Where Does the Time Go?.

I started this blog a little over eight years ago. Barack Obama had recently been reelected to a second term as president - breaking poor Mitch McConnell's heart. The two posts I wrote for the blog don't provide me with much useful information on why I made the blog and what I hoped to accomplish through it.

Now, eight years later, I'm someone else entirely. As I recall every cell is replaced in the body on a seven year cycle - though perhaps this is an old wives tale or Internet myth. At any rate, I live in a different house in a different state; I work at a different job; I have different pets. I've spent the last nine months in a state of anxiety watching the horrors of 2020 play out on my wide-screen tv in the family room/home office where I isolate.

How did I get from there - the place where this blog started - to here? What was I thinking at the time and why did I abandon the project so quickly? This past year has been so surreal and so uncoupled from time that I - perhaps like many - have become detached from myself. I'm going to try to create a blogging habit and at the same time review my journey over the past eight years in an attempt to relearn my old purpose - or perhaps find a new one.

Moral Choices

"Those who oppose it [gun control] have made a moral choice: that they would rather have gun massacres of children continue rather than surrender whatever idea of freedom or pleasure they find wrapped up in owning guns or seeing guns owned..." Adam Gopnik

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/12/the-simple-truth-about-gun-control.html#ixzz2Fz1x5oej

 

 I was raised as a Christian. My mother was Presbyterian and my father Episcopalian. We went to church regularly - us kids in Sunday school - and were sent to vacation Bible school in the summer. One summer I managed to memorize the entire list of required verses and was awarded my own bible with my name in gold letters on the cover. I still have that book and am still proud that I earned it - though I doubt I can still remember all the verses I learned. Sometime in seventh grade or eighth grade (I was thirteen) I completed all the educational/devotional requirements and was confirmed as a member of the church.

When I got into high school I began to have problems with some of the teachings of the church. I found it especially hard to reconcile the two stories of creation in Genesis with the things I was learning in school about evolution and the geologic history of the Earth. Our pastor explained to me that the Bible was not intended to be taken literally and the explanation enabled me to continue in the church for a time. But when I got to college, things became impossible for me. I could no longer reconcile the hypocrisy and greed of most of my fellow congregants - including my pastor - with the teachings of Christ. So I left the church.

Today I have no religion. I am agnostic about the existence of a god: it seems highly unlikely that a being as described by any of the currently popular religions exists - but it's possible. When I die I will either discover that there is a god - or I'll just be dead. I'm fine with either option - though if there is a god I'd really like to have a long conversation. I mean - what the actual fuck is up with [insert myriad philosophical conundrums here]? I don't follow most religious rules though I do consider the golden rule to be an excellent guiding principal. And, since I was raised as a Christian I do tend to follow the teachings of Christ.

And this is why the whole gun control debate makes no sense to me at all. The political right in this country frequently claims that the US is a "Christian" country - but they completely ignore the teachings of Christ. How can the rights of good old boys who want to shoot big guns and make a lot of noise trump the rights of little children to be safe in their schools? How can anyone with a conscience justify the possession of a piece of equipment designed for the sole purpose of killing as many people as possible by anyone other than a soldier? [If assault weapons were outlawed - not even the SWAT teams of the police would need them.] How can people care more about their fun and their rights to possess things than the rights of others to live?

Read the article above. Read the articles it links to. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Ask yourself - what would Christ say about this? Then - if you are truly a Christian - prove it! Write to your representative in both the US and your state legislatures and tell them the madness must stop and the power of the NRA must be broken. Reasonable gun control [no assault weapons, no high-capacity magazines, solid background checks for everyone] must be enacted as soon as humanly possible. 

On the eve of the day when Christians everywhere celebrate the birth of Christ - remember his teachings. Best wishes to all for a Happy Christmas and a safe, healthy, and prosperous new year.
 

Post-Truth: Fair and Balanced

When did it become the responsibility of journalists to be fair?

In the past, it was the responsibility of journalists to tell the truth. "Tell the truth and shame the devil" was the motto of a small local weekly I once worked for. When a person of note lied about an event, or their background, or someone else, the journalists at the paper worked to uncover the truth of the situation. Liars were called out whenever the truth could be found. Was that fair? Maybe not if you were the liar - but then you give up the right to protest how you're being treated when you lie. And victims of the lie certainly didn't protest when the truth was uncovered - because the lie hurt them and the truth helped to repair the damage.

But today journalists have to be fair - to find balance in their reporting. Accuse one side of an argument of doing something wrong and you must find something wrong on the other side to create a balance, to be fair. So in their quest for fairness, journalists help the liars to keep the truth covered up. You lied, but your opponent didn't. Gee - it wouldn't really be fair to point that out - so we'll just pretend that your lie wasn't. We've uncovered some shady things in your past - let's find some shady things on the other side to balance it out. Nothing shady on the other side? Shucks - now we have a dilemma. We can tell what we know - and risk being unfair - or we can pretend we don't know it and keep the balance. We keep the playing field even and we become liars in the process.
 
Life is not fair . . . Every child knows that fact - and journalists need to remember it. Start doing your real job again - tell the truth no matter the cost. And then we might not have to live in a "post-truth" world.