TOTUS RULES!

You didn’t hear the horns blowing, but TOTUS--Teleprompter of the United States of America--is here. Rush Limbaugh said it first. While you were busy trying to save your job, your house, your family and your faith in America, TOTUS had already morphed from POTUS. It was a clever enough shtick because you can’t shout down a teleprompter. Call it a liar all you want, it will just continue on to the next paragraph in the text. TOTUS is not just missing promised transparency, Hope and Change, it has absolutely no human feelings. Like a robot, it just scrolls right on.

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The Age of TOTUS is not to be confused with with the long ago era of Emperor Titus, known for destroying the city and temple of Jerusalem. But for the TOTUS ticked, Titus only lasted for two years (79-81 AD). While he had no teleprompter to fool the Roman masses, his reign was marred by two epic events, the Mount Vesuvius eruption and the Fire of Rome. Even so, Titus was deified by the Roman Senate. If you, like aging UBS news anchor Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch in the 1976 movie, Network, are “as mad as hell and are are not going to take it anymore”, there is no way you can really get even with TOTUS. TOTUS is part of the Hollywood environment in which we all now live. Everyone’s old at 27 and all the “real” people star in reality TV. You can’t vote TOTUS off the island. It’s Big Brother, Survivor and American Idol all rolled into one. Proof positive? TOTUS will pre-empt American Idol, prime time, 8 p.m., March 24 for what Drudge reports as “The Real American Idol”. It’s been eight long weeks of “Now you see him, now you don’t” with Barack Obama in the White House. Obama, The Real, is going to make history with Jay Leno as he becomes the first sitting president to appear on late night chat with the comedian/writer known as “The Chin”, tomorrow. The appearance of Obama, the Real will make another historical first--the first time he appears anywhere in public without his teleprompter! TOTUS was even there at the St. Patrick’s Day (whoops, make that Shamrock Day) party at the White House last night. TOTUS is king of the World and all the Teleprompters but works like Prompt! Teleprompter 7. “Prompt! is a simple teleprompter application for public speakers used by CEOs of banks, heads of religious organizations, radio dejays and alike either on camera or in front of a live audience. (freedownloadspace.com). “Prompt! gives you the additional sustain (their word) which provides that little bit of confidence one needs in a public speaking environment. When on-camera talent performs, they read what they speak from a teleprompter. Traditionally, this task is performed by a dedicated personal computer with an application to edit and scroll the text at a user driven speed using a piece of hardware called a scroller. The video output of the scrolling text is reflected from a half silvered (pellix) mirror and the camera shoots through the other side of the mirror so that the talent is looking into the camera but reading the reflection of the text . “This requires lots of hardware and software to achieve the same results as Prompt! and a laptop personal computer or personal computer monitor. By placing the laptop personal computer centrally located the talent and the camera, the talent can read text from the top of the laptop screen and still appear to be looking at the camera if the camera is far enough back using a long lens. Trial and error is the key to getting a natural look to this process but the further the camera is from the subject, the better.” Don’t know about the United Nations, Exxon, Coca-Cola, Disneyland, the CIA and Department of Homeland Security, who all speak to us chattering classes from the teleprompter, but TOTUS has a good reason for using his. It’s the “uhhh, uhh, umm, ahh..umm, errr...umm, uhh, ahhh, umm, err...umm, ah, I think, err, errr, umm, what I said was, um, uhh, errr...” Meanwhile, the only way to short circuit TOTUS is with a dose of tea.