To News or Not to News... That is the Question.

Since the advent of candidate Trump, we’ve heard much about “fake news.”  On the one side is a bias media claiming since they all report the same thing they are real news and everything else is fake, and on the other we have those who disagree with the mainstream media claiming the mainstream reporting is fake and the only real news is what they say.  The reality is no one reports the news anymore, everyone reports their opinion of an event and we as consumers now cherry pick the opinions we like as real, and the opinions we don’t as fake.

For example, President Obama entered into an agreement with Iran.  It was never sanctioned by the Senate so it was never more than an executive agreement to release funds held by the US since the original Iranian Crisis in 1979 and place his faith in the Iranians they would live up to their promises.  This week President Trump chose to rescind that agreement.  I assume to support the desires of more reliable allies in the Middle East, as well as send a message to Iran that we don’t believe them to be operating in good faith. 

In the preceding paragraph, the only news was President Trump undoing a previous President’s decision.  The rest was opinion and conjecture.  The media reports opinions as if they are news and everyone reacts with the same shock, disbelief, or support as if the pundits, politician’s, or even their own opinions have been carried down from a mountain etched in stone tablets.

What we see today is a direct result of an administration that made a calculated political choice and lost.  The Obama administration chose to by-pass the constitutional process and govern by executive fiat.  He was not the first to do this, but his choices to do so were carried a lot further than previous administrations.  He went so far as to brag about his phone and his pen as if they were all that was necessary to govern.

It was obvious, at least to the Democrats, they would remain in power at least through the coronation of HRC, but somehow, they miscalculated and DJT stepped in.  Now as his pen and his phone undo the legacy of the Obama years there is a cry from the politically displaced that the end of the world is at hand.  The one glimmer of hope for the Democrats is that at some point the Donald will leave office, and it is historically safe to say the population will grow weary of the Republicans and they will elect another Democrat.  That is assuming the DNC can find one that appeals to the independent voters as being somewhat reasonable (at least on the surface).  Right now, no one I see in the DNC meets that criteria.

As you read this opinion I welcome you to view it as either fake or real news.  Your choice.

The Road Not Taken

All things are possible.  Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)

“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” (a quote made famous by Robert Oppenheimer originally from the 1944 Prabhavanada and Isherwood Translation of the Bhagavad Gita[1])

As we look toward the future there are always two options.  We can look forward to a better future with optimism, or we can see the deep, depressing gloom of a world lost.  The question each of us must answer individually is which path shall I take?

It is so easy in today’s world to choose the darker path because those who feed the information stream scream out all the ills of the world.  There are a variety of motivations for this, profit, fame, pettiness, or just selfish pleasure, but in the end, it all contributes to pushing us towards the negative.

For me, Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” serves as a guide to follow my own heart and not be persuaded by the shouts of those who find pleasure in their own voices.

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[1] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/now-i-am-become-death-the-destroyer-of-worlds

Doubling Down

Here we are a month after the inauguration of President Trump and CNN has this headline.  New executive order may be a pivotal moment for Trump's vision of presidency. I guess I should be used to the hyperbole and exaggerations that are now touted as “real news” by the mainstream news agencies of ABCNNBCBS, but it still intrigues me that they can be so self-absorbed to not realize the damage they are doing to their brand when they are patently one-sided in their reporting.

And of course they bring in Christine Amanpour interviewing the Iranian Foreign Minister to get Iran’s view of the President.  My favorite line?  “Iran responds very well to mutual respect.”  But of course, that would be as they define mutual respect.  When you’re the “Great Satan” I am not sure how that mutual respect thing really works.

Scott Adams has a good video on the dialogues now playing out in the MSM.  

On a Cold and Wintery Night (Relatively Speaking)

Emily Litella (AKA Gilda Radner) must be looking down on us with a sly smile and the bewildered look of hers when the real issue was finally explained by Jane Curtain.  We see this week’s focus of the media is “fake news.”  I say this week because the media has been shown to be ADD when it comes to long term coverage of any issue.  For example, how long did they cover “Deepwater Horizon” after the fire was put out and the oil stopped globing up our beaches?  How much coverage have we seen of the Standing Rock fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline, or the coverage of the Stein/Clinton recount efforts? 

But now, Brian Williams is going to lead the fight to insure only real honest news is approved and reported.  I have got to hand it to NBC and its affiliates, if you are pushing a meme go all in with your best faker.  Someone who knows exactly what to look for in the fake news department.

I am instilled with such confidence!  The next four years offer much in the way of stupid news broadcasting from those brilliant journalists of ABCNNBCBS, and in the print WP/NYT as they sort out which fake news to declare as real and which to condemn as really, really, fake.