Twofer Thursday: 1) Blogging About Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; and 2) Minimizing Our Video-Streaming Eco Footprint

A bill recently proposed by a Florida State Senator would compel anyone blogging about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to register on a special list, or face legal penalties. It might only be directed at bloggers who are PAID to write about Governor DeSantis. But how would “paid to write” be defined? Might it include any blogger who in a sense gets “paid to write,” in that we use our blogs to promote our creative products, services, and so on? A question worth asking.

Either way, here I am. A real live blogger in the wild. Assuming any of my seven followers (I love you all!) are seeing this post.

Furthermore, the proposed bill doesn’t just cover the governor, but other elected state officers too; it “defines ‘elected state officer’ as ‘the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Cabinet officer, or any member of the Legislature.'” Anyone blogging about any of them would have to register, and furthermore disclose who is paying them and how much.

The senator proposing this bill is State Senator Jason Brodeur. He’s young, 47 — just one year older than the governor. (Mentioning age because I usually associate this kind of stuff with rich old guys.) And this senator was born in Daytona Beach(!).

It has happened before in history that a sycophant of a dictatorially minded head honcho will propose laws that go further than the head honcho himself would. BTW I read that Brodeur was born in Daytona Beach and is 47 years old. He represents District 10 which covers Seminole and part of Orange. Someone in our local Facebookland circles probably knew/knows him. (Added later … and maybe would stand a chance of being able to talk some sense into him.)

There, now I just blogged about two elected state officials.

Speaking of our infamous governor … “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” is always hilariously incisive. But this episode might be my favorite ever, going into detail about why Governor DeSantis merits the latest nickname that former President Donald Trump has bestowed upon him, “Meatball Ron.”

Video length approx 20 min.

And yes, all human beings deserve compassion, including these guys. But so do all of the people they’re hurting by the ways in which they’re choosing to wield their power.

BTW speaking of video streaming … As we enter Earth Day season, I have a simple eco tip for you, courtesy of Simon Robson, writing on boredpanda.com (“I Went Low-Fi To Tell the Story of High Definition Carbon Emissions for Earth Day”):

Dad you know, if watching videos by streaming on our phones, we can reduce our bandwidth footprint (streaming energy and carbon emissions) by a whopping 75% by switching our streaming settings from HD (1080 pixels) to SD (720) with no noticeable loss of viewing quality?

I actually have mine set at THE LOWEST option, “Data Saver,” which on my phone is 240 pixels, and I still don’t notice any difference. I had actually been keeping mine on the low-bandwidth setting since this issue first came to my attention some years back, but forgot to do my settings when I had to get a new phone back in October after mine died for good. So it was good to be reminded!

Another setting we can play with is the video play speed. Particularly handy for shrinking the view time of longer videos.

Robson’s piece on boredpanda (which also showcases some of his low-bandwidth line-art) also has a link to the “Earth Definition” website earthdefinition.org, where we can learn more about addressing our digital carbon footprint.

March 10: Blog legislation update: Local blogger Mark Barker reports that Brodeur’s bill has been squashed. (For now.)