Jay Thurber Show

News item:

President-elect Donald Trump refused on Tuesday to rule out using military or economic action to pursue acquisition of the Panama Canal and Greenland, part of a broader expansionist agenda he has promoted since winning the Nov. 5 election.

Trump, who takes office on January 20, also floated the idea of turning Canada into a U.S. state, said he would demand far higher defense spending from NATO allies and promised to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

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He also rambled for several minutes about water pressure in showers. He’s obsessed with water pressure in showers; it’s an issue he explored at length at his rallies, as well.

Here, now, is an exact transcript of what he said during his incoherent press conference at Mar-a-Lago. As you read this, remember three things.*

First: This man will have access to the U.S. nuclear launch codes in 12 days.

Second: A lot of people didn’t want to vote for Joe Biden because they thought he was senile.

And finally: Americans knew that Donald Trump was like this, and they voted for him anyway, including a majority of our fellow Pennsylvania residents.

OK. Ready? Now, here are the president-elect’s thoughts on water pressure:

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TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRESIDENT-ELECT'S REMARKS

"And they have already started that, too. When you buy a faucet, no water comes out because they want to preserve–. Even in areas that have so much water, you don’t know what to do. It’s called rain, comes down from comes down from heaven.

"And they want to do no, no water comes out of the shower. It goes drip, drip, drip. So what happens? You’re in the shower ten times as long, you know, no water comes out of the faucet.

"You want to wash your hands, your he–. They want to go back to even stronger than what they have right now. As you know, I ended that policy. I get you can have all the water you want. Makes no difference. Especially in certain areas. We have so much water, we don’t know what to do with it."

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“Clear as mud,” as my high-school algebra teacher used to say.

(And Joe Biden was the one who seemed confused and appeared to ramble?)

Anyway. So everyone has a big freak-out on Tuesday about Greenland and Panama, and the news that Trump wants to rename the Gulf of Mexico.

Is he actually going to declare war on Denmark and take Greenland by force? Who knows? Maybe? Or is he just distracting everyone? Or is he just blurting out whatever comes into his head?

Because we know that he has the attention span and work ethic of a toddler. In fact, I’m not convinced he understands “object permanence.” I suspect that if everyone in Greenland covered their eyes, in peek-a-boo fashion, Donald Trump would think they’d become invisible.

He’s fascinated by whatever the latest shiny object that crosses his path might be.

People think Trump is some kind of mastermind. He’s not. He’s not playing 3D chess; he’s playing “Hi-Ho Cherry-O” and eating the pieces when no one is looking.

Which begs the question: How feckless do the Democrats have to be to keep losing to this guy? Well: Pretty damn feckless!

Part of the problem is that Democrats aren’t shameless enough to pull the stunts that Trump pulls. (Republicans weren’t shameless enough, either — which is why Trump rolled them in 2016 — but they’ve learned fast!)

Anyway, while Trump’s chomping on the plastic* cherries, the hapless Democrats are sitting there reading the rule book, saying, “Now, Donald, you shouldn’t be eating the pieces, let me explain the game again,” but he’s not listening.

By then, he’s already left and he’s opened up “Hungry, Hungry Hippos” and he’s shoving the marbles up his nose. And so the helpless Democrats leave the table, trying to explain the rules of “Hi-Ho Cherry-O” again, and while they’re gone, Trump’s friends go through their wallets and steal their lunch money.

If you’re a Republican, there’s a real benefit to all of this chaos distraction and misdirection. While liberals and journalists are working themselves into a froth — “OMG WE’RE GONNA GO TO WAR WITH GREENLAND” — Republicans are busy undermining elections in North Carolina, nominating truly terrible people (possible Nazis in several cases) to government positions, and trying to block Trump’s past crimes from being made public.

To put it bluntly, since Trump craves attention, he’s the perfect distraction for the public and media. He will do or say anything to keep his name in the news, and if that means creating chaos that debases himself or the people around him, then he has no shame about creating chaos.

I was going to compare the Democrats to Margaret in “Dennis the Menace,” but Dennis had more self-control than this guy. He’s Cornholio and the Democrats are Tom Anderson.

Back to the thing about showers. A friend asked me Tuesday night, “Why is he so obsessed with water pressure?”

Well, I have an possible explanation, but it’s gross. Ready? Trump is well-known to be a germphobe. He hates shaking people’s hands and he hates using a toilet that someone else has used. It’s been documented that he eats fast food from big chain restaurants because he’s convinced it’s “safer” and less likely to have germs than other kinds of food. And it’s also been documented that as a result, Trump has problems with certain bodily functions.

Occam’s razor suggests the simple explanation is probably the right one. I think he’s obsessed with water pressure because he has trouble keeping himself clean. The once and future king has dingleberries.

OK, so why is he obsessed with Greenland all of a sudden? I’ve seen reports in Serious News Outlets suggesting that Trump thinks Greenland will be valuable due to climate change, or because it’s going to be part of a Northwest Passage once the polar ice cap melts, but that makes no sense to me. Do you really think Trump cares about climate change or plans that far ahead? Of course not.

Here’s what makes more sense to me: Someone suggested to me that he’s been looking at Mercator projection maps, which distort the land masses near the North Pole. On a Mercator-type map, Greenland looks huge and appears to be close to the United States.

Thus, we’re back to the simplest explanation: He wants Greenland because it looks big and if the United States took it he could add a bunch of territory to the United States and then he’d be important, like Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe.

Remember, it’s not 3D chess. It’s “Hungry, Hungry Hippos.” He isn’t a brilliant tactician; he’s Beavis on a sugar bender.

I’ll leave you with one more example, as if you need one.

Several people have pointed out that Trump keeps bringing up Hannibal Lecter in his speeches and they’re confused as to why. The best theory I’ve heard is that he apparently thinks “asylum seekers” are escapees from insane asylums. He doesn’t know that “asylum” has multiple meanings. Hannibal Lecter was in an asylum. Immigrants from Central America are seeking asylum.

And so meanwhile, we’ve now spent several minutes talking about water pressure and bathroom habits and Greenland and Hannibal Lecter.

Do you know what we haven’t been talking about? Amazon just paid the Trump family $40 million for the rights to Melania Trump’s life story.

FORTY MILLION DOLLARS.

Do you understand the method behind the madness yet?

If you do, you ought a see a doctor, because none of this is remotely healthy or normal, and the fact that you understand raises serious questions about your mental health. Just repeat after me, “person, man, woman, camera, TV … person, man, woman, camera, TV …. “

… it’s going to be an exhausting four years.

• Correction: I originally said that the cherries in “Hi Ho Cherry-O” were cardboard. They are, as any fule kno, made of plastic. Also, I said there would be four things to remember, but I only listed three. I wish I could say that was an elaborate joke, but no, I deleted something from the list and forgot to fix the intro.

I recently took Tube City Online off of X/Twitter after 15 years. We never got many incoming clicks from it anyway (Meta is a far better platform for our demographic) but I needed to make sure we had a Linktree, and I also had to move our Fediverse (Mastodon) account to a new server.

And then Elon Musk changed his X/Twitter name to a far-right, anti-semitic slur. That was the final straw, as if I needed one.

If you want to stay on X/Twitter, that’s up to you. But I was reminded of a famous story in broadcasting circles about a TV show called “Turn-On” that was literally cancelled while the first episode was airing, due to the number of complaints the network received.

One station manager sent a telegram to ABC: “If your naughty little boys have to write dirty words on the walls, please don’t use our walls.”

Journalists need to stop engaging on X/Twitter, and brands need to consider whether it’s worth having your messages and logos next to literal Nazi content.

Yes, of course your message on X/Twitter is clean, but you’re surrounded by naughty little boys writing slurs on your walls. Is it worth it? And is that really an audience you want to reach? I don’t.

And I know a lot of people think they’re part of a “Twitter resistance,” which is going to force the platform to return to civility.

You poor, sweet, summer children. Good luck with that. Watch out for snipe hunts and wallet inspectors.

Meanwhile: Meta/Facebook has announced that they’re going to stop fact-checking posts. (This comes as a shock to anyone who’s sifted through the sewer of misinformation on Facebook — they had fact-checkers? What have they been doing all day?)

Meta — which made a large cash donation to Trump’s inauguration — now says the fact-checking process is “politically biased,” which is another way of saying that right-wing misinformation is far more common on Facebook than left-wing misinformation, and so it needs to stop fact-checking, lest it run afoul of the new administration full of thin-skinned, vindictive bullies.

As a result of this change, Meta has warned that users may start seeing an increase in sexist, racist, violent and homophobic content on Facebook.

Again, I ask: How we will be able to tell the difference?

Meta defends these changes in the name of “free speech.” But Meta isn’t interested in free speech; try posting articles that criticize white supremacy or Facebook itself, and see how fast you get a notification that you’ve violated “community standards.”

Instead, Meta is inviting naughty little boys to write dirty words on its walls, as long as the dirty words don’t criticize Meta or its investors. Outrage is good for business; the madder you are at something you see on Facebook or Instagram, the more time you spend on Facebook or Instagram, having vicious but pointless arguments.

In what I’m sure is a coincidence, Meta has appointed Trump’s friend, the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to its board of directors.

Social media is hitting the wall of diminishing returns everywhere. The platforms that work best are those with strong moderation and a lot of community control. The only social media platform I spend much time on these days is Mastodon, which has a fraction of the reach of Meta, I know, but it’s much more pleasant, and it gives me much more control over what I see. A lot of folks have gone to Bluesky, but they’ve already announced they’re going to start charging you for what you used to get for free.

It’s always been obvious that Meta, X, LinkedIn, Bluesky etc., don’t have their users’ best interests at heart; they’re just not bothering to hide it any more.

We are not their clients, we are their products, and they are using us up. When we’re no longer useful, they throw us in the trash.

Anyway. Apropos of nothing, in writing this entry, I had to look at a bunch of photos of Elon, and it occurred to me that if Peter Lorre were alive, he would have been a great choice to play Musk in a movie. He was just the right combination of whiny, fragile, creepy and paranoid.

I can hear him now at Mar-a-Lago, shouting, “You … you imbecile. You bloated idiot. You stupid fathead, you!”

Update: Rolling Stone and other outlets report that Musk has recently begun responding to his critics on X by calling them “r-tards.” Yeah. It’s dead. Not looking back.

As many people have pointed out now, Google’s search engine — the “killer app” that made Google one of the world’s largest, wealthiest companies — has become completely useless.

I was taught how to do boolean searches in high school, by a librarian at what was then known as Penn State McKeesport, in order to use the computerized catalogs there. So when search engines came along, I felt like a wizard. I’ve always prided myself on my Google-fu and being able to dig out weird stuff using Google search.

Not any more. Even when I’m using specific queries and functions to try to force Google to find something on my own websites, the search engine sometimes comes up with “no results.”

Oh, but these days, if Google doesn’t find results, it’s happy to make them up.

I recently wrote about someone and afterwards found out I had their title wrong. I apologized and wrote a correction, but wondered how I had made such a lame-brain mistake.

I entered the person’s name into Google Search, and Google’s “suggested result” was the incorrect title. So I hadn’t simply hallucinated it; Google’s artificial intelligence — more like artificial lack-of-intelligence — had imagined a title for the person whom I was writing about. I had then used that incorrect information when I wrote my story.

(Yes, the ultimate mistake was mine. If I had gone directly to the person’s website, I would have found her correct title there.)

As for web search, I’ve recently started paying for a service called Kagi, an alternative search engine which incorporates results from many other search engines. It doesn’t have as many “suggested links” and “shopping” links as Google Search and it also doesn’t have as much A.I. generated crap. It’s costing me about $10 a month, which is not cheap if you’re on a fixed income, but it’s become a necessity in my work.

Because, to put it bluntly, Google Search is completely broken; I’m astonished how bad the results are now. It’s taken giant steps backwards. Don’t trust it.

Alas, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, owns a big chunk of the web now, including the largest video streaming provider, YouTube.

At the top of this page, Fran Blanche, a musician and electronics technician (she’s the genius behind Frantone effects pedals) in Philadelphia, discusses how YouTube is now forcing creators to accept A.I.-generated summaries of their videos.

A few of the summaries are OK, Fran reports. Others are wildly off-base and contradictory.

YouTube’s A.I., she reports, is also suggesting replies that creators can semi-automatically post as responses when someone comments on one of their videos.

Why? Who asked for this? Who wants this? Certainly not the consumer of Fran’s videos.

I know I don’t want to read a response that was bullshitted by artificial intelligence. What value does it add?

If a creator doesn’t care enough to write a response to me, and instead tasks an A.I. bot with writing the response, why should I care enough to read it?

Over the weekend, for my own amusement, I asked ChatGPT to tell me about myself. The response starts out OK, but then goes horribly, hilariously wrong:

Jason Togyer is a journalist, author, and communications professional known for his work in various media and nonprofit sectors. He is perhaps most recognized for his book, “For the Glory of Their Game: Stories of Life in the Pittsburgh Steelers Football Nation”, which explores the deep connection between the Pittsburgh Steelers and their fans. The book highlights the cultural and social impact of the team on the Pittsburgh community.

I have never written anything about the Steelers. Ever. (If you listen to me on Saturdays, you know how dim-witted and out-of-touch I am when it comes to sports.) Actually, a book about “the deep connection between the Pittsburgh Steelers and their fans” sounds like it might be interesting; maybe someone should write one.

But unfortunately, no such book by that title exists, so far as I can tell.

ChatGPT made up a book no one has ever written and attributed it to me, and says it’s my best-known work. All-righty then.

ChatGPT continues:

Togyer is also associated with Carnegie Mellon University as an editor for the university’s alumni magazine, “Carnegie Mellon Today.” He has written extensively on topics such as technology, engineering, arts, and education.

I did attend Carnegie Mellon University (I am obviously on CMU’s radio station, WRCT). I also worked for CMU — past-tense — from 2008 to 2016 as editor of the computer science magazine and assistant director of communications.

But CMU’s alumni magazine is not called “Carnegie Mellon Today.” I never worked for CMU’s alumni magazine. And “Carnegie Mellon Today” hasn’t been published since 2017. (It was a newsletter.) I never worked there, either.

I then asked ChatGPT, “What can you tell me about Jay Thurber, a DJ at WRCT in Pittsburgh?”

Jay Thurber is the on-air persona of Jason Togyer, a Pittsburgh-based journalist and media personality. He hosts “Radio 9 with Jay Thurber,” a popular oldies show broadcast on WRCT-FM (88.3) in Pittsburgh and simulcast on Tube City Online Radio in McKeesport. The program airs on Saturdays from 12 to 3 p.m. and features a mix of vintage hits from the late 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, along with comedy segments, public service announcements, and occasional interviews. The show combines humor, nostalgia, and unique commentary, making it a favorite among local listeners.

Thurber’s broadcasting style emphasizes community connection, and he frequently incorporates local history and culture into his programming. The show originates from McKeesport, with a focus on preserving the charm of classic radio while embracing modern platforms to reach a broader audience.

For more details, you can explore his website or listen to his broadcasts through WRCT or Tube City Online Radio.

Somewhat surprisingly, this is probably 90 percent correct, with the caveat that I do not consider my show “popular” (I love you, my listeners, but any given show on KDKA or WDVE has 100 to 1,000 times the audience that I do) and I don’t consider myself a “media personality” (some would say I have to get a personality first).

The maddening thing about A.I. that’s currently being forced on us by big technology companies is that it sometimes gets things right. I’ve been on the radio in Pittsburgh since 2000, and that summary of my show is probably better than anything that’s ever been written about my broadcasting work.

But too often, A.I. gets things horribly, horribly wrong. It tells people to make sandwiches using ant poison as an ingredient. It tells people to put glue on their pizza.

Imagine if your company made toasters, and you developed a new kind of toaster. Fifty percent of the time, it makes toast that is perfect and delicious. Twenty percent of the time, the toast is either a little bit too dark or a little bit too cold.

And 30 percent of the time, the toaster catches fire and injures the person using it.

You probably wouldn’t dare try to sell that toaster. You’d be afraid your company would be sued out of existence.

But big technology companies like Google (Alphabet) and Facebook (Meta) do this kind of crap all of the time. They put out products that malfunction in horrifying ways maybe 30 percent of the time, and then they blame the users. They take no responsibility for their own actions or for the horrible consequences. (Tesla is perhaps the poster-child in this category.)

A large percentage of Americans believe complete made-up horseshit about vaccines, elections, immigrants, LGBTQ people, teachers, the Moon landing, the climate, electric cars, cancer cures, and scores of other topics. In some cases — as with people trying out dangerous cancer cures such as “black salve,” or not giving their children life-saving vaccines to protect against polio or measles or COVID — this horseshit is literally killing people.

Yet Google (via YouTube) and Facebook have turned themselves into giant, highly profitable horseshit delivery mechanisms. Do they not care?

In fact, I’ve been told by people who work for Google and Facebook that they do care. It’s just that they believe “the marketplace of ideas” needs to be free. Some of them have even quoted Thomas Jefferson: “Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

The best ideas, they tell me, will win in the marketplace of ideas.

Well, that’s fine, except that Google and Facebook have sucked up the advertising money that once fueled actual news gathering and journalism.

At the same time they are enabling misinformation and deliberate lies, they are disemboweling truthful information. The errors of opinion run rampant and get wealthy fleecing the gullible. Reason is out in the alley, begging for scraps.

And Thomas Jefferson lived in an era when the printed pamphlet was the fastest way to distribute opinions. You needed a human printer to print those pamphlets. Ben Franklin and other printers exercised editorial control over what came off of their presses. Google and Facebook don’t.

Yes, the Internet has made wonderful things possible. That’s the 50 percent of the time when we’re getting perfect toast.

But the rest of the time — when big Internet companies are spreading complete misinformation, and enabling Nazis and white supremacists and fascists and authoritarians to take power around the world — I have to question whether the occasional slice of warm bread is worth the price we’re currently paying.

Edited to Add: Technology journalist Ed Zitron writes extremely lucidly about complicated topics such as A.I., and why these technologies don’t live up to their promise as implemented by giant conglomerates. Check out his latest entry at his blog, Where’s Your Ed At?

(This is a political rant. If that’s not your cup of tea, best to skip it.)

I’ve been saying for a long time that the United States has late-stage Soviet Union energy right now. The system is broken and isn’t working for the average person.

Continue reading “Throw the bums out! Get a different set of bums!”