Our culture is hell-bent on self destruction and self loathing. Look at the TV shows. If Reality TV is reality we are in deep trouble. There are shows in which people of absolutely no redeeming values have a "brothel" of women shamelessly (or shamefully) pursuing a date or a lifetime commitment with them.
Is the country really made up of the people who appear on Springer, Dr. Phil or even the nightly news? I hope not.

There is plenty of good news: Daily acts of kindness. Medical breakthroughs. Fantastic advances in science. Look at what our robots have discovered on mars. There are honest businessmen. Heroes from both on-going wars. Etc etc. Unfortunately, what we get are dog bites, murders, car chases, the "sky is falling" or the "end of the world as we know it".

In the midst of the hate-filled, rancorous and polarizing debates that tear at the heart of our country on cable news or in personal blogs, I would offer a glimmer of hope: J. Peterman's Eye. Are we not a "family" of rational individuals who can and do have civilized conversations about many topics? Maybe the only thing we all have in common is a love of the Owners Manual. That's probably enough.

Look at our "conversation" about global warming. It was civilized and informative. It could have turned into a shouting match. It didn't. Why?

We don't have to agree on anything. I don't expect people to agree with me. But I will admit that I have been challenged by others' thoughts and certainly appreciate the different points of view. I know there are more of us out there.

The lights might be going out, but I plan to keep a candle burning.

I don't necessarily agree that we're attracted to self-destruction, but rather that we're a society that's made up of people who are really low on self-esteem. We've been confronted for years with the myths of the unattainable via the television and been told that it's our job to attain them simply to be a proper American.

The results are the credit crisis, a throw-away society, and a not-so-secret desire to see other people doing more poorly than we are. Hence Springer, constant bad news, Britney Spears, etc. And another aspect of this phenomenon is that people have developed such a need to be "elite" that they can't handle opinions that vary from their own. And their lack of proper socialization (again, due to the tube) has made them unable to properly handle differences of opinion, hence flame wars, polarization of opinions, and the constant call of "you have no right to offend me."

But... there's another side to that. There are people who simply have decided to turn off the tube and go out and actually interact with other people. And you know what? Those people are MUCH happier. And MUCH more successful. Happiness breeds success - I TRULY believe that.

This group (of which I'm a newer member, but I seem to be among mostly like-minded folks) is one of those groups of people. They are free-thinkers, but they understand that all opinions are valid because they help us learn. And an open mind is more open to happiness and success. A closed mind only allows in those ideas that boost a poorly constructed sense of self-worth.

I'll keep my candle burning, while I read my Owners Manual!

To: jfellrath,

I agree....we seem to have forgotten the "and the pursuit of happiness" phrase in our country's Founding Documents" and what it really means. I think Jefferson was speaking about Aristotle's concept of happiness. Success doesn't always bring happiness, but happiness does breed success. Be happy first!

To: LaDonna,

Scented or unscented?

To: ExPat
Of course....scented!

It really does seem like the media loves to highlight the negative or the disturbing (Expat--I know the reality show to which you refer!). It's not enough just to find negative stories. They often go the extra mile and throw in a few dire predictions from "experts" and maybe top it off with a survey showing that most Americans are pessimistic about something--the economy, their children's futures, just fill in the blank.

Sure it's good to be an informed person, but a daily dose of all that can after a time leave anybody feeling depressed. There truly is so much goodness in this world. It's probably much more healthy to have a worldview based on your own observations than of someone elses "reality".

I can’t say that I disagree with anything that has been said related to this topic. Although I don’t believe, or more accurately, I at least hope that we aren’t driven to destruction, one of my greatest fears is that this trend, if unabated, may eventually get us to that point.

To answer Mr. Peterman’s question, what does the focus our mainstream media places on reporting the negative aspects of daily events while seemingly hiding or downplaying acts of heroism, compassion or any positive outcome? Unfortunately the quote that comes to mind, and I’m not sure who said it; ‘just follow the money” will get you to the bottom of things. I say unfortunately because this seems to be a reflection of what our society is willing to pay to see, hear and read. Perhaps it’s a way of feeling better by hearing about someone with bigger, or in most cases, weirder problems than those you are faced with. It’s kind of like being in a long, slow line, but accepting it as long as there is someone else behind you. I feel that mainstream media has a social and moral responsibility to be better balanced. I just don’t know how that can be achieved when they are limited to selling a product that people will actually buy. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a capitalist through and through, but I still don’t believe that the end always justifies the means.

On the bright side, as has already been pointed out, we do have forums such as this to read and discuss all manner of topics (I tip my hat to Mr. Peterman for this one). As long as our voices can be heard, and if they are loud enough and convincing enough, perhaps there can be some positive traction toward getting things back to a better perspective. Let's all keep our candles burning.

Be well
jm

It's difficult to argue that what is reported is bad because that's what people want. On the one hand, "old media" news is in evident contraction; newspaper circulation is in free-fall and television news budgets are being slashed. On the other hand, for decades now people have grown increasingly distrustful of journalists in general. The people who have the most control over "the message" -- the best ability to paint themselves as heroes -- are viewed as villains. These things make it hard to argue that journalist focus on ugliness and tragedy because that is what people want.

An alternate claim might be that journalism is supposed to be about the truth, rather than about makings seem happy or acceptable. But, in fact, good news is as much the truth as is bad news. Further, most of us who have first-hand knowledge of some story that got covered by "the press" know that the story was not accurately reported. And, when one combines these experiences across persons, one realizes that almost nothing is being accurately reported. (Sad to say that this point often applies to alleged good news too.) So journalism isn't about the truth either.

What, then, can be the source of the commitment to unpopular and misrepresentative tales of ugliness and of tragedy? I think that we find it in Schools of Journalism. Students are indoctrinated into a common mode of thought and of behavior, and then join newsrooms full of others who were likewise indoctrinated.

Let's try a test: There are two stories on a page, one about the surfer who was killed by a shark in San Diego today, the other about all the other people who went swimming and had nothing happen to them. Which one are you going to read first?

The real bias in journalism is towards the most entertaining (and usually simplest) story. That why political campaigns are treated like sports contests andthe local page is as full of violence and tragedy as popular entertainment.

I'm going to play advocatus diaboli and state that the loss of yet another soldier in an unjust war is a lot less important than the trickle-down effects of the mortgage crisis. Maybe there is a lot of bad news in the media, but there is no denying the unpleasant facts. One can only hope that enough people will get fed up with the bad economy to demand that something is done about it.

That's it, Bubba! Whatever can be made sensational, sells. This is not just about death and mayhem. The 24 hr TV news has to find something to make people want to stop their channel surfing and watch. How many of you have experienced some sort of happening.. a wild fire, a multi-car wreck, a storm of some sort and then watched the report of it on TV. Could hardly recognize it? As I mentioned the other day, the earthquake caused one small pile of debris here in Louisville, and we saw reports of that pile all day. My husband was in south Texas several years ago when a hurricane hit. The news coverage had me all upset and concerned about it. But when I finally got ahold of him, I found out that it was not all that intense, more like a severe rain storm. But the Weather Channel had to make it out as something really important so as to keep its viewers and thus its ad revenue. I know that sounds very cynical, but after several such false alarms, one tends to get that way.

Oh dear. Darlings, just because it's somebody's reality doesn't mean it has to be ours.
Several years ago, I came home from work, turned on the evening news, and heard, "Rain is on the way. Will your house get wet?" This ridiculous line was delivered with an amazing amount of drama. That was it: no more evening news for me. So much of TV news and advertising is totally geared to provoke fear in us. We don't have to embrace it. Pain, illness, suffering and death are normal parts of existence, aren't they? I figure if something has happened I need to know about, I'll find out about it. So far, it's working out fine.