Listening and Hearing

I love music. I love listening to it and I love singing it. I consider my IPod one of the great inventions and use it every day. But surely, there’s a time and a place for it. I think that listening to music while driving is wonderful, enhancing both experiences at the same time. I think that listening while walking is also quite nice depending on where you’re walking and what you are listening to. Live concerts can be great place to hear your favorite singers. But must we endure it while on hold or much worse while listening to someone speaking on T.V.?

I must disclose that I am a bit hard of hearing. I’m usually fine on the phone or when talking with someone who is articulate and whose mouth I can see making the sounds. My hearing, like that of many of my contemporaries, starts failing when there is a bit of background noise. I can’t hear in a noisy restaurant or at a semi-wild party. Sometimes, this cannot be avoided. But then there’s television.

I resent background music on T.V. while someone is talking. I makes it almost impossible to make out the words in the midst of this unnecessary musical noise. I find it very frustrating. I don’t need music to have a reaction to the words the character is speaking, the ones I can’t hear. The words and the speaker’s presentation of them in context should suffice. I am hard of hearing, but I am not stupid or without the ability to react to verbal and non-verbal stimuli.

At this point some might be thinking, “why not use closed captioning to see the words you can’t hear?” Have you seen it lately? Sometimes it is so delayed that you have forgotten what the scene was. Sometimes when there are just one or two words you can’t quite hear, it turns out that whoever is typing the closed captions didn’t hear it either. Sometimes it seems like the transcriber just gave up. Being so much behind, the caption writer just says “the hell with it” and stops writing and we stop knowing what was being said. Why can’t whatever is not scripted be taped and then transcribed so when it airs we can see the words as they are spoken and not several minutes later? Those already scripted should have simultaneous subtitles. And it would be great if the words could be spelled closer to the actual.

And while we’re on the subject of gratuitous background noise, there are the laugh tracks. They do not interfere with my hearing. They interfere with my enjoying. Again, I understand the language well enough and get jokes well enough, as most of us do, to know what is funny and react accordingly. I find it superfluous and insulting to have a laugh track tell me what’s funny and when to laugh along with the make-believe crowd.

While I have a problem of listening but not hearing, there is also the issue of hearing without listening.

What is that noise at eight A.M.? Is it construction? No. Is it tree trimming? No. What is it and when will it stop? It is someone with ears covered using a leaf blower. Next question - why? Why is this person using a gas guzzling, noisy machine to do what a rake and/or broom could do more efficiently, more effectively and much more quietly? Why is the person who hired him letting him, or has the homeowner left for work already or gone deaf? Why is the worker chasing a single leaf out to the street? Why do we even allow noisy leaf blowers?

And what about people talking on the cell phones while in public? Must we hear their innermost thoughts even though we are not listening? What about privacy? Isn’t that the rage nowadays that we are all concerned that the government might have access to our communications? We have otherwise intelligent people acting outraged at the invasion of their privacy because the government has access to all hundreds of billions phone records that do not include the name of the person or what was said - just what number called what number for how long at what time.   Then why are we forced to eavesdrop on our neighbors and fellow customers? And it wouldn’t be so bad if the conversations we were subjected to were interesting. It might not be so bad if there was any humor or gossip or metaphysical speculation. But it is usually so boring you almost want to interject something to raise the level of discourse. I sometimes start singing real loud or I shout at my dog even if she isn’t with me at the time. If I have to listen to them, let them have to listen to me.

Then there are those who want to share their rap music with us. They drive worthless cars with state-of-the-art sound systems and they want the world to know.  The base is usually overwhelming making it impossible to hear the moronic lyrics. It’s like going to a restaurant where the service is so bad you forget about the terrible food.

It is now late at night and the only sound I hear is that of my steam heat radiator sizzling. It is one of my favorite sounds - the sound of warmth. This sound is being interrupted by the sound of my fingers touching the various keys to form the words I am writing. I’m going to stop now so to better hear the sound of soothing warmth.

A Question of Privacy

We have heard too many public discussions about the issue of privacy. We have heard seemingly intelligent people expressing outrage over recent revelations that our country’s spy agency is spying. They are spying, in part, by obtaining telephone and email data on American citizens right here on American soil. The billions of bits of data involve phone numbers, dates of calls and their duration as well as email connections made at certain times and dates. No one has suggested that the phone calls or emails’ contents were ever involved.  A recent in depth study found there to have been no known abuses. And yet some still cite the Fourth Amendment which forbids unlawful search and seizure.

I find it very hard to consider what they are doing at NSA a violation of the Fourth just as I don’t see how requiring guns buyers at gun shows to pass background checks or limiting the kind of weapons citizens can buy to defend themselves, prohibiting weapons like tanks, guided missile systems. atomic bombs and assault weapons, would be a violation the the Second Amendment.

I think both are fine examples of demagoguery.

So what constitutes an invasion of privacy?

I think having our medical or financial records made public would be a serious invasion. And stealing our identity for fun and profit is perhaps the most egregious trespass.

I think having naked or otherwise embarrassing pictures of ourselves distributed without our approval another.

I would consider having my private conversations made public or having my personal emails read aloud to a group people not considered admirers to be in this category.

Most of us would rather have privacy while having sex, some wanting complete privacy, with some couples insisting on separate bedrooms. The same with our time spent eliminating our waste products.

Also private thoughts and feelings are usually intended to remain so.

But what about our picture, should that be private? Should people not see you? Corporations and government agencies are working to produce a facial recognition system. The system would recognize each of us and produce advertising that would be best suit us individually. The system could track us as we shop at the mall and put up ads just for us. Will this be an invasion of privacy? Shouldn't this system be used only on people accused of shopping too little thus depriving our struggling economy?

It is now easy to find people we have been looking for, to find out where they live, how long they have been there, how much they paid for their home and how much it is currently worth. If you are willing to pay a few dollars, you can also find out how much the person owes on the mortgage, how much he claimed to earn, whether he has been arrested or married or divorced.We can also find out if and when a person entered the country by plane or board and even all the people who were on the same journey.

Should all that information be private?

A person in law enforcement could see your license plate and run it to find your name, address, birth date, aliases, height and weight as well as your picture. The person can then check to see if you own a gun, have ever been arrested and so on. Is that an invasion of privacy even if it is well supervised?

When we donate to a charity we start getting requests from every similar fund. If we give to an environmental group, we will hear from every other one. How does that happen? Is our privacy being violated?

When we go online, we see ads to the side of most entries. They are targeted at us specifically. How does that happen? Is our privacy being invaded?

What about when people listen in on our cell phone calls because we speak loudly in their close proximity and sometimes even have them on speaker phone so both sides of the conversation can be overheard? Is that yet another violation of our privacy? If so, why do we make it so easy for them?

Are our names, addresses and phone numbers private? If yes, then why do we have to pay extra to have them not made public by the phone company?

Can we keep this specific blog just between you and me? Surely, I am entitled to some privacy. That's why I write a blog.
  

Our Man in Moscow. What If?

For the past few months, we have been subjected to daily news accounts of secret government spying as revealed by a 29 year-old, high school dropout who was given the highest security clearance to view America’s computer spy network. This so-called “leaker” has been considered by many to be a bitter and angry traitor to his country. The leaks provided us with insight into the breath and depth of America’s spy capability, including our gaining access to all phone and internet transmissions at home and abroad. The NSA, our master spy agency, was even able to access the phones of several heads of state.

Some of us, especially those who feel that our nation should be cut down to size and not continue to tower in influence over the entire world, feel the revelations indicate outrageous violation of the fourth amendment because someone told us so. How dare the NSA have access to information that could prevent another terrorist attack. Whatever happened to the notion of a level playing field? Aren’t we at too great an advantage over terrorists?

The young “spy” announced to the world that it was he who leaked this embarrassing information and immediately left for China, probably not because it is so nearby. He then, after not being welcome there, left for another not nearby country, Russia. He has been there for a few months treated very well by what many consider America’s arch enemy. He has even been offered a job there. But winter is coming and Russia gets terribly cold. It now appears that the young leaker wants to come home and requests forgiveness without maximum prison time - life with no chance of parole.

But what if none of this were true?

What if, in the tradition of all great spy fiction, this is all a brilliant scheme?

What if America, and NSA in particular, wanted to neutralize China’s massive computer spy system? It is believed to have tapped into our largest corporations and stolen industrial secrets that would allow them to make products almost as good as ours. Could that be why the young leaker went there first? Was China wise to the plan? Is that why they deported him so quickly?

Russia also has a massive computer spy system. NSA wants to disrupt it. Could it be that our alleged spy is actually our man in Moscow? Could this be a brilliant plot to win Russia’s confidence by disclosing embarrassing but trivial spy information about NSA and making our young computer geek look like America’s public enemy number one? Could Russia be fooled into thinking that the enemy of their enemy is their friend?

But there’s more.

What if the administration had even loftier goals?

As most of us are painfully aware, we have been without a budget for four years now. The Republican-led House has put forth moronic, partisan schemes that they called budgets. These budgets would have enlarged our military beyond its current bloat; lowered taxes to the rich, so they can be even richer; and cut programs to help the poor, so that the poor can be even poorer. And they wanted to end the Affordable Care Act to help the uninsured end their lives of suffering sooner. What’s not to like?

The Democrats want the rich to pay higher taxes and would love to dramatically cut our spending for defense, which amounts to about one trillion dollars a year or half of the actual General Fund of $2 trillion. Theses costs include staffing our more than 700 foreign military bases in friendly countries throughout the world and our spy network which was dramatically enlarged after 9/11.

But how could they do it?

The Republican-led House would never allow us to spend less on defense. They want it increased. They believe we must have enough troops to fight two wars at the same time.

Our allies might be willing and ready to let us withdraw of troops from their sovereign land, but can’t ask - their people might object to losing free security. 

What if the White House, desperate to cut our defense costs, used this noble spy to inform our allies that we have been spying on them? The leaders probably knew and didn’t care. But they could act outraged in public and demand that we reduce our surveillance and insist that we quit our bases in their country.

The administration would then be “forced” to close at least 700 bases saving $100 billion a year, and to reduce our expenditures for spying much of which is a waste of time and money much more than being a privacy issue.

Could our young ex-pat, actually be our bravest and most inventive master spy? Could he really be an MIT-trained genius who can quickly destroy Russia’s computer spy capability while also enjoying free room and board in one of Russia’s many luxurious residences (think YMCA or Motel Six)?

And will he ever be able to come in out of the cold, like a John Le Carre character? With Russia and perhaps China on its knees, spy wise, will we credit this so maligned young hero his just desserts, or will he trapped in not-so-sunny Russia for the rest of his days?

How will this story end? What if it never does?

Those Who Know Should Say and Those Who Say Should Know!

This column has at times challenged well-respected phrases and sentiments. It turns out that we are not all created equal and that the Founding Fathers knew it all along. We can not be told to love everyone as we love ourselves and be expected to comply, but we can treat each person and event as an end in themselves as well as a means to an end. In one column I examined the great line from the mystics: “Those who know do not say and those who speak do not know.”

It was supposed to mean that if someone tells you they know how the universe works, it means that they do not know because it is unknowable. And if someone is enlightened and really knows, he would not say because it can not be put into words. Many students of Eastern wisdom would nod wisely in agreement with what seems to be clear. But is it?

I asked who said that those who know don’t say. Why did they say if they knew that you couldn’t know and say? It was like saying “I am a liar.” If you are a liar, I shouldn’t believe what you say. You say you are a liar so I don’t believe you. But that means that I think that you are not a liar in which case what you are saying is true which is that you are a liar.

If this saying of knowing but not saying were acted upon, we would have no columns like this one. People would not do research or write non-fiction books and mystics would all be silenced. This idea of having those who know not say, is what has happened to the Republican party. There are very few among them who know and they don’t speak for fear of not getting re-elected.

But as usual, my take is just the opposite of this bit of mystical “wisdom.” I feel strongly that those who know must say and those who say should be sure they know. I also don’t believe that the mysteries of the universe cannot be known or expressed. I have worked on these issues for more than half a century and am gratified to have finally found the answers. They are fairly simple, straightforward and expressible. Readers of this column have probably come across my metaphysical theory in columns like “Something for Nothing,” “Punctuation in the Grammar of Life” and “Why Do Bad Things Happen.” If you haven’t read them or can’t remember what they said, you are welcome to find them in the online edition or on my blog.

So who knows and what should they say.

The new Pope, Francis, is now saying what Catholic clergy should have been saying and realizing for years. The religion is not about birth control, abortion and gay unions. He could go further and admit to the faithful that the faith is also not about a virgin birth on Christmas morn.  It is not about turning water into wine and giving rise to such widespread alcoholism among the flock for two millennia. It is not about the Jews killing the Savior as is re-enacted every Easter at churches all over the world. As the new il Papa has said, Catholicism, Christianity as a whole, is about treating each other with kindness and compassion and realizing that whatever good fortune we have is by the grace of the Creator. Even our faith itself is by His grace. It is to cooperate rather than compete and to help the less fortunate rather than looking down on them.

And I think that it is even more than that.

I think that Christ, who was both a man and G-d, symbolized the fact that we are also both finite and infinite, both mortal and divine. This idea was also in Greek mythology as well as Hindu beliefs. We have now seen it in modern science. We now know of fractals as being infinite iterations of form within every finite object. So every finite object is infinite and the infinite is within the finite - the kingdom of heaven is within. And each of us is both finite and infinite - body and soul.

I think that the holy trinity, which started as the holy duality, is also very meaningful. The holy duality was G-d, the father and Christ, the son. This, I think, means the infinite and the finite or the subject and the object or consciousness and the object of consciousness. When it became the holy trinity, hundreds of years later, I think it symbolized the basic grammar of life - the subject, object and verb. G-d is the subject (the infinite consciousness), the Son or the finite world is the object and all that happens between the two, is the verb - the holy Spirit.
Surely, most Catholic theologians know all this but they don’t say. They focus instead on senseless beliefs and empty traditions and then wonder why their followers have so little understanding of the spiritual message and act so contrary to it.

Why don’t they say what they know? Do they think that we won’t understand?

Where are the Muslim religious leaders? Surely they know that Islam, like any major religion, believes in peace and human kindness. They must understand that if there is a paradise awaiting us after we die, it is not accessed by committing suicide while killing innocent people. They must know that there are no 72 virgins awaiting each man who destroys his life in order to hurt others. They must know that we probably won’t have human forms and won’t be into sex and that the whole idea is idiotic. Don’t Mullahs know that killing, hating, screaming, abusing women, lying and stealing are activities that go against all human decency and are beneath any religion? Then why don’t they speak? They know that women need not be subjugated and forced to cover themselves head to toe if Muslim men could learn to restrain their animal instincts, the very reason for religion to begin with. They know that their G-d never said, “Abuse your women and cover them so that you are the only one who does.”

Why don’t they say that their male worshippers must stop abusing women and stop killing themselves and others? Are they afraid their worshippers will not understand and grow even more violent?

And where are our politicians, our elected representatives?

Just recently Republicans closed government and threatened our debt limit in order to try to stop the Affordable Care Act from going into effect. It was their 42nd attempt. The cost of the first 41 was more than $50 million. The cost of the most recent failed attempt has cost the nation billions. The Speaker of the House, who knew that the blackmail would never succeed and made no sense, did not say so. After saying that he would never let the government shutdown but just wanted the President to talk with him, he would not allow a clean continuing resolution bill to be voted on in the House even though he knew it would succeed. Why did he say what he knew was not true? Why does he do this time and again when stating his position? If he knows, he should say.

Why didn’t he say what he knew? Was he afraid of losing his Speakership more than he was of hurting his own country and people needlessly?

House Republicans have decried the ongoing annual budget deficits. Surely, some know that they started in 2001 when the Republicans took the White House. They know that much of the cause of the deficits was tax cuts for the rich coupled with the cost of two unnecessary wars. Instead of saying what they must know, that the remedy then would be to get out of both wars, as our President is trying to do, and fix the tax code so that the most fortunate among us pay their fair share while we expand the tax base to include more than just half of all households. Instead, the Republicans say they want to solve the deficit problem by increasing military spending, further reducing taxes for the rich and cutting spending for Medicare and Social Security, neither of which has caused the deficits.

If they know all this, why don’t they say? Could it be fear of not getting re-elected or of not being liked by colleagues who either do not know or will not speak?

Where are our economists? How many predicted the crash of 2008? How many warned about the real estate bubble and easy financing? How many have joined together to say that the big banks should be broken up to be structured as they were until the mid 1990s, when banking restrictions were repealed? How many have formed a massive majority of knowers to tell Conservatives that they are wrong to want to dramatically cut the budget while our country is trying to recover from a massive recession? Why don’t they say that we would be a lot better off today were it not for conservative intercession? Why don’t the knowledgeable economists tell us the easy ways we can prolong Social Security and Medicare? Why don’t they get together and develop a simple and fair tax code? If I did it, surely they can.

Why don’t economists who know say? Could it be that they work for organizations that might have a bias against full disclosure?

And, of course, why does the mass media not say what it knows? Why do their journalists always report the worst case scenario rather than the most likely? Why do they use headlines and previews that exaggerate the true story? Why do a few news organizations actually create stories to further their political agenda, casting all appearances of integrity to the wind?

We saw it recently in our manufactured fiscal crises when the mainstream media piled us with draconian predictions knowing full well they would never come to pass: Social Security payments might cease and our military won’t get paid, no one will invest in our country, we will fall back into recession which could destroy the world economy and Santa might forget about Christmas.

Recently in the well-publicized death of a teenager, the media provided the wrong pictures of the victim and the shooter making the victim look like an innocent 14 year-old and the shooter like a big, fat, Mexican drug dealer, when in actuality, the victim was several years older than he appeared in the picture and was much larger than the rather small shooter. The media neglected for months to show the pictures of the shooter taken immediately after the event by police. The pictures showed the shooter had a bloody, broken nose and the back of his head was covered in blood. The media knew from the start that this vicious murder was actually a case of self defense.  A jury ruled it self-defense after the media seemed to be trying its best for months to convict the shooter.

Why do professionals in the media who know the truth, say it? Could it be that negative and sensational sells and the public is used to superficial coverage? Is it because they know how much we all enjoy gossip, especially when it is negative?

If you know, please say.

What's Taking So Long?

It has been said that the older we get, the faster time seems to go. That is because the relative length diminishes with age - so one year to a one-year-old is equal to his whole life but to a 100 year old, it is just one per cent of its length. Now that I am more than two thirds of a century old and in my last quarter, I notice how quickly Monday turns into Thursday and January becomes September. And yet I also am noticing how slowly things are happening on a national as well as local level.

On a national level, we are experiencing one of the slowest job recoveries in history after suffering one of the most rapid job loss in almost a century. The Congress has gone years without finalizing a budget and must rely on continuing resolutions to keep the government running. The government has yet to come up with a new, simple and fair federal income tax for individuals and businesses even though everyone agrees we need one and even though I have recommended the most obvious solution. We see little progress being made to improve our K-12 education though we have been waiting for it for decades. Poverty is still with us and growing and we are still in Afghanistan after all this time money and human suffering.

But I see it most vividly on a local level, here in San Francisco.

Every day I walk around my neighborhood for about two or three hours. I do it to exercise my dog and myself while able to enjoy my wonderful area. I live in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in one of the most beautiful cities in one of the most beautiful states in one of the most wonderful countries in the world. And I enjoy one of the best climates as well.

Walking with my eyes wide open always noticing my environment, I can not help but pass the same home improvement projects for what seems like years. There is one project that has lasted 12 years. There are some that have been ongoing for three years and have stopped before being completed. 

When I notice a project being worked on, I am always impressed by how few workers there are and how little work they are doing. I watched a group work on a project casually for a four month period. It turned out to be a bathroom remodel. It would take a week or two with four guys working eight hours a day, but it took four months with a couple of guys working a few hours for a few days a week, for 13 weeks!  There are four projects within a block of my home that have been ongoing for years. (It seems to be an unwritten rule among contractors that if any noisy work needs be done, it must begin at 7 a.m. including on weekends and holidays, even if it’s the only work done the day.)

Remember that almost 100 years ago, it took 18 months to build the Empire State Building, what was then the tallest building in the world. How could it take months to remodel a bathroom or kitchen and years to do an entire house?

I might have a few of the answers.

Several of the long-term projects might be contractor-owned taking the pressure off to hurry. Some funders might be having financial difficulties, not being able to raise the additional money needed to continue and finish the job. Other contractors might be having issues with the inspections which have set back the work and added to the cost.

I believe much of the delay is caused by contractors taking on new assignments during the work. In order to hook the new clients, the contractor must pull workers off the ongoing projects to start the new ones before the clients change their mind. When staffing falls to a trickle of occasional workers, it seems that the project never quite ends. Some large project have two workers working a few hours a day as though time did not exist. It’s like watching people in slow motion mode or like watching workers in Italy just before siesta.

In the meantime, many of these ongoing projects require parking spaces normally relied upon by neighbors without garages. (A single garage space can easily cost $3,000 a year to rent). Ironically, many of the projects involve adding garages. The Bureau of Building Inspectors authorizes and the Department of Public Works issues “No Parking - Tow-Away Zone” signs for the anticipated duration of the project. If the project ends early and the signs are no longer needed, they are not removed, but languish, keeping drivers from parking in the unused spaces.  DPW, with its five inspectors, cannot keep track of all the signs and has better things to do but to remove unneeded signs.

What can be done?

I have some ideas. It starts with the permit approval process. The process should include an agreement of how long the project should take and its required staffing. The permit applicant should also be helped estimate the cost of the project and be expected to show that the needed funds are available. The contractor should be held accountable to maintain sufficient staff working full days and to stay on schedule to complete the project.

The “No Parking” signs should be issued with large deposits for the agreed upon work period. The contractor should be motivated to immediately remove the signs when no longer needed by getting a refund for the unused days and avoiding a large fine subtracted from the deposit if the signs are not immediately removed. Members of the Department of Parking and Traffic should be authorized to remove expired or otherwise unneeded signs.

I have always been lucky with contractors. Each of mine had staff who did the job well, did it quickly and were gone. The contractors had several similarities. They were licensed and had a staff of workers who were paid for full time, year round employment. The workers were here legally and spoke English fluently. They knew their job and had not learned it a few hours before. The workers didn’t leave to work another job. They knew that they had to finish mine first. I paid most of the bill at the end when the work was done.

Never pay before the work is done! It is too much of a temptation for the contractor to forget to finish or to take his time doing it. Avoid charming contractors that have surely kissed the blarney stone. I found that the more charming the contractor, the worse the work.

In the meantime, if there is a project in your neighborhood that seems to have overstayed its welcome or has gone but left its signs behind, you can call and complain. In San Francisco dial 311 and tell them the problem. They will follow through and get action.

I’ve got to get back to my kitchen remodel to finish it before my yet unborn grandchildren retire. 

Saving the Affordable Care Act

The Republicans in the House have tried 41 times to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They are now holding the country's budget hostage. Why not suspend the mandatory provisions and make sign up voluntary for at least the first year? There are 30 million Americans who could get Medicaid and millions who have preexisting conditions who would want to sign up, could.  Businesses will help their employees if they want to and would have gotten around it if they didn't want to participate.

Insurance companies will be more competitive knowing that people don't have to sign up. 

The promised tax breaks should also be suspended.  They also drive prices up because insurers know that the government will pay the extra.

My question is why no one has suggested this very obvious answer. It is so obvious. Why haven't the media asked this and why haven't any elected officials mentioned this solution.

Absent the mandatory part, what can freedom loving Republicans object to - helping Americans afford healthcare? Are they against freeing Americans from the fear of lack of coverage and financial ruin if sick?

The same was true about the "housing crisis."  People found out that their dream home was temporarily worth less than they owed. So what? Those that could no longer afford their mortgage payments could have been told that they can arrange to pay just the interest on the outstanding balance at the current low rates until the market improves. And, as we have seen in Arizona, Florida and California, prices have rebounded, some to their high rates. 

Where was the media and where were our representatives? None could have mentioned this option that was available at the major lenders? Why was the choice to walk away or to get the government to pay down the debt?

Why does the media think that it's only job is to quote what people say during their 15 minutes of fame? Why don't reporters think that they should think too? 

And if none can think of these obvious solutions, why don't they listen to people like me when we give them the answer? 






















ee

What's News?

I watch and read a lot of news each day in order to stay informed and to gather ideas and data for future columns and blogs. I watch the network news each evening taping and seeing at least three broadcasts. I also read the local and premier American papers, I review the weekly columns of a few of my favorite columnists and I also read the news on the Huffington Post (HuffPost).

The problem is that each day I see a lot of repetition of the same story. That’s understandable. After a while a definite format pattern emerges especially among the big three networks.

The motif is sometimes sensational and superficial with a strong scent of bias.
The news elements have a deja vu quality to them.

Each night there is a sensational natural disaster. It could be heavy rain, hurricanes, tornadoes, forest fires, droughts, flooding, earthquakes, ice melts, record heat or record cold or a record for having no record. There is sometimes the requisite whipping boy or girl, usually meteorologists, who must report in the midst of the worst weather knowing that most viewers are watching hoping to see the reporter destroyed by the turbulence or at least knocked down and embarrassed by it. Why else expose them to the elements? Tragic victims are always interviewed putting on a brave face and promising to rebuild not matter how absurd it seems. And then there are the interviews with the victims of nature’s fury. Journalism made easy: “How do you feel now having lost everything?” “Yes, I have lost everything I have accumulated for the past 60 years, but I am so glad that no one was hurt. It was a miracle.” (Question not ever asked: “Wouldn’t it have been more of a miracle if it hadn’t happened at all?”) Reporting on the same tragic, sensational story will go on night after night as long as humanly possible.

This could be upstaged by an act of incredible domestic violence. Though such a story comes up too often, it is less commonly reported than the natural disaster stories which can go on for weeks. Reporters can not only visit and report on the scene, they can interview experts who can give us all the speculation and details that we don’t really need to listen to. We can then spend weeks getting to know the victims, each heroes in their own way. We can not help but be touched. We send donations to the affected families. We then do little to avoid having it happen again and again.

Then there is the obligatory international violence report. It always involves Muslims killing or rioting or killing while rioting or rioting because of a killing caused by rioting. The motto should be “Go to the Middle East and have a riot, they’re to die for.” There is always much empty speculation as to the cause and the solution. “What are they thinking and is it anything like what they are saying? Can we believe them or convince them that we do even if we don’t? And will they believe that we believe them? And does any of this speculation really matter?”

We are sometimes subjected to the opinions of politicians that no one can take seriously talking seriously as though they were able. The more often they appear on T.V., the less reason they have to do so or at least that we have to listen. When the word “war” comes up we can always count on an interview with the terribly senior senator from a great southwestern state. His answer to every international problem is the same - let’s go to war! Let’s bomb Libya, Egypt, Yemen, North Korea, Iran and Syria - at the same time if need be.  

Then there is the medical segment with a network medical expert who also manages to have a full time practice in another part of the country. Each night we learn of yet another change in modern medical theory. Something that was thought good is now bad. Something once thought harmful is now harmless. Medical procedures we were told were life-saving, we now learn were our greatest threats. One night we are told that a new study has found that we waste $750 billion on fraud, waste or unnecessary procedures. That amount, if true, exceeds our current annual federal budget deficit. We might wonder how many tests and procedures that we have had were unnecessary or even harmful. We learn that aspirin is good and we should all take one a day only to later be told to do so only if we have serious medical problem that requires it. Mammograms are and are not valuable, they save lives and produce false positives causing unnecessary testing. Coffee and alcohol are good up to a point but that point keeps changing perhaps affected by the amount we drink them. Cigarettes are still harmful, apparently. So far.

This segment can be followed by the day’s gossip. It usually involves some trouble involving a celebrity who became one by getting into the same trouble. Is so-and- so in rehab again? Did so-and-so really do that while driving? Are they really breaking up? Were they really ever together? Are they real? How do you know? And why should I care? And what is their take on the major issues of the day? This segment lets the media get back at their unfavorites, unusually the non-p.c. Did someone say something that could be racist, ageist, sexist or otherwise embarrassing? Let’s hear all about it, shall we?

 A celebrity known to be a female Southern Bubba recently revealed that she once used the “N” word. Can you imagine? No one else ever has, have they? Let’s watch her career fall apart day by day. How many brave sponsors have cancelled her because they would never have used such language, nor would any of their customers? What could be worse? I know. An actor said something bad about a religious minority group when he was really drunk. The network news allowed us to watch him be destroyed, a little more each week.  None of us have ever been drunk and none would ever say anything bad about any religious group would we? The media loves to see the successful fail, an American schadenfreude  (a great German word that means taking joy in someone else’s loss).

All this “news” usually ends with a positive story about an American or group of Americans doing good for others. The stories are truly touching and show how wonderful human beings can be. It almost makes you want to be one even after all the bad things we see that they do during the rest of the news.

Then there is the print media.

The print media including online stories try to grab us with the headline. The reporter seems to lose interest in the story right after the headline. I think that the problem is that the story can not live up to the headline. So the headline is “The President crushes the House leadership.” The story is that the President has said he would veto legislation that also included........ There is no crushing. No crusher or crushee. Just the headline that got you to read an otherwise uninteresting article.

But it’s worse than that in the print media. Not only are the headlines sensationalised, but the reporting is of such poor quality. News writers in general seem to have lost the basics like who, what, when, where and why. They forget to summarize the story in the first paragraph and then they go on to leave out essential parts.  There can be a story about an attack at a military base. Several of our people are killed. What happened to the shooters? Sometimes they actually leave that part out.  Or there is a report about sentencing and it neglects to finally say what it was or at least what it could be. During the war in Iraq, we got a nightly count of our casualties but never told how many Iraqis had died. And they never mentioned that they never mentioned it. It was hundreds of thousands in case you still haven’t heard.

It seems that many reporters think themselves more like stenographers. They just record what the person interviewed says, even when not being asked. Reporters seem to sometimes forget that they can ask challenging questions to get at the bottom of the story rather than staying on the very surface of it.

And just when it seemed that journalism had hit an all time low, it went further from course. It started years ago with cable news that must pad and almost create news in order to stay on the air 24 hours a day. And then there was Fox “news” or what some call “Fixed News” because it seems that it was scripted by people with a specific political agenda and not one that reflected intelligence, integrity or impartiality: the ultimate slap in the face of journalist standards.

But now there is something even worse. It is malcontents leaking masses of confidential information in the name of journalism.  Wikileaks and its sympathizers are seeking all the prestige and protection of journalism while actually just practicing mean-spirited gossip. The information they leak does not help anyone and is usually misunderstood and misrepresented. The mainstream media give these false journalists too much attention which only encourages their basic narcissism.

I have remembered the biblical passage admonishing the people to post sentries at all the gates of the city. Besides the straightforward tactical advice (something we are only now learning about the need for better border security), it is also symbolic. It means that we should control what goes into our body through its various entrances some of which are our eyes and ears. To this end, each evening I use fast forward to go past the repetitious, the gory, the gossip, and the sensational. It leaves me with a few minutes of interesting news.  And there is some interesting news, every night, no matter what, you just have to work hard to find it.

That’s what’s news.