Categories
culture

When Entertainment Rules

Today in church the bishop gave a lesson on how to recognize and avoid the deception of the devil. One of the points that struck home with me (which was limited to that time when I was not chasing my son – I can’t wait for nursery) was how much of that deception comes in the form of apparently benign enticements which distract us from the truth. I made a mental connection with this comment from a liberal blogger:

The mainstream media in this country focused on the Presidential race like it was a football game. Clinton gains a first down but is called for off-sides. Obama gets called for a late hit. Ew, that’ll cost him. Oh no, Hillary fumbles the ball and turns the ball over to Obama.

That kind of thinking and effort seems to be par for the course for our so-called liberal media, which more resemble a propaganda network for the regime in power.

This reminded me of the message of Amusing Ourselves to Death. The book is over 20 years old and it’s still completely accurate. The difference between 1985 and 2008 is that we have more tools available to combat the passive ingestion of entertainment packaged as information. I don’t think that having a press that is nationalistic in its focus is inherently bad, but I fully agree with my blogging colleague that:

We have commercialized the press to the point that their reporting is gauged for viewership rather than accuracy and relevancy. This truly alarms me.

Categories
National politics

Bill Clinton Endorses Obama

I chuckled at the NBC report that Bill Clinton said the following about a general election campaign between Hillary Clinton and John McCain:

“I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country,” said the former president. “And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.”

Bill must not have spent much time in this country to honestly think that any election with the name Clinton on the Democratic ticket would be focused enough to allow people to “actually ask themselves who is right on these issues.” Then I got to this part:

Bill Clinton spokesperson Matt McKenna clarifies the former president’s comment: “Actually, as is indicated by the quote itself, President Clinton was talking about the need to talk about issues, rather than falsely questioning any candidate’s patriotism.”

I’ll take McKenna at his word. If President Clinton was talking about the need to talk about issues then he was endorsing Obama because an election with Obama leading the Democratic ticket has a much better chance of being allowed to address issues than one with Clinton.

Categories
culture

Ridiculous

Last week his boss had his career sunk by revelations of participation in prostitution. Now the new Governor of New York starts his term by confessing his past affairs. I’m not here to criticize Gov. Paterson – his affairs hold no interest for me (especially since he’s not my governor). What I think is ridiculous is our cultural obsession with this topic.

The reason he is making this confession is that he knows that it won’t hurt him politically unless someone else reports it first. The newspapers cover this on the front page when it really deserves nothing more than to be buried in the archives for historic reference. This front page coverage serves to reinforce the perception that every marriage encounters infidelity and therefore it’s not a big deal. Is this the message we want to send to the rising generation?

Categories
culture politics

Personal Political Perspectives

I’ve posted a couple of stories where people have given personal perspectives about politics that I thought were well considered. I recently discovered that NPR has a project called Get My Vote that is meant to allow people to share exactly these kinds o f personal perspectives.

NPR and public media want to hear about the concerns and convictions that motivate you in this election. Politics, as we say, is personal. Tell us about the issues that have touched your life. How have your experiences shaped your political beliefs and goals? What could someone do or say to get your vote?

I plan to look through things that are being posted over there to get a feel for what people are saying. If I get the chance I hope to share more stories of well considered personal perspectives.

Well considered is being defined as not blindly echoing a party line, but thoughtful and articulate in support of their position. Whether I agree with the position is not a requirement, although I honestly believe that there is less variance among thoughtful people (as opposed to reactionary ideologues) than the red/blue divide of media politics that we are constantly exposed to.

Categories
politics

Political Wrap-Around

I found Libertarians for Obama very interesting. I don’t consider myself to be a libertarian, though I have libertarian tendencies, but the points that were cited as places that Obama could score among libertarians are positions I generally agree with and I thought it was ironic that “the most liberal member of the Senate” could hold some positions that would resonate with the “anarchists” in the libertarian section of the political map.

This should serve as a reminder (as if we needed one) that the political spectrum is much more complex than a simple right/left, red/blue, republican/democrat, conservative/liberal line.

Categories
culture

More on Consumption

A great comment led me to this video – which everyone should see:

Categories
National politics

Rhetoric Overshadows Facts

The well titled post, The World Is Not Going To End This Weekend, illustrates how easily an issue can be skewed simply by blurring the facts. Quoting from a post at the Politico which contains the rhetoric surrounding the debate about extending the Protect America Act Timothy Lee goes on to show the truth:

. . .” a measure to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as the deadline approaches. The measure, which failed 191 to 229, would have extended the bill an additional three weeks”. . .

FISA is not expiring this weekend. FISA was passed in 1978 and isn’t slated to expire ever. What’s going to expire this weekend is the Protect America Act, which gave the president some additional spying powers beyond those he enjoyed under FISA. And in fact, even that is misleading, because all that’s really going to expire is the ability to authorize new surveillance activities. The PAA allowed the government to authorize surveillance programs for a year, which means that any surveillance programs that have already been approved will continue to be authorized until August at the earliest.

What this means is that the only real effect of the PAA’s expiration is that if a new terrorist suspect comes to the government’s attention, and he makes a phone call or sends an email that passes through the United States, then the government would need to fill out the extra paperwork required to get a FISA warrant in order to surveil that call. This paperwork can be filled out after the interception begins, so we’re not talking about the NSA missing any important phone calls, we’re just talking about [a bit more paperwork].

This same kind of fudging happens from activists on both sides of most issues. It’s no wonder that the average voter who only knows what they see in the media has such a hard time seeing any debate completely clearly. Their views are almost always being skewed based on the news they receive.

In the midst of all our government social engineering maybe we could make a law to outlaw such abstraction in our news – but I guess that would be counterproductive every time a politician wants to make an emotional appeal to the country.

Categories
National politics

The Real Standings

I can’t stand the way that the media has been talking up the Republican race is if it’s McCains to lose. The facts point to a race that is far from decided and less favorable to McCain than the news lets on. The current delegate counts are 97 for McCain and 92 for Romney with 1191 needed to win the nomination. It’s also rather pitiful to read the professions of the Huckabee campaign that they are in a close race with the front runners – they have 29 delegates.

Of the 8 nominating contests so far the results for each of the 4 remaining candidates are:

  • McCain
    • 3 wins
    • two 2nd place finishes
    • one each of 3rd, 4th, and 6th place
    • delegates from 5 of the states
  • Romney
    • 4 wins
    • three 2nd place finishes
    • one 4th place
    • delegates from 6 of the states
  • Huckabee
    • 1 win
    • one 2nd place finish
    • two 3rds, three 4ths, and one 5th place finish
    • delegates from 5 of the states
  • Paul
    • one each of 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 7th place
    • four 5th place finishes
    • delegates from 2 of the states

Don’t be fooled by the message of the media – Romney has every bit as good a chance at the nomination as McCain if not better. And don’t be fooled by the bravado of Huckabee – his best opportunity is to be a spoiler for Romney (those who still support him are unlikely to support McCain).

Categories
National politics

The Irony of Supressing Votes

I find it rather funny that we have such a fuss being raised about laws requiring voters to show ID at the polls that a case has to be heard by the Supreme Court on the issue. What strikes me is that:

  1. if we had more voters voting, whatever fraud the voter ID laws are meant to combat would have less effect in a larger pool of ballots
  2. the plantiffs have not demonstrated that this law has prevented anyone from voting
  3. voting fraud is more rare at the polling place than it is in absentee voting where no ID is required

This seems like another case of the law being used to address minutia

Categories
culture life

Breaking Up

When I saw a disturbing story about a woman shot to death by her estranged husband in my own city it obviously caught my attention. Worse yet, this is coming on the heels of me reading about the breakup of the Nephite society (3 Nephi 7) in the last couple of days. When I was reading that I had started to ask myself “could our society dissolve like that?” I also wondered about what that would actually mean in our time. my initial answer to that question was that yes, having our society dissolve into insular groups with independent standards of behavior is a more or less remote possibility for all societies.

After reading stories like I read today I have to admit that that power of society to create norms of behavior is weaker than we might think. It’s a stark reminder of how thin the line is between civilization and anarchy.