A Time To Think

 We are generally 'bombarded' twenty-four hours a day....seven days a week, and the rapid pace of news, public opinion, and hyped-up reaction....is dragging us along some path where things often don't make sense, or you end up with a story which is filled with 'holes'.

I can't think of a single story over the past couple of years where you felt entirely satisfied with the facts.  Sadly, we have mostly two-star journalists around now....who don't seem worried about missing features of a story, or that the story seems to be just enough for a 12-year old juvenile, but not for what you'd consider an adult.

I sat and watched a Dick Cavett show this morning....June 1970.  It was an odd group....Chet Huntley (the news guy who grew up in Montana), Raquel Welch, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, and Janis Joplin.  

It was probably the oddest group ever assembled for a evening talk-show.  Anyone remembering them today?  No.  You could test a hundred people, and the only ones knowing the four (or Cavett) would be those over the age of sixty.

They come to this odd point at the end of the hour, and Huntley is declaring retirement being not that far off, and that the pace of the news is one of those things drawing him to say 'enough'.

Oddly, as he lays out this 'pace of the news'....the group all kinda suggest the same thing.  X-amount of information is laid out, and the sense of where this is going to lead onto....is missing.  

You have to remember....this was 1970....before the internet came along, or cable news.  

In today's environment?  There just isn't enough time to sit and pause over what you were told....asking yourself what really happened here,  and then using a 'red-pen' to note missing key items to the story.  It's all told in a way to get a reaction....when the story is mostly a one-star story without much content.  

When Authority Means Nothing

 I've sat and watched this police-video (at least 15 times) of the Columbus, Ohio situation where this 16-year old teen (Ma'Khia Bryant) is shot by the police. 

It's up on YouTube and you can find it....to watch for yourself.

The 911 call?  Well....it's basically this 'warning' by the caller that all 'hell' is breaking loose and arguments with the potential for violence are underway....so the  cops arrive, and it's roughly ten to fifteen seconds after the arrival that you see two individuals (one guy and one teenage gal) who seem to be unaffected by the police car or police authority.

It's a odd thing to watch.....seconds where these two idiots are intently set on some type of violence, with no affect by the police presence. 

Maybe I'm from a different generation (1960s/1970s/1980s).  But generally, the minute a fire-truck or a police presence is established....my entire focus is upon the 'authority'.

These two?  I get the impression that you could have dumped out a 2,500-lb bull upon the crowd, and they would have continued their intended degree of violence.

So you see the teenager suddenly with a knife and progressing  toward a stabbing.  The intent to kill? Absolute.  

If the policeman hadn't fired?  Well...the teenager in the pink pants-suit would have been stabbed two or three times, and probably enough to die there on the front-yard.  

The 16-year old?  She would have gone off to prison for 15 to 20 years.

So I sit and ponder.....all people had to do upon the arrival of the police car....take note, and just chill out.  In this case, the police car and authority arriving....meant nothing to these two.  That should generally scare you.....we have dropped so low as a society, that authority means nothing.