News of the Old

Two funny images were shown while I was watching my daily dose of CNN today. Now there's something you probably don't say too often. Yet today I found myself in the unlikely position of actually not yelling and rolling my eyes at the big bold headlines and color commentators, but being pleased. This came just one hour after blasting the mass media for always putting a different spin about what is actually said to the press, and many times rewording in a negative connotation what the broadcasters themselves say. Most of my frustrations with the media are directed towards their portrayal and constant negative reenforcement of the dismal economy. I realize its bad, anyone enrolled in upper level education knows its bad, and now even the pre-schoolers who watch Sesame Street know it's bad (seriously it has been addressed by Big Bird and his posse). You don't have to be a slick business person to know the lows and even lowers right now because it is being streamed to us at a rapid succession. I appreciate being informed more than most, but there comes a point when you are over-informed. Right now, I feel, we are so over-informed that we are paralyzed. Paralyzed to buy and paralyzed to invest [in any form of capital].

Imagine my excitement then when the Dow ticker would actually disappear when the market hit below 30 points. It would reappear in the right hand corner every time the market would rally a bit. I felt myself watching it as I do the the Colts score, just willing the screen to advance my team more points. The most exciting thing is though, finally the media was rooting for my team. They were actually not enforcing the bad news. Small as it may be, I do realize what strength it must have took for those CNN technical producers to actually not just leave that ticker up all day with no regard. It probably took just as much strength as it did for the second funny image CNN projected, which was of President Obama a male among literally an entire room of females. Today the President signed an executive order creating the White House Council on Women and Girls. For someone, and a female someone at that, who has never taken too much of a stand on women's rights one way or another, it was actually a profound image. You just don't see one man with so much power stand completely swarmed with women and giving them more power. Well, other than Richard Simmons. That's a whole other issue though. As stated, a profound and yet funny image.

So today was a day when we were not completely bombarded with bad news. It was actually quite peaceful and gave way for me to be a little more ambitious with my ongoing projects (that of job searching). Not to worry though I am not a complete idealist, and it doesn't take that long in conversation with me to realize that fact. The complexities of what is currently going on in our country I can only grasp, but not explain. Thankfully wiser people than I walk this Earth. I think we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief for that. One of these people is New York Times write, Thomas Friedman. He is also the author of one of my favorite books The World is Flat . Unfortunately not enough people my age have read this book or his column, nor probably have even heard of him. Possibly not that many people in general have. More people should though and they should start by ready this column in particular: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/opinion/11friedman.html
It doesn't bombard anyone too much, or attack a certain group more than another, and it's not even completely negative. It just puts things into an accurate perspective. That's how the news should be presented too. It should help an audience to think in the right frame of mind. After all 99.9% of Americans aren't entertained by this stuff nearly as much as I apparently am.