What Would the Fathers Say?

Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only Law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited….What a paradise would this region be!
~~ John Adams, 1756 ~~

We call it “modern times.”  We’re up-to-date, we’re high tech.  At the cutting edge, the leading edge, smarter and brighter than ever before.  We’re enlightened!  We have the Internet, and much of the world’s knowledge right here at our fingertips. In so many ways, we are a truly blessed nation.

Some say they don’t care what the older generation thinks.  After all, what do they know?  Others quote the Founding Fathers to validate a point, usually political, while at the same time ignoring the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe those same founders wrote and spoke so much about.

Ethics in Journalism is Dead!

There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth. ~~ Dorothy Thompson

Ethics in Journalism is dead my friend. You hadn’t heard?  Tragically and sadly it’s so.  There was no announcement, no obituary, no funeral, no day of mourning, no closure.  It just happened.  Ethics you see is gone, you can be sure of that.

The Fourth Estate once stood for something.  It used to be an honored profession, a free-agent, independent of outside influence.  At one time a watchdog and guardian over governments and politicians gone astray. It’s now just the opposite.  That once great institution stands now as a facilitator, a protector, an enabler.  Journalism’s hatchet men have become manipulators and endorsers of the worse that government, and the governed, has to offer.  All at the cost of ethics.  What was once revered should now be feared.  Journalists have become no less than secondary parties to a crime.  You and I, our posterity, and our country have become — many of us — its unwitting victims.

Smartphones Making Us Smarter?

Subtitled – Facing Off With Facebook or Tweeting My Life Away

Nowadays in this high-tech world of ours every Tom, Jane, Bob and Mary has a smartphone.  These handy little gadgets have effectively become the center of the technology industry.  The computer world as we once knew it is being reshaped and will affect how we use these various devices.  These handheld attachments to the wired world, and their built-in cameras, allow their owners to update their friends and family on every little facet of their existence.  Complete with illustrative photos it happens almost instantly through social media like Facebook and Twitter.

But alas, do we really need to know that Susie just checked in at Joe’s Pool Emporium with friend Margie, accompanied by a photo of the two sitting at one of Joe’s booths with smiling faces and beers in-hand?  Do we really need to know about the wonderful evening/weekend/afternoon/day Sally just had with her bff? Do we really need to see a photo of that yummy salad bar plate one is enjoying at this very minute at the local pizza joint?  Ding ding notifies my smartphone, this just in!  Please!  Is this what our society in this modern age has come to?  Do we really need to know this stuff and right-up-to-the-second?

High Tech Changes The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Now that the post three-day weekend doldrums have fallen upon us, it’s time to get serious again.  Afterall it’s back to reality and Fall is just 17-days away.  Here in Seattle with summer on the wane, that’s time for serious reflection!

I’m amazed at how high-tech has taken over my life.  If it were not for my current financial limitations it would be even more dominant.  I’m unemployed, too bad for Apple!  I can hardly get through a day without opening my laptop and in-fact rarely do. Even if I can’t get Internet access there’s still plenty I can find to wile away my time on my laptop.  It even became a marital issue and was the reason I had to give up my first blogging venture.  It’s a solitary endeavor, this thing called writing and it takes an understanding companion to put up with it.

The one thing, more than any other that has touched my life in a high-tech way, is how easy it has become to communicate with people in far-off places and at zero cost (once you have the high-tech in-hand).  Take this blog for example.  My reach is worldwide and so far [in September 2011] I’ve seen visitors from at least 33 states and 18 countries including recently the Russian Federation of Krasnaya Presnya and even Sri Lanka.  Then of course there’s email.  Is it any wonder the U.S. Postal Service is bleeding money to the tune of more than $3-billion in a single quarter?  I mean who sends letters these days?