Author: jh staff

Children of the Lockdown

It’s been almost three and a half years since public health officials first urged the locking down of America in order to prevent the spread of a virus.

As talk of a possible repeat scenario grows louder, perhaps it might be prudent to stop and reflect on what we have gone through psychologically, socially, and emotionally, particularly our children.

When the lockdown was implemented, some prominent professionals questioned the policy. For doing so, they were maligned and sometimes even censored.

Dr. Martin Kulldorff (Harvard), Dr. Sunetra Gupta (Oxford), and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford) are three highly qualified epidemiologists, who at a pivotal point in history came together to publish a document.

The document, titled the Great Barrington Declaration, made the case that lockdowns have a deleterious effect upon children. Additionally, an argument was made that denying children the opportunity to attend school was particularly harmful.

The scholars were subsequently disparaged by public officials and certain media figures, as if there were some kind of effort in place to avoid open debate of the document’s content.

In recent coverage of the “Twitter files,” journalist and former New York Times reporter Bari Weiss brought to light the story of Dr. Bhattacharya, whose social media accounts were systematically banned.

Evidently, the professor of health policy at Stanford University ended up becoming one of the victims of high-tech suppression.

Dr. Bhattacharya, who holds both an MD and PhD from Stanford, had published 135 articles in top peer-reviewed scientific journals of medicine, economics, health policy, epidemiology, statistics, law, and public health. The doctor was treated outrageously for having countered the lockdown narrative.

Weiss documented how Dr. Bhattacharya was attacked and censored for asserting that the lockdowns could cause harm to children.

“Still trying to process my emotions on learning that @twitter blacklisted me. The thought that will keep me up tonight: censorship of scientific discussion permitted policies like school closures & a generation of children were hurt,” the Stanford professor tweeted.

During a podcast, Dr. Bhattacharya also spoke of the cost to the children as a result of the lockdowns and school closings, calling them “devastating” and “almost unimaginable.”

He pointed to Sweden as a compelling case study.

“Sweden did better than most countries, certainly better than the United States, despite not putting in place school closures and a whole host of lockdown-related policies,” he said.

The doctor revealed that shortly after the Great Barrington Declaration had gained attention he received hate mail and death threats.

Time, of course, has passed, and although Dr. Bhattacharya’s ideas were once rejected and hidden away, data have been gathered, indicating he was correct.

Here’s a look at some additional studies:

— Nine researchers published a systematic review, using multiple databases from December 2019 to December 2020. The review is titled “Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health of children and adolescents: A systematic review of survey studies.”

It showed that the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of children and adolescents was multifaceted and substantial. Survey studies indicated that anxiety, depression, loneliness, stress, and tension were the most-observed symptoms of children and adolescents during this time period.

Thirty-five survey studies involving 65,508 participants, ages 4 to 19 years-old, revealed anxiety (28%), depression (23%), loneliness (5%), stress (5%), fear (5%), tension (3%), anger (3%), fatigue (3%), confusion (3%), and worry (3%) to be the most common mental health issues reported.

— Another recent study from the University of Virginia Health showed that suicide attempts among children (via overdose) rose sharply during the pandemic.

The rate of suicide attempts (via poisoning) reported to U.S. poison centers among children and adolescents ages 10 to 19 showed an increase of 30 percent during the year 2021, when compared to 2019.

2021 was the first full year of the pandemic and its attendant lockdowns. The rate of suspected attempts by intentional poisoning among children ages 10 to 12 showed an increase of 73 percent, when compared to the year 2019.

“These findings suggest that the mental health of children and adolescents might still be affected by the pandemic, raising concerns about long-term consequences, especially given that previous attempted suicide has been found to be the strongest predictor of subsequent death by suicide,” the researchers wrote.

— Boston Children Hospital epidemiologist Dr. Mainuna Majumder and colleagues assembled data from 14 states on suicides in 2020. Findings indicated that 10 to 19-year-olds accounted for a more significant share of suicides in 2020 than in prior years, with percentages going from 5.9 in 2015 through 2019 to 6.5 in 2020 (a statistically significant increase of 10 percent). The study appears in JAMA Pediatrics.

The two-year study period (spanning 2019 through 2020) looked at approximately 3,800 children, ages 4 to 18, who were admitted to inpatient units for mental health-related reasons. In the year prior to the pandemic, 50 percent of admitted patients had suicidal ideation or had made suicidal attempts. This figure jumped to 60 percent during the first year of the pandemic.

— A separate study by the communication charity I CAN asked primary and secondary school teachers across England, Scotland, and Wales about the impact of lockdowns on their pupils.

I CAN found over two-thirds (67 percent) of primary school teachers believe the children they teach had fallen behind in their speaking and/or understanding and were worried that these pupils would not be able to catch up.

The I CAN data indicated that 1.5 million children were having difficulties with speech and comprehension.

— Independent provider of mental health services Cygnet Health Care, which operates over 150 centers with more than 2,500 beds across the UK, recently provided important data regarding the mental health of children who had suffered lockdowns.

Data indicated referrals to Cygnet’s psychiatric intensive care units in its hospitals that treat children and adolescents had more than doubled between 2019 and 2022. Following the lockdowns, young people were referred for problems that included low mood, insomnia, stress, anxiety, anger, irritability, emotional exhaustion, depression, and post-traumatic stress symptoms.

— A recent study in the UK by the Institute of Fiscal Studies and University College London connected children’s social and emotional development with the lockdown-related employment status of their parents.

Forty-seven percent of parents reported that their children’s social and emotional skills had declined during the pandemic. Fifty-two percent of children 4 to 7 years-old experienced a decline in social and emotional skills, and 42 percent of 12-15 year-olds reported the same.

Proof of collateral damage to children due to lockdowns continues to surface. Still, many public health officials and politicians seem to be urging a revival of the lockdown policy.

In retrospect, the doctors and other professionals who were disparaged and/or censored were accurate in their assessments of the negative effects of lockdowns on school-aged children.

Millions of young people could have been spared the negative psychological, social, emotional, and academic ramifications of the lockdowns.

Heaven forbid that we have a repeat of this history.

Voice of the Silent Unwoke Majority

The need to speak is fundamental.

Whether accomplished through verbal, non-verbal, or myriad other means of connecting, communication is a rudimentary part of just being human.

Even if denied we remain resilient, and we try again to hear and be heard.

Despite recent efforts to inhibit free communication, our human connection was made manifest, albeit in a roundabout way, as necessity dictated.

An analysis of consumer choices that have been made over the past several months is providing a window into repressed public opinion.

To put it plainly, the silent unwoke majority sure seems to have found its voice.

We can hear it in the consumer purchasing activity of wildly popular music, movies, and streaming products, including Jason Aldean’s “Try This in a Small Town” music chart-topper, Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” download phenomenon, “The Sound of Freedom” motion picture triumph, and “The Chosen” series streaming success.

In a free marketplace, brands can quickly become tainted if companies do things that their customers find offensive. Retail giant Target is the latest company to hear the silent unwoke majority’s roar.

Recently, the company reported its first sales and revenue decline in six years, with comparable sales in its second quarter falling more than 5%, when compared to last year. It suffered a drop in number of transactions as well.

The plunge in sales occurred following a boycott by those who were outraged at the store’s promotion of transgender ideology and related merchandise for children as well as adults.

Target’s CEO told investors that the company’s sales fell because of “multiple headwinds” that had slowed down business. However, the biggest cause of the company’s woes is most likely the corporate decision to go woke.

One of Target’s merchandise partners, U.K.-based brand Abprallen, was discovered to have produced apparel depicting satanic imagery. Even though the demon-draped items were not sold at Target, the partnership appears to have intensified the anger that had fueled the original boycott.

Similarly, Bud Light continues to suffer financially from a boycott that was prompted by the decision to associate the formerly popular beer with a transgender social media personality.

Needless to say, the customer base was not pleased by the company’s woke left turn. Bud Light sales dropped more than 25% for the week ending August 5, with volumes down nearly 30%.

It is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev, which has found its entire portfolio of beers severely hurt in the woke implementation process. Anheuser-Busch InBev shares fell 6% during a six-month period, while the S&P 500 had simultaneously gone up 8%.

Bud Light’s losses led the company to place its marketing vice president on leave, and hundreds of workers had to be let go.

Disney is another company that has severely damaged its brand, incoming revenue, and reputation, particularly when it comes to its most needed fans; i.e., the paying population of parents, grandparents, and guardians. The Mouse House is currently more famous for its family-unfriendly content, and its political stance against the State of Florida’s child-protecting education bill.

With their significant losses following multiple boycotts by the silent unwoke majority, Target, Bud Light, and Disney now serve as cautionary tales for other business concerns.

If avoiding a similar fate is the goal, the above-described consumer reaction provides an ideal lesson for companies that are thinking about implementing woke practices and policies.

In order to preserve their valuable brands, companies need to be extra attentive to the potential minefield of a polarized society amplified by social media.

Additionally, possessing a basic knowledge of the human need to relate to one another, and actually caring about the beliefs, attitudes, and aspirations of the customers to which you cater, are simple common sense business axioms.

The voice of the silent unwoke majority may not exactly be music to the ears of woke corporations.

But it sure sounds sweet to those of us who still live free.

Oliver Anthony’s Blue Collar Anthem Rockets to Number One

Truths, especially those that have been suppressed, often have a way of emerging in the form of a song.

With one finger on an instrument and another on the pulse of a culture, a gifted songwriter is able to capture a moment, compose melody, and pen lyrics. With the luck of the draw, the creation may even become a musical soundtrack for its times.

This just happened in the life of former factory worker and off-the-grid farmer Oliver Anthony.

He performed an original song for an audience comprised of his dogs. The instant the video was uploaded to the web, Oliver’s world changed forever.

Just days ago the Virginia singer-songwriter was unknown to the general public. Now he has the number one song on iTunes. It’s called “Rich Men North of Richmond.”

It turns out that Oliver writes his songs from a 90-acre piece of land in Farmville, about an hour outside of Richmond, the place that he and his trio of canines call home.

A performance video of “Rich Men North of Richmond,” which was posted by radiowv, currently has more than 8.4 million YouTube views.

The footage shows him singing while strumming an acoustic guitar. His song is blue-collar music at its best, twangy, bluesy, and soul-stirring. The distinctive country tune speaks the language of average folks and puts into words their feelings of frustration with those who are running the country.

It opens with the following lines:

“I’ve been selling my soul

Working all day

Overtime hours

For bull—- pay.”

Reflecting the discontent with the present economic reality and the fallout from unjust governmental policies, Oliver goes on to sing, “Lord, it’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to for people like me and people like you.”

One of the most compelling lines in the song points to the surreal nature of life these days, with the words, “Wish I could wake up and it not be true, but it is, oh it is. Living in the new world with an old soul.”

In a separate YouTube introduction video that he posted, Oliver shares that the performance video of “Rich Men North of Richmond” is “the first song to get out there that’s been recorded on a real microphone and a real camera, and not just on my cell phone.”

He also shares that prior to finding his musical mission he had “wasted a lot of nights getting high and getting drunk, and I had sort of gotten to a point in my life where even things that I did care about didn’t mean anything to me anymore.”

Invoking a famed TV psychologist, he adds, “This is certainly no Dr. Phil episode, but I found an outlet in this music. I started uploading a couple of songs.”

He voices his concerns about the difficulties folks face in having to pay high taxes while experiencing the falling dollar.

“No matter how hard they push and how much effort they put into whatever it is they’re doing, they just quite can’t get ahead because the dollar’s not worth enough, it’s being over-taxed,” he states.

He draws attention to the horrific situation in the world involving our precious children.

“One of the worst things a human being can do is take advantage of a child,” he says. “I think I drew the line on being quiet when I started to see that becoming normalized. And I’ll leave that at that.”

He explains that “in the last part of the song, it touches on suicide rates and really on mental health and depression.” He goes on to express that “there’s no reason why young men or women in this country should be committing suicide. There’s obviously a problem. People talk about epidemics in this country — the homelessness and the drug use and the lack of skilled labor…”

He also notes that he sits “pretty dead center down the aisle on politics” and that “it seems like both sides serve the same master — and that master is not someone of any good to the people of this country.”

Kari Lake shared her love of Oliver’s song on Twitter/X, posting, “I can’t listen to Oliver Anthony’s ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ without getting chills.” She added, “It’s raw, it’s true, & it’s touching the hearts of men & women across this great nation.”

Country music singer-songwriter John Rich actually made a recent offer to produce Oliver’s album.

Meanwhile, left-leaning media are trying to sully the song. For example, Rolling Stone published a piece titled “Right-Wing Influencers Just Found Their Favorite New Country Song,” characterizing the tune as a “passionate screed against the state of the country.”

News bulletin: His song is music to the ears of millions of Americans whose voices have been suppressed and who have simply been suffering in silence.

8.4 million views and counting is the exclamation point.

Lessons on Communism from ‘Doctor Zhivago’

Artistic works oftentimes reflect the times in which they are created.

Music, books, films, and the like, particularly those that endure the test of time, may serve as vessels of information, entertainment, and enlightenment for a culture.

Some artistic works may reveal truths that governments with malicious intent would rather suppress.

“Doctor Zhivago” is a 1957 novel penned by Russian author Boris Pasternak.

Pasternak’s book made its debut on the big screen in 1965 under the same title. The film was produced by Carlo Ponti, directed by David Lean, and stars Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, and Geraldine Chaplin, among others.

The widely read best seller is actually one of the most famously censored pieces of literature.

The author embedded in his work the notion that every person is entitled to a private life and deserves respect as a human being. This was fundamentally irreconcilable with the communist maxim that the individual must be sacrificed to the collective.

Consequently, the book was banned in the old Soviet Union, and the movie was not allowed to be made there. Instead it was filmed mostly in Spain.

The then-Soviet government hid the book from the Russian people, because the “Doctor Zhivago” story explicitly reveals the dark truths of communist tyranny.

The communists censored anything that had the capacity to hinder their despotic drive for political power.

Like those who preceded them, the Soviet tyrants did nothing to restrict individuals that parroted the establishment narrative.

However, when it came to those whose speech constituted a threat to their power, they routinely demonized, silenced them, or worse.

According to a book by Peter Finn and Petra Couvée called “The Zhivago Affair,” Pasternak thought his novel would never be published in the old Soviet Union, because of the manner in which authorities viewed it. So the author gave the manuscript to an Italian publishing scout, which ultimately led to Pasternak’s book becoming a global best seller.

De-classified documents have revealed that, during the late 1950s, the CIA actually distributed copies of his novel to Soviet citizens in order to spread the word about communism’s inherent dangers.

Providentially, the movie became one of the top-grossing films of all time and ranks high on most of the lists of best movies ever made. In 1966 it was awarded five Oscars.

It is the backstory of “Doctor Zhivago,” though, that makes the book and film so notable and amazingly timely.

It tells the story of a Moscow physician-poet, who struggles to cope with the changing landscape of his homeland as a group of communist commissars literally take over the country.

The film stars Sharif in the title role, while Julie Christie portrays his love interest Larissa “Lara” Antipova.

“Doctor Zhivago” uses a flashback technique, with the main character’s half-brother narrating the tale of his search to find his niece, who is the daughter of Lara and Yuri.

Early in the movie young Yuri is orphaned. His only earthly possession is a Russian stringed instrument that he inherited, the balalaika, which weaves its way through the film’s musical score.

The youth is taken in by friends of his family, Alexander and Anna Gromeko, and is subsequently moved to Moscow.

He grows up to become a doctor and soon takes Tonya, daughter of the Gromekos, as his wife.

During World War I, Yuri provides medical care to soldiers fighting on the battlefield. Lara enlists as a nurse. She eventually encounters the love of her life.

For the next six months they serve together at a field hospital, while unrest foments in Russia, following the return of exiled Vladimir Lenin.

Yuri and Lara fall deeply in love. The doctor initially remains faithful to wife Tonya, but passions eventually prevail.

One particularly meaningful scene in the movie occurs after Russia exits WWI. Yuri returns to his Moscow home only to find that the residence has been taken over by the Soviet government and now houses a large group of strangers.

Yuri’s dream of a privately-owned home has vanished. Now a dozen other families live in the space that the good doctor once had for himself and his family.

The chairman of the residence committee, Comrade Kaprugina, tells Yuri, “There was living space for 13 families in this one house.”

“Yes,” Yuri says. “Yes, this is a better arrangement, comrades. More just.”

His words, of course, are a lie that he is forced to say out loud. No longer does he have control over who lives in what was once his home.

He knew his poems had been condemned. He also knew the sheer ruthlessness of his nation’s captors. Now he lives in a place where truth no longer is permitted to be spoken in public.

“Doctor Zhivago” is worth watching and re-watching, not only because it is a great movie, but because it pertains to the present in a way that aptly illustrates how top-down government control can so easily slip into full-blown communism.

The Russian revolution divided the populace, pitting neighbor against neighbor, poor against rich, rural against urban, faith-filled against secular, and so on.

Community organizers consolidated power and eventually seized total control.

Media outlets joined forces in protection of the almighty state, working undercover as allies of the government in the public indoctrination business.

Children in schools were propagandized too, and parental rights were methodically stripped away.

Hundreds of millions were deprived of the right to speak, worship, and travel freely.

Under communism and its other unholy titles, people the world over have been subjected to man-made famines, forced labor, deadly purges, show trials, extrajudicial executions, lethal gulags, and outright genocide.

The infamous track record of communism speaks for itself.

Americans used to fight against the political leviathan with everything in them, rushing to rescue citizens of other nations in peril as well.

In the end, we pray that we will still be able to say, individually and collectively, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)

AI Is Stealing Hollywood Jobs

Believe it or not the Hollywood strike is still going on.

The problem for the members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) is that right now almost nobody is paying attention to their plight.

Yes, the picket lines continue to be manned and the press conferences rage on. But something very different is going on behind the scenes.

The current strikes were initially prompted by the usual compensation-related concerns. However, this time the central issue revolves around the role that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to play in the future creation, production, and marketing of entertainment content.

In terms of the negotiations between labor and management, the situation is truly unprecedented, due to the technological elephant in the room.

Strikers are seeking an agreement that would set up guardrails across the industry in relation to the expanding application of AI technology.

Advances in AI are testing the law, especially when it comes to the manner in which courts are applying, interpreting, and ruling in cases that involve intellectual property.

Comedian Sarah Silverman recently brought a lawsuit in federal court against Meta and OpenAI for copyright infringement. The case is part of a proposed class action lawsuit.

Silverman in particular alleges that, without having given her consent, books that she had authored were included in the technology’s training data.

No question that actors and writers have legitimate reasons to fear the loss of their livelihoods. After all, AI has the potential to allow studios to simulate the likenesses and voices of actors in perpetuity, without ever having to compensate individuals for the use of their personal identities, characteristics, personas, etc.

Let’s not forget that AI also has the ability to create screenplays, minus the human writers.

In relation to the strike, SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher, best known for her starring role in the 1990s sitcom “The Nanny,” stated the following: “If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble, we are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.”

Bob Iger, who is currently a prime target of the unions, is on record as specifically having stated the drawings and videos generated by AI are “something that at some point in the future the company [Disney] will embrace.”

While speaking to a crowd gathered in Times Square, actor Bryan Cranston aimed his comment directly at Disney’s CEO, saying, “We’ve got a message for Mr. Iger. I know, sir, that you look at things through a different lens. We don’t expect you to understand who we are. But we ask you to hear us, and beyond that to listen to us when we tell you we will not be having our jobs taken away and given to robots.”

Union workers typically strike in order to increase leverage for negotiations with management.

The sad truth for both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA is that the recent strikes have increased the incentive for Hollywood employers to find ways in which they can actually prevent future strikes.

Despite the rhetoric of studio reps, AI technology equips entertainment employers to potentially avoid future strikes altogether, via drastic reductions or the complete elimination of conventional creative workers.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), i.e., the studios’ organization, has taken the position that AI should be used in what the group calls “a balanced approach based on careful use, not prohibition.”

Judging by actions as opposed to words, it appears that the major studios are tacitly embracing AI.

As a matter of fact, an AI hiring spree is currently taking place and almost every major entertainment company is involved.

— Disney has a number of open positions that focus on AI and machine learning.

— Netflix has similar job offerings, including an AI Product Manager job that promises an annual salary of up to $900,000.

— Sony is looking for what the company refers to as an AI “ethics” engineer.

— Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount, and NBCUniversal have also joined in the AI hiring boom with their own job offerings.

It seems quite significant that Hollywood studios are seeking to fill AI jobs; this in the midst of strikes that have occurred over AI’s use itself. Tack this on to the fact that workers are having to witness layoffs that may prove to be the largest in the history of the entertainment business, including the firing of about 7,000 Disney employees.

From ancient past to present day, new inventions have historically caused the displacement of workers.

Again, though, something very different is going on. And it probably has to do with the philosophical, political, societal, cultural, and ethical transformations that are occurring simultaneously in our country and in the world.

The Hollywood strikes are likely to last a long time and may not bring a satisfactory outcome to the unions’ memberships.

So goes Hollywood, so goes the world?

Country Music Artist Jason Aldean’s Cancel Counterpunch

Country music is a genre unique to the American culture.

Up until recent times it is has served as an extraordinarily enduring American soundtrack, one that both musically and lyrically has been able to capture the spirit that lives in the down-home heart.

The blend of folk, gospel, and blues first sprouted in small southern and western towns. It soon came into full artistic bloom, not only reflecting a kind of blue-collar melodic score but also mirroring beliefs, attitudes, and values of working class society.

Music is one of the other-worldly aspects of human nature. And so it is that an essential component of any great musical composition is truth.

As in every other artistic field, country music artists have historically used their talents to share thoughts and opinions via the distinct language of the heartland.

Unfortunately, today’s country music scene is vastly different from years past. I know because I have lived it, not in cowboy hat-style but in a folk, gospel, and blues artist way.

Jason Aldean is a superstar country music singer, with 27 number one hits and several top-selling albums. He recently released a song that threw him smack in the middle of the cancel-culture battle.

Aldean’s recent single “Try That In a Small Town” came out in May 2023, but went with little mention in the non-music press.

Then in July the music video was released. That’s when the artist as well as the song came under heavy mainstream media and social media attack.

In a Twitter post accompanying the video, Aldean indicated that the song represented an “unspoken rule” that is embraced by residents of small towns.

“We all have each other’s backs and we look out for each other,” he said.

This sentiment is conveyed in the song’s plain-spoken lyrics:

“Well, try that in a small town

See how far you make it down the road

Around here we take care of our own

You cross that line, it won’t take long

For you to find out, I recommend you don’t.”

It appears that Aldean’s detractors may have been lying in wait to pounce on him. His wife and sister had launched a clothing line with conservative threads, and he himself had been photographed playing golf with none other than USA’s 45th president.

The video includes footage from the Summer of 2020, where flags were burned, cars were smashed, businesses were vandalized, police were abused, etc.

The left responded in what has become routine fashion, slapping a bigoted label on the art and the artist.

The tragic incidents of 2020 and the brutal crimes that continue to ravage major cities have been minimized and/or completely ignored by dominant left-leaning media outlets.

Aldean’s artistic inclusion of depictions of events seems to have really hit a nerve. It has elicited what is clearly an over-the-top response from the left.

— Democrat Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones characterized the tune as a “heinous song calling for racist violence.”

— Some of Aldean’s peers have piled on, including former pop singer-turned-country music artist Sheryl Crow.

— Country Music Television (CMT), the cable TV channel that once upon a time was dedicated to country music, pulled the “Try That In a Small Town” video after bots on social media lobbed racist remarks. As a result, countless country fans are now giving CMT the Bud Light treatment.

— Nashville’s E3 Chophouse has banished CMT from its TV sets. The restaurant happens to be owned by the families of country singer Luke Bryan, former baseball player Adam LaRoche, and Aldean himself.

“We will not air CMT at any of our restaurants until a formal apology is made and Jason’s music video is reinstated,” the restaurant’s Twitter account stated.

Aldean used his personal Twitter account to push back against the unfair accusations.

“There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it,” he wrote. “Try That In A Small Town, for me, refers to the feeling of a community that I had growing up, where we took care of our neighbors, regardless of differences of background or belief.”

Country music star Travis Tritt is defending his colleague, expressing his respect and admiration for “Try That In A Small Town.”

“IMO, this song isn’t promoting violence as some have suggested. It is simply expressing a point of view that many American people share which is against the obvious violence that we have seen from the likes of so many ‘activists groups’ in this country in recent years and the belief shared by millions that this behavior would not be tolerated by many people in many places across the USA. God bless America and all the people in it,” Tritt wrote.

Former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard offered some spirited support, tweeting, “The outrage around @Jason_Aldean ‘Try That in a Small Town’ is the latest round fired in the ‘woke’ war against freedom. Their attacks reveal the Democrat elite’s true values – violent looters during BLM protests can run free, but a song about respecting the flag & taking care of your neighbors is heresy and must be cancelled.”

The American people are speaking the loudest of all. “Try That in a Small Town” is No. 1 on iTunes.

Aldean performed the song at a recent concert in Cincinnati. In his intro, he directly took on his adversaries, saying, “I feel like everybody’s entitled to their opinion. You can think something all you want to — that doesn’t mean it’s true, right?”

“What I am is a proud American,” he continued. “I’m proud to be from here. I love our country. I want to see it restored to what it once was before all this bull**** started happening to it.”

Aldean’s small town is proving to be mighty big in a lot more ways than one.

The “USA! USA!” chants from the concert crowd were more than just a show of support for the country music artist.

They were a great big “Thank You!” to Jason Aldean from down-home hearts across America and around the globe.

Hidden Blessing in the Hollywood Shutdown

Hollywood sets have gone dark.

A central reason for the recent Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) strike is that actors, writers, and other entertainment artists are super nervous about Artificial Intelligence (AI) making them and their jobs obsolete.

When the strike was first announced, current president of SAG-AFTRA Fran Drescher was at the mike to address the press.

Drescher, the former lead actress of the 1990s hit TV sitcom “The Nanny,” heads the union that boasts a membership of over 160,000 film and television actors.

Interestingly, the writers union had gone on strike a couple of months back. But now that SAG-AFTRA has also taken to the picket line, the situation in Hollywood is looking pretty bleak.

The last time both unions were on strike simultaneously was over sixty years ago, when none other than then-actor (who ultimately turned President of the United States) Ronald Reagan was wearing the union president’s hat.

Like every other aspect of our lives, things presently appear to be out of whack.

The brand of Hollywood itself is in tatters, in large part because of the cultural and political agendas that permeate every nook and cranny of the town.

What has particularly outraged the public, though, are the productions that have been coming from major studios, chock-full of vile and inappropriate imagery, content, and messaging aimed straight at our kids and teens.

Could the Hollywood shutdown created by the two entertainment unions be a blessing in disguise?

A lot of consumers of entertainment fare are viewing it this way, as if maybe a wrench in the works was exactly what was needed to stop the madness.

Striking actors and writers have reason to be concerned about the capability of AI models to supplant human beings in the manufacture of entertainment products.

Creative types are also increasingly astonished at the sheer capabilities of generative AI models, which can digitally produce what would typically have been created by human beings, but in a faster and less expensive way.

AI ingests the works and images of human artists as part of its training data. The technology can then alter and/or mash-up content, allowing entertainment companies to avoid compensating the people who originally created the works or were even the subjects of images used.

Additionally, other creative types such as musicians and visual artists are carefully watching the entertainment biz battle, as are all those who work in an array of fields that will no doubt be affected by AI’s implementation.

We are already witnessing the technological replacement of human beings in a host of industries. Still, the entertainment business has a unique opportunity to do something helpful for society at large.

The manner in which Hollywood resolves the two strikes could set the marker, not only for the entertainment industry but for other businesses as well.

Digitally created trailers and scenes featuring what appear to be well known actors have popped up all over the internet. The virtual phenom is posing legal and ethical concerns that the unions are obliged to address.

At a recent press conference, Drescher warned, “If we don’t stand tall right now, we are all going to be in trouble. We are all going to be in jeopardy of being replaced by machines.”

SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland indicated during a press conference that a proposal by the studios would put background performers at a terrible disadvantage.

“They propose that our background performers should be able to be scanned, get paid for one day’s pay, and their company should own that scan of their image, their likeness, and should be able to use it for the rest of eternity,” Crabtree-Ireland said.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), which represents major studios including Walt Disney and Netflix, issued a statement suggesting that the claim made by SAG-AFTRA leadership is untrue.

An AMPTP spokesperson told ZDNET that the use of digital replicas would be restricted to the specific motion picture for which the actor is employed, and that any additional use would require the actor’s permission.

“Any other use requires the background actor’s consent and bargaining for the use, subject to a minimum payment,” the spokesperson stated.

This strike over AI is just the opening scene.

Sit yourself down and get ready for a real-life epic drama.

Only this time you’re not going to be able to say, “Don’t worry. It’s only a movie.”