Tag Archives: CNN

Breaking News – We’re Irrelevant!

Posted on December 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

dewey

In the 1970’s, Fleetwood Mac, on their “Rumors” album had a song in which Lindsey Buckingham sang, “I’m just second hand news.” Little did he know that he was predicting the future.

I subscribe to the Virginian-Pilot, my local newspaper. Yes I get weekdays and Sundays, and yes, I actually read it.

I really don’t read the newspaper for the national stories. Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, runs the same news service stories. My understanding is that the once fierce rivalry among AP, UPI, Reuters, etc. has been reduced by the consolidation of companies and customer lists.

The end result? I see the same story in almost exactly the same words on CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, ETC, etc. When I see it once again in my morning newspaper, I pass over it and read the stories generated by the local reporters and editors. These local stories tell me what is happening and how it might affect me. The local articles are also well researched, well written and enjoyable.

In the meantime, the on-line internet and on-cable providers continue to run the same material over and over. In some cases, they’ll change its location or even its title, but the same stories can continue to re-appear like zombies in a cheap movie. They try to jazz it up, but even the jazzy statements are regurgitated.

[Starlet’s name] rocks [article of clothing]!

[Starlet’s name] sizzles [article of clothing]!

[Celebrity’s name] did WHAT?

You won’t believe what [insert totally believable item here]!

Bottom line is that online I often encounter the same story in various forms on and off over a month.

So, Lindsey Buckingham – thanks for the prediction.

Now

Everybody sing!!

I’m just second hand news!     I’m just second hand news!

A Bm/A A Bm/A A D E
 

 

                

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Posted in Communications, Culture, Media, Music, People, Philosophy, Politics, Technology

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Gangsters

Posted on June 23, 2013 | 1 comment

The_Sopranos_wallpaper-

With the death of James Gandolfini and the latest attempt to find Jimmy Hoffa, CNN had an article examining why we like gangsters [link]. There’s the Godfather and the Sopranos on one hand and “Gangsta” on the other. (Curiously, Word 2013’s spell checker accepted “gangsta” as written.)

I wonder what the world would be like if we were fascinated instead by people who demonstrated strong moral character and positive values.

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Posted in Actor, Arts, Business, Celebrity, Communications, Culture, Family, Friends, History, Media, People, Philosophy, Politics, Religion

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Led Into Temptation – Again

Posted on May 29, 2013 | 1 comment

cnn

I confess, I was weak. I saw the story on CNN about “Famous Atheists and Their Beliefs” and after ignoring it for several days I peeked.

Look, I also confess that we believers make fools of ourselves and one another. Christians despised Jews for centuries, conveniently forgetting that the early Church met in the synagogues. That before Paul got knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus Christian membership was limited to Jews. That the Apostles were all Jews, and, oh by the way, Jesus was a Jew, of the House of David and He was the Messiah promised to the Jews.

After the schism, Protestants aired their grievances (and very legitimate grievances they were) about the Catholics. As time went on, the various flavors of Protestant began to differentiate from one another and rejected each other for reasons real and imagined.

And then there are the Muslims; sons of Ibraham, whom we call our ancestor  Abraham. They suffer as much infighting as Christians, and suffer lunatics who have successfully hijacked the title if not their beliefs.

The Atheists seem to have a solidarity with all not believing in the same thing and supporting each other’s disbelief. The believers, on the other hand, are not nearly as supportive of one another.

Maybe we believers should agree on a few things:

  • We are all seeking God.
  • As much as we’d like to believe otherwise, we humans don’t have the answers.
  • God seems to open doors, paths and ways to reach Him.

Most importantly

  • God loves us.

We won’t see an article about “Famous Believers and What They Believe.” But as believers, we don’t need to.

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Posted in Business, Communications, Culture, Education, Friends, History, Media, People, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, Technology, Television

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The Church, Science and Mistakes

Posted on April 11, 2013 | Leave a comment
Pope Francis graduated as a chemical technician before moving on to study philosophy, psychology and theology. CNN (Link below)

Pope Francis graduated as a chemical technician before moving on to study philosophy, psychology and theology. CNN (Link below)

It seems as if many are watching the Vatican to see what Pope Francis is going to do. Lord knows there are mistakes to be cleaned up.

Being human, and being an expert at making mistakes, I accept the fact that churches and their leaders do the same.

My family is not particularly fond of my mistakes, and I’m not fond of the church’s mistakes.

The relationship between science and theology, for example. The church decided that the sun went around the earth, and when Galileo took a “responsible opposing view” the gloves came off.

The problem was that Galileo was right and the church was wrong.

CNN quoted Monsignor Tomasz Trafny, the Director of the Vatican’s Science and Faith Foundation as saying, “There was a time when theologians thought they understood everything… If you look at what is going on today you will see that theologians are very careful about what they are thinking or speaking about related to scientific issues.” [Click for CNN article]

This is good.

As much as I like the pastor at our church, he can’t seem to tell me why my car makes that funny noise, how to get my lawn to look better and we won’t even talk about how bad his advice was on my golf game.

Nevertheless, on spiritual matters he’s good to have around.

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Posted in Business, Celebrity, Communications, Culture, Family, Friends, Future, Government, Leadership, Media, People, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Science, Solving Global Warming, Technology

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The Good Stuff

Posted on February 7, 2013 | 3 comments
Some of the good stuff -Music by the Moody Blues

Some of the good stuff –
Music by the Moody Blues

As you may have notice, lately I’ve been trying to write humor. Something to just cheer people up.

I look at the online news (CNN, FoxNews, NBCNews, etc.) and they are full of nothing but doom and gloom. Worse still, the stories that are real downers stay on their pages for exceptionally long times. It’s like they’re trying to milk tragedy for all it’s worth.

I know that the media believes, “If it bleeds – it leads.” Murder, for example, is going to make the headline on page 1 of the newspaper, while the good things (if they’re lucky) will end up on the middle page of the Sunday “Living” section next to the ad for hearing aids.

Therefore, if you want to be famous – kill somebody. Otherwise, if you’re really lucky and work real hard, you’ll end up with the hearing aids.

The media isn’t going to change. Sadly, they’re not going to wake up one morning to overpowering guilt and shame, repent and try to do good things. However, they ignore the fact that long term, this is not an effective tactic.

The most experienced practitioners of these practices, the print media, are dying off. It used to be that cities would have two or three daily newspapers. If something extraordinary happened, they actually would stop the presses and print an extra edition. The cliché newspaper boy shouting, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” actually was real.

Today most cities have one and only one newspaper, and even those are at risk. It’s no wonder – the newspaper delivers the exact same information as what was on the internet the day before. Whatever the “wire services” (aka The Associated Press) decides to send out will be on CNN today and tomorrow in the morning newspaper – often word for word.

Of course, most people already got the “tweet” and so even CNN is providing second hand news.

News magazines are practically a novelty. If you’ve got a copy of Newsweek, put it in an acid free plastic sleeve and save it with your pristine copy of “Amazing Fantasy #15” (the comic book in which Spiderman first appeared.) The printed Newsweek may also become a collectors’ item.

Interestingly, not all magazines are at risk. I look forward to my monthly “Smithsonian,” “National Geographic,” and my technical magazines. Why? Because they make me think and they make me smile. My wife and I have real live interesting intellectual discussions about articles in “Smithsonian.”

“Make” magazine is full of things from basement inventors and weird and wonderful projects. Want to play around with a 3 dimensional printer – “Make” is the place to start. How about programming a credit card sized computer that costs around $30 to automatically water your plants? “Make” again.

Our kids love to learn, as did we when we were kids.

“Help me learn to ride a bicycle!”

“I want to take gymnastics!”

“Can you teach me some magic tricks?”

“Can I try soldering?”

My son recently asked us to teach him how to wash his clothes. I don’t expect that he’ll regularly take on this chore, but he was proud of himself for learning – as well he should.

This world is full of wonder and potential. It was designed and handmade by God himself. No subcontractors. No shoddy workmanship. “…and He saw that it was good.”

There’s lots of good stuff to learn and enjoy, and that’s what I’m going to focus.

Anybody with me?

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Posted in Arts, Blog, Communications, Culture, Friends, Future, History, Media, Music, People, Philosophy, Technology, Television, Writing

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W.I.T.C.H.

Posted on November 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

You’ll have to go here to read the CNN article about a 61 year old computer that has been restored. Please note the picture.

While the technology of the computer has been eclipsed, what hasn’t changed is the way news photographers pose people for pictures. The W.I.T.C.H. computer used paper tape for input, and the photo shows two men – supposedly scientists, staring at the paper tape which has all of the information stored as holes punched into the paper.

Having used punched paper tape, I can tell you there’s nothing to be gained by a human looking at it.

However, I do recall that while I was in college an enterprising individual decided that the chads (remember chad from Florida?) – the little dots of paper punched out of the holes – would make great confetti. The teletype machines had a little plastic box into which all of the chads dropped, so he saved a bagful and took it to the next football game. Unlike plain paper the paper tape and its chads had some type of waxy coating, which meant that when it was tossed and ended up in people’s hair it would stick.

It took heavy duty shampoo, the 1970’s equivalent of a pressure washer and half a day to wash the chads out.

Wonder if someone at the museum will be tempted to try the chad confetti and have the same experience.

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