Real, Meaningful News

It’s pretty easy to be discouraged by the hysterical and disturbing headlines in the news these days. It doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum you are on. If you are conservative, you are likely appalled by what’s happening at the southern border, the profligate federal spending proposals, the erosion of election security, and all the senseless rioting. If you are a liberal/progressive, it is presumed that you are incensed that the filibuster is still in place, that there are still only nine Supreme Court Justices, that the new Georgia voting law has not been overturned, that D.C. and Puerto Rico are still not States, and that racism is the worst it’s ever been.

If you are employed and/or belong to any clubs or social groups, (or have a family!) you have an additional source of angst – you need to make frequent and calculated decisions each day about how “woke” you are willing to show yourself to be. In today’s hyper-divisive histrionic atmosphere, revealing too many of your true convictions could cost you an opportunity, a friend or even your job. Yet to hide, suppress or eschew fealty to your true beliefs could cost you your soul. Even remaining resolutely silent on certain hot button topics like racial injustice is no guarantee of safety or neutrality. For example, we are assured by BLM and others that any reserve or silence is proof of allegiance to a hopelessly racist creed. “Silence is violence” is now the motto. Verbally catchy, but as applied today, an ugly and coercive fallacy. This attitude is totalitarian in its blanket application. You must comply, regardless of your ideology, your individual understanding of the facts in play, or any other reason for reticence.

And let’s not forget COVID-19. The infection rate in this country is down more than 80% since January, the death rate in the US is as low as it’s ever been since the CDC began keeping track more than a year ago, and more than half of all U.S. adults are now vaccinated. Despite all of this, some state governments are still behaving as if we are at the peak of the pandemic. Even our fully vaccinated President is seen wearing not one but two masks in public settings.

Part of what makes these issues so charged is the shameless and selective editing of source material by the media before it is presented to you as news. In a recent noxious example, NBC blatantly edited the original police body cam video of knife wielding Ma’Khia Bryant being shot by police. They only showed the knife on the ground, not when it was in Bryant’s hand while she was lunging at another young woman. They also edited the audio from the 911 call coming from the scene by eliminating the caller’s frantic voice yelling “…girls are trying to stab us…”. Similarly, CBS edited body-cam footage of the police shooting of young Adam Toledo in Chicago. The original video briefly shows Toledo with a gun in his hand just prior to being shot by police. CBS conveniently cropped that visual out of their report on Twitter and included this headline – “Newly released bodycam footage shows Chicago police chasing and fatally shooting 13-year-old Adam Toledo, as he appeared to comply with orders to raise his hands”. In these two cases, major news media companies are purposefully creating a perversion of the actual events, designed to support their own race-baiting and cop-hating narrative without integrity or regard for the truth. It is a totally false reality. Our “reporters” have abandoned their own traditional values and are perniciously heightening and exploiting the racial sensitivities of minorities. They are also cultivating a growing sense of faux guilt in corporate America for monetary and political gain.

This endlessly reiterated parade of societal evils is force-fed to us continuously. We are told they are the most important and defining themes of our culture. But is this true? Our society is certainly grappling with compelling issues. But other significant events are also happening in the world today which could/should radically change our perspective. There are opportunities for epochal awe in 2021. Here are two recent news items that very briefly broke through all the noise of the shrill 24-7 news cycle:

1. In a stunning feat of scientific and engineering wizardry, we (the United States) landed two more vehicles on Mars in February, an advanced land vehicle and a helicopter. Furthermore, it wasn’t just the US that managed to get spacecraft to Mars this past winter. Both China and the United Arab Emirates also did so. Just last week NASA flew its helicopter on Mars. This was an extraordinary technical achievement that got remarkably little play in the mainstream news. In the 1960’s, the accomplishments of the space program dwarfed other news items in significance. When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, nothing else in the news mattered. It was a seriously important event with authentic meaning and global implications that transcended all other earthly problems.
2. UFOs – This topic has historically been viewed mostly as fantasy and a haven for hoaxers. That attitude has persisted because there has never been definitive proof of any encounters or statements from reliably credible witnesses. That all changed this past year. For the first time, the US military released its own pictures and video of several different encounters with UFOs. In addition, there are eyewitness reports from Air Force and Navy pilots and crewmembers aboard Navy ships. The reason this information is emerging now is due in part to a provision in the 2020 federal budget mandating that a public report on such encounters with the military be prepared and released by June of 2021. These military UFO sightings have the credibility that has been lacking with civilian sightings up to this point. The US Navy and Air Force have little reason to fabricate such information. Additionally, they have every reason to thoroughly investigate any such encounters to be sure they don’t represent new advanced technology from an earthly adversary. The military is equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance technology that can be brought to bear from a vantage point (e.g. the cockpit of an F18) unavailable to civilian UFO “enthusiasts”. Unless you are of the mind that the US military is trying to pull off a big hoax, for reasons we can’t begin to imagine, there is a believability to these sightings that has not existed previously.

Why are these two news items so underreported relative to all the things mentioned at the beginning of this article? Are they genuinely less newsworthy? Let’s hypothesize that a complex form of life is discovered on Mars, or one of these UFOs lands on earth and presents itself for our inspection. Should either of these things happen, the implications would be so immense, the news topics listed in the first part of this blog post would (and should) take on a “local” character in comparison. The framework of human existence will have been fundamentally altered. Even so, we sadly suspect our media would remain intractably mired in the endless examination of all that is violent, contentious and terrifying in our world. The Mars helicopter flights and military UFO sightings are items which are meaningful and astonishing occurrences. Yet, they have received paltry coverage. Our current crop of mainstream “journalists” have so devolved that they assign little value to, and are unable to appreciate/celebrate, opportunities for wonder. 

We offer this hypothetical as a reminder that, regardless of your political ideology, and no matter how devastating you think the news is of what is happening in our country, there is another, larger, perspective.  We are on the verge of discoveries that should open and fascinate the human mind. Instead, this upward-and outward looking perspective is buried in all the tragic strife and division that currently occupies center stage. Just be prepared – these otherworldly events could burst into the forefront of all our lives at any moment. How cool would that be?