When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. —Marcus Aurelius
We already have more advantages, more options, than any other generation to inhabit this planet. Maybe we should take advantage of that
I hesitate to write anything sounding too terribly positive. While I want to be encouraging and supportive, every time I do it seems to backfire on me and I have the worst day possible. There are times one might get the impression that the universe is saying, “How DARE you be positive and hopeful? You must be punished for your remarks.”  I know I’m not alone. Many days we wake up and absolutely nothing we do goes as planned. Flat tires. Disappointing people. Failed expectations. A stain on your new shirt—before noon. I’m not really expecting today to be any different.
I finally got around to reading President Obama’s article in Wired this morning, though. He presents a rather challenging premise:
We are far better equipped to take on the challenges we face than ever before. I know that might sound at odds with what we see and hear these days in the cacophony of cable news and social media. But the next time you’re bombarded with over-the-top claims about how our country is doomed or the world is coming apart at the seams, brush off the cynics and fearmongers. Because the truth is, if you had to choose any time in the course of human history to be alive, you’d choose this one. Right here in America, right now.
Do I want to believe the President? Sure. Intellectually, the points he makes are valid. What we actually experience is often different, though.
A Matter Of Perspective
When discussing how things have improved over the years, the President makes some compelling points:
- Life expectancy is up.
- The share of Americans with a college education is up too.
- Tens of milÂlions of Americans recently gained the security of health insurance.
- Blacks and Latinos have risen up the ranks to lead our businesses and communities.
- Women are a larger part of our workforce and are earning more money.
- Once-quiet factories are alive again
- More countries know democracy.
- More kids are going to school.
- A smaller share of humans know chronic hunger or live in extreme poverty.
- In nearly two dozen countries—including our own—Âpeople now have the freedom to marry whomever they love.
I can’t and wouldn’t want to argue any of those points. Some tremendous strides have taken place over the past several years and, combined, they have made life on this planet better than many of our parents and grandparents could have ever dreamed. Tremendous advantages and opportunities make this a great time to be alive.
At the same time, however, being alive right now, in 2016, holds some pretty significant challenges.
- Unjust and disproportionate incarceration of people of color
- Police violence against unarmed citizens has reached a breaking point
- Corporate takeover of the political system has turned us into an oligarchy
- The gap between the richest one percent and everyone else is wider than ever
- Family revenue has either stayed flat or declined while inflation has soared
- A record number of adults have been unemployed for over six months with increasingly fewer prospects.
- Native peoples are still the most disenfranchised group and their property rights are not respected.
We’ve made progress, but we’re a long way from being where we should, where we want, and where we need to be.
Looking To The Future
Taking an honest assessment of where we are right now, what it means to be alive in 2016, is both sobering and hopeful. We’ve gotten some things right, but there is still much to do. President Obama refers frequently to the late Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek science fiction franchise as an example of an ideal society:
What I loved about it was its optimism, the fundamental belief at its core that the people on this planet, for all our varied backgrounds and outward differÂences, could come together to build a better tomorrow.
While such optimism is laudable, it is difficult to anticipate we are anywhere near that ideal when one of the top headlines this morning reads:Â Russia may be getting ready ‘to level Aleppo to the ground’Â Â While those of us in the United States might be in a cooperative mood, the same can hardly be said of the rest of the world. Uhm, Brexit, anyone? The current mood seems to be that everyone wants to do their own thing. Cooperation will just have to wait.
Looking to the future, though, we have to have some degree of optimism, don’t we? If we can’t find any points of hope, any signs of encouragement, any indication that things might improve, then what is it going to mean to be alive in 2020 and beyond?
I’m sitting here this morning wondering what the future of photography is going to look like. Will any of us manage to stay in business through another ten years of rapid change? We not only face technological advancements that are impossible to predict, but we are also experiencing a complete upheaval in how people view photography altogether. Is it possible for our profession to survive?
What Science May Yield
The President is sold on the concepts of Science in solving the greatest challenges facing the world. His take is that one of the reasons now is a great time to be alive is because science is poised to develop new solutions to problems that have plagued us for centuries. He writes in the article:
Just as in the past, to clear these hurdles we’re going to need everyone—policy makers and commuÂnity leaders, teachers and workers and grassroots activists, presidents and soon-to-be-former presidents. And to accelerate that change, we need science. We need researchers and academics and engineers; programmers, surgeons, and botanists. And most important, we need not only the folks at MIT or Stanford or the NIH but also the mom in West Virginia tinkering with a 3-D printer, the girl on the South Side of Chicago learning to code, the dreamer in San Antonio seeking investors for his new app, the dad in North Dakota learning new skills so he can help lead the green revolution.
So, the answer to our challenges is that we need to re-conceptualize? I love the President’s optimism, but when I’m sitting here worried about keeping the lights on and having enough food for my family, it’s rather difficult for me to re-conceptualize anything much beyond how to find yet another way to make ground beef interesting. I’m not even sure what it would mean to reconceptualize photography. I try wrapping my head around that question and end up having to take a couple of pills and lie down for a moment.
Alive And Functioning
I am thankful for all the advantages that come with being alive right now. I’m thankful that we have this thing called the Internet that allows me to share with you both my words and my pictures. I’m thankful that life has improved for whole groups of people and that there are almost endless opportunities for my children.
Still, there is more to live than just being alive. For life to be fulfilling we must also be functioning toward some end.
My AARP card came in the mail yesterday. I am of an age where many of my peers are enjoying grandchildren and looking forward to the joys of retirement. Not all of us are there, though. Many of us look at the potential demise of our careers and wonder how we are going to continue to function in this science-oriented future. Â We can try to keep up, but doing so is a struggle. We don’t especially have a lot of money to spend on new equipment, or classes to teach us what Millennials inherently know.
Did you catch that line in the President’s statement about “soon-to-be-former presidents?” President Obama is breaking with tradition and remaining in Washington, D.C. after the new president takes office. Rather than running away and retreating in quiet and solitude, as Presidents before him have done, Mr. Obama plans to stay active and stay involved in helping shape the future development of the world.
Maybe we can do the same. Stay active. Stay involved. Don’t let ourselves be pushed aside, relegated to some memory of how things used to be. We are alive now. Therefore, we need to be an integral part of what is happening now.Â
Will we?
5 Things You Need To Know: 12/16/16
https://youtu.be/oF6T8wd7nMc
Do Friday’s Matter Anymore?
Hi there. I would say, “Thank goodness it’s Friday,” but I’m not sure Friday matters that much anymore. The news keeps churning and we’ll be watching it all through the weekend. I’m up at 4:00 AM every morning making sure the world hasn’t completely blown up while we were asleep. There really should be at least six people doing all this work, but it’s just me. Yes, I’m patting myself on the back, and perhaps that’s the value of Fridays. Find a reason to pat yourself on the back, even if it’s only because you managed to survive the other four days of the work week.
We’re skipping over the war between North Carolina’s governor and it’s state legislature for now. We’re also refusing to enter into the speculation of what cabinet nominees might or might not do. We only work with news we can verify as being accurate and you should be doing the same. So, that being said, let’s take a look at our top five stories for today.
1. The White House Says Russia Hacked US
One of the many questions we have this morning is whether the whole Russian hacking scandal has gotten out of control? If you were watching yesterday afternoon, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters, “Only Russia’s senior-most officials could have authorized these activities,1” in reference to reports from three US intelligence agencies that not only was Russia involved in hacking the servers of political parties, but that Putin himself knew and directed the attacks. That the White House would officially support the intelligence reports is a pretty big deal since both the Kremlin and the president-elect has been denying them.
If you’re listening to NPR this morning, you’re hearing President Obama tell Steve Inskeep, “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections … we need to take action. And we will — at a time and place of our own choosing. Some of it may be explicit and publicized; some of it may not be.”2
If the statement from the president sounds just a little ambiguous, it is. That might be because, at least from a public information perspective, actual evidence of Russian involvement is a little ambiguous. Yes, the White House likely has access to evidence that the public does not. What we see on this side of the fence, though, is a bunch of anonymous sources, none of which can be confirmed. We need some names, we need some faces, and we need their butts sitting in front of a Congressional hearing to give validity to all these accusations.
Furthermore, there is no precedent for how to react to this situation if the reports are indeed true. There’s nothing in the Constitution that adequately covers direct intrusion into an election by a foreign power. What President Obama might have up his sleeve isn’t clear, either, but we know he doesn’t have long if he’s going to do something before he moves out of the White House.
2. Venezuelan Parents Are Giving Away Their Children
We talked earlier this week about the Venezuelan government confiscating some four million toys and promising that “every child will get a toy.” News coming out of the beleaguered country yesterday shows us that those toys may be all many Venezuelan children have. Reuters is reporting that three local councils and four national welfare groups are all confirming a rise in parents giving their children away, sometimes to other family members, sometimes to neighbors, because they can no longer afford to feed them and keep them safe3.
If you’re a parent or plan on ever being one, I want you to stop and think a moment about just how desperate one has to be and how devastating it must feel to have little choice but to give up your child. Average wages in Venezuela are less than the equivalent of $50 a month. Normally, in places where wages are so low, we see food prices around the same level. Not here. Food prices are in some cases higher than they are in the US, and that’s when food is available. Food scarcity across the country has caused unrest there for over a year.
Children’s rights groups say that the increase in parents giving away children is exponential, with many of the children already suffering from malnutrition. Plunging oil prices are partly to blame, as well as social policies of president Nicolas Maduro. Yet, more than politics, this is a humanitarian disaster of untold proportion. Some parents are simply abandoning their children, leaving them to die on the streets.
So much for a merry fucking Christmas.
3. Dyllan Roof Found Guilty Of Murder
We knew when the jury left the South Carolina courtroom yesterday that they would come back with a guilty verdict. Roof has been convicted of a total of 33 counts involving hate crimes in the shooting of nine people in a Charlotte, South Carolina church4. He never shied away from the fact that he was guilty. In fact, at one point during the trial, he fired his attornies and disastrously tried defending himself. Immediately after the verdict was announced, Roof fired his attornies again.
The jury returns on January 3 to determine exactly what his sentencing will be. There are only two options available: life in prison or death by lethal injection. Roof has already said he doesn’t want to introduce embarrassing evidence that might save his skin. Yet, as we saw last week, lethal injection hasn’t necessarily been going all that well with multiple botched attempts around the country over the past couple of years. There are also plenty of arguments against capital punishment.
One thing for certain is that this horrible massacre has left a lasting impression upon the state of South Carolina. The confederate flag no longer flies at the state capitol. The effects of hate are very visible and efforts to defuse that hate are strong. Dyllan Roof is a good example of why we cannot allow the alt-right white supremacy movement to go unchecked. We don’t need another incident like this to happen anywhere in our country. Ever.
4. A Colorado School Approves Guns in the Classroom
As incredible as it may seem, a school district in Colorado has actually approved a measure allowing some teachers and other school employees to carry guns inside classrooms5. That this decision would come the same day as the third anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary shouldn’t be ignored. The Board of Education for Hanover School District #28 voted 3-2 to approve the resolution on Wednesday night.
Now, before we all go off on some knee-jerk reaction, we should be aware that the Hanover School District is very small and very remote. The board’s president, Mark McPherson, who didn’t vote in favor of the plan, told the press that it was the town’s distance from any kind of assistance that fueled support for the resolution. The school is 30 minutes away from the nearest law enforcement. The resolution lists “national events” and, get this, potential trouble from marijuana grows, as the justification for the action.
Now, for any teacher or staff member to actually carry a gun on campus, they must first volunteer for extra duty as a security officer. Then, they must complete training before receiving their permit to carry. There is no limit as to how many of the school’s 20 teachers can carry weapons. Let’s just hope their finals weeks never get too stressful.
5. And Finally …
Facebook announced yesterday that they’re going after fake news and enlisting a number of partners, including Snopes, the Associated Press, and ABC News, to help validate stories6. The announcement comes as the world’s most dominant social media company attempts to wrestle with accusations that fake news shared on its site contributed to the outcome of the US presidential election.
Understand, Facebook has yet to say that it would actually remove content that is flagged as being fake. Instead, the content will be marked as “disputed” with a link to the reasons for the decision. In fact, they’re only focusing on what they call “the worst-of-the-worst” of fake news producers, those who create deliberate lies for financial gain.
However, this hasn’t kept publications with a right-leaning tilt from going all boo-hoo over the new policy7. Ben Shapiro, editor-in-chief of the conservative-leaning Daily Wire wrote, “It’s an attempt to restore gatekeepers who have a bias as the ultimate arbiters of truth.”8 Perhaps someone should tell the whining little brats that if they’re not producing fake news then they don’t have anything to worry about. Facebook’s efforts are gentle compared to what they could have done. Hell, you’ll still get in more trouble for posting a picture of women’s nipples on your profile than you will for distributing blatantly false news. Some alleged news sources need to grow the fuck up.
But hey, this whole fake news thing is exactly why we bother bringing you these reports every morning. We always verify our stories and provide links to our sources. We want news we can trust and know that you do as well. Thank you for your time. Here’s hoping your Friday kicks some ass.
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