Bfillmaff
"Ted: When you say "the moment someone says "you have to watch this YouTube Video!" I tend to run the other way!" ... I believe you. And I think you will find yourself in the minority on that. Cable TV is a dying medium, and even though I shouldn't make fun of the old farts again... you and comp might be the only ones watching it anymore (/intentional exaggeration used here for effect)."
I agree that there is tons of excellent content on YouTube and I watch a lot of it. For example, Rick Beato (and other music Vloggers) post fascinating stuff. And there are decent political podcasts (I want to start watching/listening to David Frum's new one). I haven't watched cable tv news in decades.
I find the best place to get information is through print, physical and virtual. I regularly read articles from the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, Washington Post, Haaretz, Atlantic, CNN and many other places. I use my subscription to Apple News and also the free Press Reader app. There are also several substacks I follow. So I found it offensive when you said I was 'uninformed' because I seek out a number of opinions and perspectives.
The problem with discussing any of this online is that each issue requires a 'deep dive' into background and policy. I mean, calling Mr. P.P. a "bottom feeding snake oil salesman" is just shorthand for describing the majority of his policies. It saves time! I could pick just one policy: defunding the CBC. This is ludicrous, particularly at this time where Canadians are all "Coming together as a country" and I would argue the CBC is a core part of telling our stories. They have stations in cities and towns in every province and territory where they provide morning shows, interview community members and tell local folks what is going on. We 'time shift' on the app and often listen to the Moncton news because we want to hear The Current an hour earlier than it appears in Ontario. I regularly listen to Front Burner for incicuse interviews about breaking topics. I've listened to CBC across the country, sometimes while driving in the darkness across Northern Ontario while "FInkleman's 45s" played with Danny's idiosyncratic commentary. It was heartwarming and made me feel sad for those Americans who had to do so much fundraising for their Public Radio and TV. To "defund this" is stupid and heartbreaking and to claim you could uncouple it from Radio Canada is an outright lie. Now there are certainly problems with the CBC. I use it 95% of the time for its live radio and podcasts. I almost never watch it on tv, except for olympics and such. Never watched Hockey Night in Canada in my life. And there is controversy about what news cbc covers, some have claimed it steals from other sources sometimes, the bonuses to managers have been criticized. Should it be allowed to have commercials? There are lots of valid questions to be asked. But P.P.'s declaration of 'defunding' is a crass populist boast that shows his huge disregard for Canada and the identities and stories of its citizens.
OK, it took me 15 minutes to write that one paragraph about something I care about. Does it matter? I dunno. Perhaps I'll paste it to my Facebook page to get more mileage out of it. :-)
