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07/13/21 02:38 AM #9644    

 

Mark Schweickart

Dave -- so far so good. Nothing to speak of in this area. Thanks for asking. 


07/13/21 11:20 AM #9645    

 

Michael McLeod

Well this subject of media conglomeration is in my roundhouse. It's nothing new. It  goes back decades.  Through the years it has always alarmed journalists as chains got bigger and bigger and the danger of a chosen few forcing journalists to write about thing in lockstep was the subject of many an after-hours conversation among me and my peers.

But what I see now as both a practitioner and a consumer of news is this: though local news sources are not what they once were, nationally and internationally that there are so many choices out there for the individual that a wise consumer of news is better off than ever, and can either choose to fortify their own leanings and stay in a "silo," as it's called, or expand their horizons and ferret out multiple points of view.

Here's a source that ranks publications and news sites according to whether they are conservative or liberal:

https://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=637508&p=4462444

The other thing I was thinking is this: the ancient philosophers who made a study of rationality had their own way of measuring argumentation - how a listener can judge whether what they are hearing is solid info or bullhocky. And one of the very simple and basic core precepts was whether the speaker was making an appeal to emotion or an appeal to reason - the former having its place, but easily misused by manipulators, and the latter, therefore, being the more likely path to the truth. 

Without naming any specific individuals like TRUMP or news sources like FOX because I would never do that, I can tell you that it's pretty easy to tell one approach from the other and see through it accordingly. The hard part is monitoring our own inherent confirmation bias, which MM1 alludes to. 

 

 


07/13/21 06:48 PM #9646    

 

David Mitchell

So the massive slaughter of our Afghan allies begins, at the hands of the same Taliban that Trump actually negotiated with - (kind of a joke, since the Taliban would never adhere to their own "promises"). I assume the deaths will accelerate at a staggering pace, and the survivors will live in hell, especialy the women.

Isn't it interesting that some groups of (Afghan) women are arming themselves and training in the use of their weapons to take on the Taliban? Groups of armed male soldiers are surrenduring and/or running away, while women are training to fight. The Taliban are very afraid to be killed by women, as it brings huge shame on them. God help the ladies, we sure won't.

In a recent interview of three American soldiers, a lady Army Major, a male Army Spec 5, and a male Army Colonel - all of whom had served multiple tours in Afghanistan - they all three asked the same question, "What was our strategy?" There never seemed to be an end game concept. Sounds like Vietnam to me. Politicians sending brave soldiers to make a fight, and then backing away when they realized how costly it is - making it even more "costly" in the end.

 

Ironically, now we see two new situations right in our back yard that would, under some administrations, call for the US to send in troops.  

In one case, Haiti, (who are begging us) to give some semblance of order and public safety as the situation descends into chaos, and the other, Cuba, where we might see the only time in 60 years where we would certainy be welcomed by the local population. But the latter would of course be considered an armed invasion - something eveyone on the planet would blame us for - except I assume the Cubans themselves. God help them also. I don't think Joe's "pledge" to "Stand with the people of Cuba" will accomplish much. 

And the silence from our Politicians (especially on the Left) is deafening! 

P.s. Viva Cuba Libre !!!

 


07/13/21 10:12 PM #9647    

 

John Jackson

Mike,  confirmation bias is real – no one disputes that – we all tend to seek out sources that agree with our view of the world.  On the other hand,  I don’t think you intended this, but some would read your post as saying “there’s a spectrum of reporting so just go right ahead and pick whatever flavor of the truth you like”.  That’s the view that Fox News pushes – all truth is relative -  one view is as defensible as another so be happy and stick with the one you like.

What you don’t address is that some sources have much higher standards for verifying what they report (verifying facts and obtaining multiple confirming sources rather than reporting unsubstantiated rumors or crazy internet posts, such as the ones that fueled the 2020 election fraud allegations) and as a result have much better records for getting their stories right.  And I would argue that the mainstream media have been caught with their pants down in this regard on precious few occasions.    

With this, I'll sign off for a while as I suspect I'm getting tedious.


07/14/21 03:33 AM #9648    

 

James Hamilton, M. D.

John, 

Your posts bring out the poet in me! 

 

You like drinking Rusty Nails,

I enjoy driving on dusty trails.

You hate Fox News,

I agree with most of their views.

You suspect you are becoming tedious, 

But we conservatives think you may be delirious.

 

And using words like "tedious" is a crime,

Like "orange" they are hard to rhyme!

Jim


07/14/21 08:59 AM #9649    

 

John Jackson

Jim, I’m struggling to come up with a pithy response but the best I can offer is this taunt from our growing-up years:

“You’re a poet, but you don’t know it…”  

 


07/14/21 11:38 AM #9650    

 

Michael McLeod

Well, tedious John, if you look at the discussion in context I was just countering the notion that because news is more monolithic that ever in terms of its ownership it is directed with monolithic perspectives from top to bottom. 

If anybody knows the difference between writing that is responsible and fact-oriented as opposed to playing on fear and predjudice and preconceptions, you're reading his words at the moment. And I actually though I made a wave at that part of the issue with that pompous reference to the ancients and that ultimate most old-fashioned of strategies: logic.

But I'm glad you brought it up. In my mind there is a parallel between the scientific method and the precepts of fair-minded and reasonably objective journalism I learned at Ohio State and saw in practice throughout my career.  

 


07/14/21 10:29 PM #9651    

 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

A friend shared this remarkable story with me today:

 In May of 1861, 9 year old John Lincoln “Johnny” Clem ran away from his home in Newark, Ohio, to join the Union Army, but found the Army was not interested in signing on a 9 year old boy when the commander of the 3rd Ohio Regiment told him he “wasn’t enlisting infants,” and turned him down. Clem tried the 22nd Michigan Regiment next, and its commander told him the same. Determined, Clem tagged after the regiment, acted out the role of a drummer boy, and was allowed to remain. Though still not regularly enrolled, he performed camp duties and received a soldier’s pay of $13 a month, a sum collected and donated by the regiment’s officers.


The next April, at Shiloh, Clem’s drum was smashed by an artillery round and he became a minor news item as “Johnny Shiloh, The Smallest Drummer”. A year later, at the Battle Of Chickamauga, he rode an artillery caisson to the front and wielded a musket trimmed to his size. In one of the Union retreats a Confederate officer ran after the cannon Clem rode with, and yelled, “Surrender you damned little Yankee!” Johnny shot him dead. This pluck won for Clem national attention and the name “Drummer Boy of Chickamauga.”


Clem stayed with the Army through the war, served as a courier, and was wounded twice. Between Shiloh and Chickamauga he was regularly enrolled in the service, began receiving his own pay, and was soon-after promoted to the rank of Sergeant. He was only 12 years old. After the Civil War he tried to enter West Point but was turned down because of his slim education. A personal appeal to President Ulysses S. Grant, his commanding general at Shiloh, won him a 2nd Lieutenant’s appointment in the Regular Army on 18 December 1871, and in 1903 he attained the rank of Colonel and served as Assistant Quartermaster General. He retired from the Army as a Major General in 1916, having served an astounding 55 years.

General Clem died in San Antonio, Texas on 13 May 1937, exactly 3 months shy of his 86th birthday, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.


07/15/21 09:00 PM #9652    

Lawrence Foster

I posted these on my FB page so some of you have already seen them.  Last Tuesday while driving back from Mt. Gilead to Cincinnati I saw these clouds around 5:30 in the evening near mile marker 60.   They were moving NE and we were travelling SW so we only got some rain for only 15 minutes or so.  No strong winds.     

 

 

 


07/15/21 09:51 PM #9653    

 

John Jackson

I know I promised to shut up for a while but I need help - should I be concerned that the salmon I bought at the grocery store today contains fish?

 

   


07/15/21 10:05 PM #9654    

 

James Hamilton, M. D.

John, 

Only because Subway was recently accused that their tuna salad did not! And there are a few who are allergic to fish who would sue your grocery if they had an anaphylactic reaction and we're not informed that salmon are actually fish. 🐟

Larry,

Looks like thunder clouds to me which can also bring hail and tornadoes.

Jim


07/16/21 11:05 AM #9655    

 

Janie Albright (Blank)

JJ: Makes you wonder what category these people think salmon falls under?

Larry: I hope you were the passenger while photographing. Yes, Jim, I'd have been thinking tornado, especially along that stretch of 71. 


 


 

 

 


07/16/21 12:00 PM #9656    

 

Joseph D. McCarthy

MM-1 (aka Mary Margaret), that was a wonderful article about a young Mr. Clem.  Now it makes me wonder if he was the Great-Grandfather of one named Fred?

Joe


07/16/21 12:02 PM #9657    

 

David Mitchell

Just wondering if Tim or Joe are near any of this latest wave of fires?


07/17/21 12:24 AM #9658    

 

Joseph D. McCarthy

Thanks a lot Dave.  Just like you never tell an artist to "Knock-em-Dead" or "Give It Your All."  You say "Break a Leg."  Now were JINKED.  The fires are (or had been) hours North of me or half a day South and South-East of me.  Now I'm going to have to cancel my trip to Columbus so that I can stay home and protect my home from the ravaging fire (will name it the Dave fire).  And Dave, you don't have to worry about me (yet), it's my wife who has been looking forward to getting back to Ohio.

Happy Days Dave; err look out for the tornado.

Joe


07/17/21 12:56 PM #9659    

 

Michael McLeod

Yikes

 

MAGARAS, Russia — The call for help lit up villagers’ phones at 7:42 on a muggy and painfully smoky evening on Siberia’s fast-warming permafrost expanse.

“We urgently ask all men to come to the town hall at 8,” read the WhatsApp message from the mayor’s office. “The fire has reached the highway.”

A farmer hopped on a tractor towing a big blue bag of water and trundled into a foreboding haze. The ever-thickening smoke cut off sunlight, and the wind whipped ash into his unprotected face. Flames along the highway glowed orange and hot, licking up the swaying roadside trees.

“We need a bigger tractor!” the driver soon yelled, aborting his mission and rushing back to town as fast as his rumbling machine could take him.

 

For the third year in a row, residents of northeastern Siberia are reeling from the worst wildfires they can remember, and many are left feeling helpless, angry and alone.

 

People in the region say the authorities have done too little to fight the fires, a sign that global warming may carry a political cost for governments.

 

They endure the coldest winters outside Antarctica with little complaint. But in recent years, summer temperatures in the Russian Arctic have gone as high as 100 degrees, feeding enormous blazes that thaw what was once permanently frozen ground.

Last year, wildfires scorched more than 60,000 square miles of forest and tundra, an area the size of Florida. That is more than four times the area that burned in the United States during its devastating 2020 fire season. This year, more than 30,000 square miles have already burned in Russia, according to government statistics, with the region only two weeks into its peak fire season.

Scientists say that the huge fires have been made possible by the extraordinary summer heat in recent years in northern Siberia, which has been warming faster than just about any other part of the world. And the impact may be felt far from Siberia. The fires may potentially accelerate climate change by releasing enormous quantities of greenhouse gases and destroying Russia’s vast boreal forests, which absorb carbon out of the atmosphere.


07/17/21 01:14 PM #9660    

 

Michael McLeod

  • And double yikes. Both stories in the same news cycle. Not a coincidence. A reality.

Some of Europe’s richest countries lay in disarray this weekend, as raging rivers burst through their banks in Germany and Belgium, submerging towns, slamming parked cars against trees and leaving Europeans shellshocked at the intensity of the destruction.

Only days before in the Northwestern United States, a region famed for its cool, foggy weather, hundreds had died of heat. In Canada, wildfire had burned a village off the map. Moscow reeled from record temperatures. And this weekend the northern Rocky Mountains were bracing for yet another heat wave, as wildfires spread across 12 states in the American West.

The extreme weather disasters across Europe and North America have driven home two essential facts of science and history: The world as a whole is neither prepared to slow down climate change, nor live with it. The week’s events have now ravaged some of the world’s wealthiest nations, whose affluence has been enabled by more than a century of burning coal, oil and gas — activities that pumped the greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that are warming the world.

“I say this as a German: The idea that you could possibly die from weather is completely alien,” said Friederike Otto, a physicist at Oxford University who studies the links between extreme weather and climate change. “There’s not even a realization that adaptation is something we have to do right now. We have to save peoples lives.”


07/18/21 10:29 AM #9661    

 

Michael McLeod

https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/02/12/the-missing-piece-meets-the-big-o-shel-silverstein/?mc_cid=e244f014c9&mc_eid=44293eac15

 

 

As an English major I'm a sucker for a good metaphor. This is a great one. Don't know how I ever missed it until now. Thank you Shel Silverstein.


07/18/21 11:29 AM #9662    

 

David Barbour

Thanks Mike, loved it!!

07/19/21 01:16 AM #9663    

 

David Mitchell

OFFICIAL MEMO:

From the Department of Absolutely Nothing To Do With Anything

I just happen to love this video.




07/19/21 09:42 AM #9664    

 

Michael McLeod

I like this back and forth between a couple of writers I respect because it touches on a hugely important theme -- one that we've mentioned here recently -- about the challenge of tolerance, and disagreeing respectfully.

The subject is Biden's recent quote that Facebook was "killing people" by not curbing users who posit crazy theories about the covid vaccines. 

Gail: I can understand the president’s frustration. There are people using sites like Facebook to spread terrible lies. A lot of the digital leaders are trying to deal with it, but maybe not hard enough. You’re much smarter about this stuff than me — what do you think?

Bret: What Biden said was pretty unfortunate. First off, an American president should always err on the side of defending the principle of free speech. I seem to remember a certain former president accusing the news media of being the enemy of the people, which was foul. Now Biden has essentially leveled the same charge against social media. Second, I think Facebook has already been much too active in censoring content, for instance by banning mention of the lab-leak theory of Covid in February of this year until it was forced to lift the ban when the theory became more widely accepted.

Gail: You’re coming on strong. Continue.

Bret: Coming to terms with the importance of free speech means coming to terms with the reality that free speech will sometimes be used for purposes we abhor. We protect bad speech because we understand that the alternative, in the form of censorship, is worse. We protect it because we have the humility to recognize that what seems bad to many of us in the present may seem right to many others in the future. We protect it because, as Jefferson put it, “error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.” Bad speech, like flies or mice, is part of the broader ecology of truth: To discover what’s right you have to know what’s wrong, and to know what’s wrong you have to allow it.

If Biden had just said, “If you can get the vaccine, and decide not to, then you’ve made your choice: Don’t ask for sympathy or money when you get sick,” he would have made his point much more effectively.

Gail: You know, everybody is always telling me that they like our conversations because we can fight without getting mad. But fights don’t really work unless there’s some movement. I officially decree that you’ve made today’s winning point.


07/19/21 10:02 AM #9665    

 

Michael McLeod

One more plug on behalf of open discussion and enlightened debate and then I shall stifle myself as I've been going on a bit lately. But this is important. (This is not my writing it's a piece I saw today).

 

Since the 1990s, newsrooms have seen tremendous, truly terrifying, contraction. On Tuesday, Pew Research Center issued a report that found “newsroom employment in the United States has dropped by 26 percent since 2008.”

Last month, Poynter reported on a survey that found that “the United States ranks last in media trust — at 29 percent — among 92,000 news consumers surveyed in 46 countries.”

Furthermore, a report last year by the Knight Foundation and the University of North Carolina found:

  • Since 2004, the United States has lost one-fourth — 2,100 — of its newspapers. This includes 70 dailies and more than 2,000 weeklies or nondailies.
  • At end of 2019, the United States had 6,700 newspapers, down from almost 9,000 in 2004.
  • Today, more than 200 of the nation’s 3,143 counties and equivalents have no newspaper and no alternative source of credible and comprehensive information on critical issues. Half of the counties have only one newspaper, and two-thirds do not have a daily newspaper.
  • Many communities that lost newspapers were the most vulnerable — struggling economically and isolated.

The news industry is truly struggling, but the public is oblivious to this. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2018 found that “most Americans think their local news media are doing just fine financially.”

 

The report explains, “About seven-in-ten say their local news media are doing either somewhat or very well financially (71 percent).”

I guess I can understand the illusion in some ways. We have celebrity journalists — writers, radio personalities and anchors — in a way that didn’t exist before.

There were popular and trusted news figures, to be sure, but the proliferation of sensational, personality journalists is a newer and growing sector of journalism.

Also, we are now able to access and share more news than ever before. This all leads to a feeling that we are drowning in news, when in fact pond after pond is drying up and the lakes are getting smaller.

I share all that to say this: Democracies cannot survive without a common set of facts and a vibrant press to ferret them out and present them. Our democracy is in terrible danger. The only way that lies can flourish as they now do is because the press has been diminished in both scale and stature. Lies advance when truth is in retreat.

The founders understood the supreme value of the press, and that’s why they protected it in the Constitution. No other industry can claim the same.

But, protection from abridgment is not protection from shrinkage or obsoletion.

We are moving ever closer to a country where the corrupt can deal in the darkness with no fear of being exposed by the light.

 

 


07/20/21 01:16 AM #9666    

 

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Sorry about the length of this post and the format. I saw this shared on Facebook today and had to do a copy and paste. It seemed to be a relevant topic.
 
OPINION: Talk Politics
An analysis by JEFF SNOOK
July 19, 2021
I have been wanting to write this column for about 10 years or so, but I always put it off for fear of alienating friends and readers, for fear of being verbally assaulted for broaching a subject many of us detest. So, let me start by asking a question:
Have you ever headed out to dinner among friends, to a party, to a family get-together, or to a gathering of any sort, when someone, perhaps your spouse, makes a simple demand: “Now, don’t talk politics!”
Let’s face it, it’s not that you haven’t heard it before. We all have. The question is, how many times have you heard it?
I have heard that line hundreds of times over the years. And I usually responded with one word, “Why?”
That demand, and unwritten rule of society, is just ingrained in most of us. As the saying goes, “don’t talk politics, religion or abortion” – at least don’t do it if you want to keep the peace and harmony among friends and family. We don’t want to debate any longer, we don’t want to argue, and we don’t want to hurt others’ feelings and often we certainly don’t want to hear an opinion that differs from ours.
Let’s face it: Discussing politics can be stressful. But why should that be?
Why has the P-word replaced the F-word as the dirtiest word in America’s lexicon?
According to the Pew Research Center, 83 percent of Americans are “very uncomfortable” when talking about politics. (I will always applaud the brave 17 percent).
It really seems now as if we can appropriately discuss our sex lives, our bathroom habits, the size, or lack thereof, of our bank accounts, the rumors and gossip we hear long before we ever discuss politics in public. That is, unless we are surrounded by like-minded people. It is only then we can all nod in agreement and slap high-fives and poke fun at the other side.
But I contend right here and right now that we have had it all wrong all along.
Discussing our foreign policy, our economy, our immigration laws, our taxes, our health-care system, our first and second amendments, and generally, the government’s role in our lives, and even the symbolism and meaning of our U.S. flag, isn’t just talking politics to me.
These are all issues that affect our daily lives, our existence and our pursuit of happiness.
Did you notice the word I used the most in those last two sentences?
OUR.
OUR existence. OUR lives. OUR happiness.
So, if these issues are so damn crucial, and they are ours, we should be able to discuss, debate and dissect them without screaming, shouting, and name-calling.
Twenty-one years ago, soon after the USS Cole was bombed in Yemen, resulting in the loss of 17 American servicemen, I was having dinner one night with a longtime friend in Miami. He bluntly stated, “Why do we even have a Navy ship over there to begin with? We should be an isolationist country and stick to our own business. We never should get involved in any wars and we shouldn’t be sticking our noses in what happens in Europe, the Far East, the Mideast, or anywhere else for that matter … “
My friend was very educated, had a college degree, lived in a million-dollar condo on the beach and earned more than $300,000 annually.
"I understand what you are saying, but what if we took that approach throughout our history?” I asked him. “History teaches us lessons. What if we never got involved in World War I or World War II? What if we had ignored the Japanese after they bombed Pearl Harbor? What if we had stayed out of Europe?
“Like it or not, we have evolved into the world’s watchdog of sorts, because we are about the only country which has the ability to keep the dictators and the bullies of the world in check. To answer my own question, without our involvement, the Nazi Empire likely would rule over every European country as we speak, with statues of Hitler everywhere -- and you really have to wonder if the entire Jewish population would have eventually been exterminated.”
My friend, a democrat and Jewish, paused, digested my words and then admitted, “Yeah, I guess I never thought of it that way.”
He paused again, before asking, “Who’s the favorite to win the national title this season?”
Our political discussion was quickly intercepted by college football, a mainstream topic most of my friends enjoy discussing.
So, we moved on.
Which reminds me of another analogy. I have three or four good friends who root for the school up north. That’s right, the M-word. We get along great. We laugh together, dine together and talk about college football together, so why in the world can’t we translate that spirit of friendship and civility to our differences elsewhere? I know I would never change them to become Ohio State fans, nor would I ever try. And that’s the point.
However, we do have the ability to listen, understand and enjoy each other even if we root for different teams.
If you really think about it, are sports, our favorite foods or wines, music, movies, TV shows and the weather more important to us in the grand scheme of things?
And if they are, and that’s why we talk about them and them only, then we may live very superficial lives. Yet, we continue walking – and talking – on proverbial eggshells just so we don’t start arguments or cause hard feelings.
So, how did we get here?
Well, I call this the “Obama-Trump Effect.”
If you think back to the Clinton presidency, and even the George W. Bush presidency – a culmination of 16 years from 1993-2008 – things were never this bad. America seemed way more united, especially in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001.
But the following 12 years have changed all that.
Obama’s eight years and Trump’s four brought out the fangs and to be blunt, the pure hatred, of the party and followers not holding the Oval Office. It’s been “Us versus Them” ever since.
And it’s grown only worse since January.
To be honest, there is no denying that policies have shifted and headed to the fringe, further escalating the divide. Whoever would have thought on 9-11-01, and the days that followed, that a portion of this country, and even some in the media, could actually label the patriotic act of flying the U.S. flag as racist, only 20 years later?
I think this sad state of life could all be fixed, or at least improved.
Let’s start with the P-word itself. I would claim that we have mislabeled it all along. Why do we call these issues, which are so crucial to us, “politics” in the first place? Maybe we should just re-label these topics as “daily life topics?” Or better yet, why don’t we eliminate any labels altogether? Let’s not throw umbrella terminology over these issues.
In this country, we have way too many labels as it is: gay, straight, white, black, liberal, conservative, democrat, republican …. I could go on and on. Now we even give acronyms that define people. It’s as if our bodies should be adorned with one of those grocery-store scans you see on every product you buy. Scan me. What does my label tell you?
We should be able to return to what America was like in the 1940s or ‘50s, to a time when we could discuss, reasonably and calmly, OUR daily life topics. Following World War II, our so-called political strife and division were nothing like they are today. At cocktail parties, adults paused to listen to the so-called opinion of others. Voting for one candidate or the other didn’t automatically make you a pariah among your peers.
I often believe it’s a shame we have an aisle in Congress to begin with, which has become a metaphor of division in the country. You think the Grand Canyon is the largest gap in America? Nope, it’s that proverbial aisle separating the Ds from the Rs. Maybe we should just abolish the multiple-party system altogether, but that’s another subject for another time. These days, it is all about red vs. blue. Do you live in a red state or a blue state?
I long for the days of red, white and blue. But even saying that has somehow digressed into a political statement.
But that is where we are today.
And that is sad.
We don’t have to be persuaded to change our minds, we just have to change our ability to listen.
We have to try to understand those who disagree with us – and demand calmly that they give us the same respect. To those with other viewpoints, backgrounds or upbringings, no matter how unreasonable we deem them, we must listen.
Because listening is the first step to understanding.
While at dinner among friends, we should be able to say, “Now Joe, your parents arrived at Ellis Island in the 1950s, right? So, what do you think about our immigration laws today?” And we should be able to listen to Joe’s answer without the veins on our necks bulging while we prepare our retort.
The real problem we face today is not Joe’s answer, it’s the fact he may choose not to answer altogether, even if he has some valuable perspective to offer. Like everyone else, he has labeled these subjects as taboo, and Joe may even be offended if someone asked such a harmless question.
I say, since we are living in the midst of the so-called cancel culture, it’s high time we cancel that taboo of discussing these crucial issues in our lives. Then the next move is to cancel the cancel culture itself. Free speech should always be a two-way street.
There has been historical debate whether it was Voltaire or British author Evelyn Beatrice Hall who said, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend with my life your right to say it.”
Whoever it was would laugh at us in 2021.
I have lost a few friends in the past five or six years after making a post on Facebook which they deemed offensive. Some even texted me nasty, irrational remarks that dipped into name-calling all because they disagreed with my post either supporting or criticizing a certain U.S. policy. Furthermore, some even disagreed with my right to state my opinion in the first place. But if you believe Facebook and social media exists only for posting recipes, pictures of puppies and wishing others happy birthday, then you are missing the point altogether.
My friends became heated, angry and righteously claimed they were offended over my posts. And in the end, they became former friends – all because their opinion differed.
But here’s the bottom line: I didn’t leave them. They left me.
I didn’t want the friendships to end. I have Michigan friends. I have liberal friends. The way I look at it, the more the merrier. After all, must we surround ourselves, and our way of thinking, with only people who think the same way?
Listening to the other point of view should only heighten our awareness and curiosity.
I would contend that if we cannot discuss these crucial issues, to listen or read others’ opinions, we can grow complacent and even enter a realm of unrelenting stubbornness, an inability to reason, understand and solve problems in more than one way.
We have lost our ability to be civil to each other, and that does go for both sides of that aisle.
Because if you really think about it, if we the people cannot calmly and reasonably discuss our current daily issues together like Critical Race Theory, masks vs. no masks, Coke vs. Pepsi, Ford vs. Chevy, the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated, voter ID laws, the economy, and so on and so on, then how in the world can we demand our elected officials such as Jim Jordan and Chuck Schumer to sit down together on our behalf and do the same?
_ _ _
Jeff Snook is a guest columnist for The Ohio Press Network. Snook, a 1982 Ohio State graduate, has written 14 non-fiction books, including 12 on college football. He resides in Atlantis, Florida, and Mifflin, Ohio.

07/20/21 11:28 AM #9667    

 

Michael McLeod

That byline is familiar to me. Maybe from my stint teaching at osu.


07/20/21 01:14 PM #9668    

 

David Barbour

Mike, you should get your gf to look up chinese media showing what is going on in Hunan!

State news is showing clips of Germany while the locals post pictures inside subway cars

shoulder deep inside with water levels a foot deeper outside!

DB


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