Long Time Gone

I have been giving people a piece of my mind in this space every day for so long it's a miracle I have any mind left at all. This is from so long ago the days had twenty-two hours in them, at least that's how I remember it. At the time I called it:

How Do You Figure Out the Tip When Paying the Bill of Rights?

When we have the will and the inclination, we have the tools and technology to expand our world beyond our wildest imaginations. There is also the danger, because we are humans with free will, to use those same tools to restrict and constrict the world as we see it or as we'd like it to be seen. 

There are no right answers on our fascination with and addiction to media just as there are no wrong answers as to which platforms we use for news and information. When the Founding Fathers, assisted by others, created the Bill of Rights (and this is a marvelous site), they could have not foreseen the world in which we now live. 

For them, freedom of speech, and within that, 'the press', was a matter of newspapers and broadsides (one sheet exhortations and excoriations on behalf of and in opposition to issues of Colonial America). The electric fire of today could not be imagined or controlled-as it turns out, neither could its impact.

Now, when you touch that TV dial or click the computer mouse you often have to do 'rock, paper, scissors' on where you turn and tune for news. Truisms are often truths, and perceptions of reality are frequently reality. Many people believe certain broadcast operators and cable providers are right or left of center (and those are some of the kinder names they're called) and cite numerous examples to support their positions. 

Meanwhile, the sum total of Americans who get their information on a world beyond their threshold from television (of any kind) continues to decline and the folks who manage the contents inside the video boxes insist they have no idea why.

TV news probably now does more persuasion and less informing because advocacy draws better ratings than reporting. Broadcasters and cable operators alike pander to audience 'segments' as long as those segments buy the products those broadcasts are sponsored by, from the advertisers who bought time because the broadcast's demographics could deliver certain groups in large numbers.....and round goes the gossip.

Do you suppose Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington saw eye to eye on every aspect of what proved to be the American Revolution? Or perhaps they came to an agreement on the portions they shared and agreed to disagree, 'later', about the rest. Maybe we could try that again.

You must get as tired reading it as I get tired typing it: the issues we face can't be captured in a seventy-second story with a ten-second stand-up location lock-out (TV speak for "in Bug Tussle, Oklahoma, I'm Edward R. Murrow."). They require our fullest attention, no matter our political beliefs (as a matter of fact, precisely because of our political beliefs). 

The farther out in space you travel the more we all look alike down here. How about we agree to put the remotes down and nobody gets hurt? Step away from the cable box and the computer monitor and keep the satellite dish where we can see it. 
-bill kenny