartRadio app.

Second and perhaps most importantly, it now gives Clear Channel “live or die” power over these stations. It is certainly solely up to Clear Channel as to whether or not a college station remains available on IHeartRadio. Let’s say that the quality of a college station dips for a semester (as will happen as its disk jockeys come and go). Perhaps even more threatening, what if a host takes issue on the air against something Clear Channel supports or even the company itself? The pressure Clear Channel could bring to change a format or individual host in the face of a threat to remove the station from IHeartRadio would be immense in this era of shrinking college budgets which shows no end in sight as conservative political pressure will continue well after the economy finally but inevitably improves. Being dropped from IHeartRadio could be the excuse any money-hungry college dean needs to sell off his school’s license to be another NPR drone or, worse yet, another frequency churning out the religious K-LOVE feed.