The State of Media Affairs in the USA

Here’s what happens when a busy teacher and parent sits down finally after a long day following Memorial Day weekend: She (in this case, myself) turns on the television and hits up the cable news networks to see if she can get a mosaic-view of what’s going on in the world—or at least our country here in the United States of America.

History Repeated? We Wish

Let me be clear. My philosophy on life in general is that we humans have the tendency to run the same algorithm over and over again in our life cycles, perhaps in a futile effort to see if we can garner the unique ending that we’d prefer on a Hollywood screen or Netflix episode finale. In 2017, however, I believe we may be hitting a whole new low as a culture.

What I saw in the span of a few hours last night floored me. It’s not that I haven’t seen it before in recent months: CNN says President Trump is awful. MSNBC says President Trump is awful. Headline News says President Trump is awful. FOX News says CNN, MSNBC and Headline News are all awful. We all feel awful.

As a teacher and a mother, good grief as an American whose parents immigrated here, I feel like we’ve all been run through a mill and thrown out on the other side without regard for where we’ve all been and how we may actually see the world in other colors other than just black or white—in other symbols other than a donkey and an elephant.

June 2017

And just like that that, we have hit the 6^th month of this year and where are we at when we look at our pop-culture news culture?

I’m afraid it’s an awful smokescreen where we’re at as Americans. Do we really believe that the greatest threat to our respective “pursuits of happiness” is who is our President of the United States at the moment and if or who around him/her had intimate talks with the Russian authorities? нет, спасибо.

Jobless June, July and Beyond… 

Seriously, is it too much to hope that those who have the time and resources to sit in front of cameras would try to focus on some of the issues that truly are impacting Americans right now and in the future?

Here’s a few things that we all need to keep in mind while talking heads are whining about who is running our federal government, who they’re talking to and such:

1. Artificial Intelligence: AI in our daily lives is a fact now, no longer a musing of what the future holds. With or without our knowledge, AI will touch every American who resides in an urban area and even a good portion of those still in touch with our rural side.
2. Deep Learning: We humans, especially Americans, could stand to learn a thing or two from this new movement/technology called Deep Learning where a machine or computer is accumulating knowledge based on experience. Unfortunately, I’m afraid to admit that many of us may be regressing in our ability to learn or create—thus creating an easy pathway for Deep Learning technology to trump us (forgive the pun).
3. In line with points number 1 & 2 above, vehicles that automatically drive for us will start to displace many jobs. This is the story that no one seems to really be talking about but is so obvious for our truckers. This is a major job sector that is set to be shattered if this technology takes off without them being re-trained to either be involved in it or transition to something else.
4. Our Environment: We’re all talking about it but not really doing anything proactive. I personally have found it most difficult to reduce our trash in the household and have attempted to recycle nearly everything away but my heart still sinks every time I put a plastic wrapping or bag in our waste basket because our local recycling plant won’t accept them.
5. Biomedical Engineering – Genetic Advances: I don’t even have to be well-versed in these areas to understand that already we’ve far surpassed the idea of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. We’re fast approaching a human reality where we may be able to reproduce/clone humans without the standard male + female = human baby.

Looking Forward

These are literally just a handful of the countless other issues having a direct impact on most of us Americans today.

How do we proceed? Can we all apply so as to be hired and perhaps have some of these news media pundits fired? Obviously not.

The best we can hope to do within our busy schedules is to look at the world from our own eyes and act upon it with our own hearts. Such was the case recently on the Portland commuter train where folks died while protecting a couple of muslim young ladies.

We have to deny cable news media and social media their supposed delusion that we look to them for direction as to how to react to our political parties and our government officials.

Instead we should direct ourselves to evoke what the real truth is, that many of us want to have an enduring part of our nation’s history—not this re-run of Gore vs. Bush malaise or post-Vietnam War hangover types trying to define who and what we are as a nation here in the United States of America.

United we stand, divided we fall.

God we pray to stay united and hear each other out.

R.V.S.B.