I should stop listening to the news and reading my news
feeds on the Internet. I managed to get past my youthful, idealistic,
principled "anger issues" several years ago. But, I have to tell you,
it's hard to contain those old feelings when I read the stuff I read in the
mainstream media and I mean the NYTimes, Washington Post, WSJ and similar
abuses of our forests and Internet bandwidth.
It's the same with the news broadcasts - cable or broadcast.
Local news drives me bats. There's seldom anything positive and the rest of the
stuff is sensationalized. As far as the broadcast network news, I love to watch
Diane Sawyer because she's my age and helps me keep feeling young just looking
at her. I'm not into Scott Pelley on CBS and I don't particularly like Brian
William's delivery.
Now, going to the cable news networks - someone commented on
an op-ed I read in the NYTimes today, with the full intent to slam anyone who
watches the Fox News Channel, that they are Neanderthals and watch Fox for the
blondes in the mini-skirts. Well, guess what, I LOVE blondes in mini-skirts, so
I'll take my position as a Neanderthal way before I'll stop loving blondes in
mini-skirts. The fact is, those blondes in mini-skirts have not only impressive
résumé's, but extremely impressive résumé's. There's not a dumb blond in the
bunch.
But, I also watch CNN, HLN (where I also love dark-haired
Robin and Natasha), some CNBC and MSNBC. My least favorite of these is MSNBC.
Too many of the MSNBC commentators come off as smug, arrogant, elitist,
intellectual extreme liberals. If we ever meet in person, ask me how I really
feel about them. Actually, I don't like smug, arrogant, elitist, intellectual,
ultra conservatives any better.
The fact is most of the cable channels are more about
injecting a little too much personal opinion and not enough about just
delivering the news - or being a "news reader." I think the BBC does
a better job at that. And, just to be fair, while some of the ladies on the
other cable channels might not look as good in mini-skirts as the Fox(y) ladies
do, they also have impressive résumé's for the most part - as do all the male
counterparts.
Case In Point!
Here's a case in point. Last night I caught some of Greta
Van Susteren's coverage of the Carnival
Cruise Line ship, the Triumph, docking when it limped into Mobile, Alabama's
small port. Now, Greta is no dummy. Her law degree is from the Georgetown
University Law Center, a prestigious organization, and she was both a criminal
defense and a civil trial attorney before eventually landing her post on Fox.
But, she seemed hell bent to condemn Carnival Cruise Lines for putting the
4,200 people, some 3,000 of whom were passengers (paying customers) and the
rest crew, through the worst kind of hell anyone could imagine.
This got to me. She was interviewing passengers still on the
disabled ship by cell phone. None of them were screaming foul or condemning
anyone and in fact, continually praised the crew for doing everything in their
power to make everyone on board as comfortable as possible under the most
extreme and dire circumstances. I later switched over to MSNBC and The Ed Show
with Ed Schultz. It didn't seem much different there.
Focus On The Negative
The focus was on all the negative and little about the
positive. Positive just doesn't sell commercial time and ratings. In fact,
there was raw sewage and the plumbing systems weren't working nor were the
climate control or the elevators and so on. What exactly do these commentators
think can be done on a ship like this? Greta asks, "Don't they have
back-up systems?" She went further to suggest that the crew didn't put the
generator to appropriate use in powering the ship that was brought in on a
helicopter.
Don't any of these channels have a research staff to look
into these kinds of things before they allow their commentators to open their
mouths up in front of millions of people and condemn the cruise line and the
crew for something the commentator, OBVIOUSLY, doesn't understand? Have these commentators
ever been on a large ship? Don't they realize that they are actually a small
city that floats on water?
Do they not realize how many resources these floating
behemoths require on a daily basis to function with 4,200 people living in a
floating city? One of the reasons these cruise ships make nearly daily stops at
ports of call is to replenish food supplies, potable water, fuel, sanitary
supplies, empty their sewage tanks and so on. A ship that crosses oceans going
3,000 or more miles between ports is designed very differently. They seldom
carry as many people because they need more room to store food, potable water,
fuel, other necessary supplies and have a finite capacity in their sewage
storage tanks.
Imagine the uproar there would be if these ships just dumped
all their raw sewage and garbage in the oceans as they did when the early
explorers were discovering the "New World."
Don't these, educated, intelligent commentators understand
that a generator that a helicopter could carry might be large enough to
maintain a few walk in refrigerators or freezers, but not power even a small
percentage of a floating city? The amount of electricity to handle driving the
ship, running massive numbers of pumps for the ENTIRE plumbing system including
multiple swimming pools, huge kitchen requirements, lights, a dozen or more
elevators, etc. requires a large turbine like those in land based power plants.
They are huge and weigh tons. Aren't just sitting on the shelves at Costco or
Home Depot and are very complicated to install.
Does Anyone Even Care About The Crew?
And, further, everyone is complaining about the poor
passengers. How about the crew on a ship like that? The crew quarters is on the
very lowest deck, often below the water line. Guess where all that leaking raw
sewage is going to end up? In the crew quarters. Yet, for not nearly enough
money (I know a young woman who was an entertainer on a ship for several years
and she told me what happens during events like this) that crew must continue to
perform without clean clothes, showers proper nutrition, let alone the time or
a place to rest.
The passengers continually commented on how great the crew
was and how well they handled everything. The CEO and shore staff of Carnival
considered every possible SAFE alternative to return those people to shore. The
passengers will receive a full refund. They will receive some kind of payment
for their discomfort and inconvenience. They will receive an option for another
cruise at no cost or very low cost. The CEO of Carnival was there waiting for
the ship and rushed off to be either on the ship or at the end of the gangway
to personally apologize to every passenger. I hope Carnival is able to
compensate the crew for what they did above and beyond the call of duty in this
instance.
The Bottom Line
Bottom line, do these commentators think that these business
operators are that stupid? This is a media feeding frenzy and a public
relations nightmare of the highest magnitude. It's going to cost Carnival
millions upon millions of dollars to take care of the passengers and crew and
repair and replace whatever the ship needs to be seaworthy again. And, I'm not
even going to get into the cries and decries about there being a Congressional
hearing on this and why ships like this and their companies fly foreign flags.
In this case, the ship is registered in the Bahamas.
What Is Stopping You?
This brings me to the point of this post. WHAT IS STOPPING
YOU? Are you reading too many news articles? Are you buying into all the
claptrap B.S. spewed out by the pretty blondes in mini-skirts and their
handsome counterparts? Are you getting too many liberal or conservative online
newsletters spewing dissension and doomsday? Are you believing the President of
the United States in his State of the Union message and all the other political
talking heads? Are you ready to become a "Prepper?"
Is the nation or the world ending, as we know it? Will we
soon be treading water from all the global glacier and polar ice melting? Will
we run out of fish because we're out fishing the oceans - and worse yet, we're
WASTING thousands of dollars of food each year - as families? Do you have
enough drugs for every kind of malady from hangnails to heartburn - and
especially tranquilizers, anti-depressants and most especially psychotropic
drugs to control your ADHD, paranoia, schizophrenia, psychotic tendencies and a
myriad of neuroses? Are you afraid you'll never achieve the "mythical
American Dream" and thus, be a "failure?" Do I need to go on? I
hope not.
Here's the reality. What is stopping you is Y O U! You don't
need a college degree to be successful - look at Bill Gates, Michael Dell,
Steve Jobs, Bill Lear (Lear Jet - 8th grade education), Henry Ford (8th grade
education), Thomas Edison (3 months of school, dropped out, home schooled by
his mother), Steven Spielberg (achieved much of his success before he
eventually completed a degree based on his projects). This is only a short list
and I didn't even get into the brilliant blonde, brunette and redheaded women
in their "mini-skirts" who have, likewise become successful. One
might be Helen Gurley Brown and another, for sure, is Dolly Parton.
I personally knew and interviewed Dorothy Finklehor, a woman
who started a small business school out of necessity during the Great
Depression in her home. She hadn't finished high school herself. She and her
husband, Herb, who I also knew, grew that small business school to a fully
accredited, four year, liberal arts college in downtown Pittsburgh. It's called
Point Park University. Yes, I said university, since it now has university
status with 4,000 students and a multitude of graduate degree programs. When
Dorothy died, she had earned her high school, bachelors, masters and PhD
degrees and passed away in 1988 as the President Emeritus of Point Park, the
school she started in her home 55 years earlier.
Just Be Creative
So, what's stopping YOU? Do you honestly believe you have
any real reasons - or should I call them excuses? What do you really, REALLY
want from this life? You only get one chance to experience it, you know. When
will you start really experiencing it? Oh, you have a wife/husband. You have
children. Your family wants you to stay close to them. You don't make enough
money working for "The Man."
Here's another fact you can sleep on. It doesn't matter how
much money you have, how big and nice or what neighborhood or how many houses
you have. It doesn't matter if you drive a BMW, Mercedes, Ferrari or a used
Chevy. It doesn't matter if you buy your clothes at Neiman-Marcus, Kohls or
Wal-Mart. It doesn't matter how many toys you have. You can count on this. When
you die you're just as dead as Steve Jobs and Mahatma Gandhi and Elvis Presley
is. Dead is dead! Nothing goes with you - not money, gold, cars, houses, and
clothes - NADA! Death is the great equalizer.
So, what do you want from your life? Are you going to let
all this crap that pours out of the media and the offices of the faux
aristocratic elite in Washington, DC (if you're a U.S. citizen) control your
thinking and your life? Do you want to see as many sunsets and sunrises in as
many different places as possible? Sunsets and sunrises are FREE and there are
a myriad ways of getting to as many different places as possible. It just takes
some creativity. Do you want to see the world and all the beauty and majesty it
holds for you? Most of that is FREE, too. And, again, creativity can take you
there.
There are single folks, couples and families traveling this
country and the world every single day. I don't mean just a few. I mean there
are millions of them. You just have to be creative. Do you dislike or hate
working for "The Man" and accepting what he or she decides he or she
will pay you? Is there something you'd rather be doing because you're in
harmony with it? Then why, in all that's holy, aren't you doing it? Sure, you
may not make as much money. But, you're paying a bigger price in the priceless
value of your time and your life that's passing by under someone else's
control.
Okay! So I started this with my dissertation about the
various news media and the inane way they subtly and subconsciously control our
thinking. Are we living under the "poverty level?" Are we
middle-class? Are we upper middle-class? Are we the 1%? What does any of that
matter if you're not free, happy and secure in yourself and your life? They are
just words.
There was a book I once had titled "Hung By The
Tongue." Are you hung by your tongue? Do you REALLY care what anyone else
thinks? Honestly? Do you? If so, why? Believe me, everyone has an opinion on
what you should do, how you should live your life and what kind of
"work" you should do. The worst are your family. "Did I spend
all that money paying for you to become a lawyer (doctor, engineer, teacher,
scientist) and you want to throw it all away and be a guide on rafting trips on
the Colorado River rapids? What's wrong with you?"
Well, it's your life. It's not up to me to persuade or
convince you of anything. Most people are nice folks. I totally enjoy meeting
people. Unfortunately, most seem to fall into a classification we call
"sheeple." The ones who really stand out for me are the people who
are living the life THEY choose to live on their own terms - for richer or
poorer. They are free, happy and secure
in themselves and have the greatest stories and experiences. They love to sit
around with like-minded people and swap their tales. So, I hope you figure out
what you want out of this very short time we have to spend on this planet and
join us.
I'd love to kick ideas around with you, both to learn about
you and from you . . . and possibly share some of my thoughts, ideas and
experiences that you may gain from. I started a discussion forum that still
hasn't seemed to gel, but I'm hoping as more and more people sign on we'll
eventually get some great discussions going. You can click on the Living Free
and Happy link to the right of this post or you can click right here Living Free and Happy. Just sayin'.
4 comments:
People really love to participate in hate mongering in this country. Any chance to ridicule and be little something or someone else. I have learned that educated people are still capable of stupid stuff ;)
I sure wish I could disagree with you, Melissa . . . but, I can't.
Like the old saying goes - ____ happens!Deal with it. The world isn't fair. Justice doesn't always play out the way we want it to in our opinion. It will be interesting to see where the Carnival story goes. And, and I hope a few people figure out what's stopping them from living the life they really want.
Ed
Great post, good medicine for me as i am really getting pounded by the winter blues and want to dash off and travel but have myself pushed up against invisible walls! I will read your blog now, Ed, it is helpful and well written, not to mention inspiring.
Thanks, RuthieBee --
I'm glad you've gained some useful information and ideas from my post and the blog. Let me know how you beat the winter blues - I think there are a lot of people experiencing them this year. Strange winter, indeed!
Enthusiastically,
Ed
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