A scandal here, a scandal there, a scandal everywhere

As if one scandal weren’t enough …

THE MIDDLE EAST

American people are attacked and killed at diplomatic outposts in the Middle East.  There’s a demand for investigation after investigation, a call for impeachment … well, at least there is in one case.  I think most of us know which case that was.

January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. The U.S. Consulate is attacked by members of Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami. Five people are killed.

June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. An al Qaeda suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.

October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed.  Luckily, there were no fatalities.

February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Gunmen fire on the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.

May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda terrorists hit the diplomatic compound, killing 36 people.  Nine of them were Americans.

July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The U.S. Embassy is attacked by a suicide bomber from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.  Two people killed.

Sana’a (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

December 6, 2004. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Nine are killed when al Qaeda terrorists go after the U.S. Consulate and occupy the perimeter wall.

March 2, 2006. Karachi, Pakistan again. A suicide bomber hits the U.S. Consulate.  Four die.  One of them was diplomat David Foy.

September 12, 2006. Damascus, Syria. Four gunmen shouting “Allahu akbar” attack the U.S. Embassy using grenades, automatic weapons, a car bomb and a truck bomb. Four people killed, 13 wounded.

January 12, 2007. Athens, Greece. A Greek terrorist group called the Revolutionary Struggle fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy. No fatalities.

March 18, 2008. Sana’a, Yemen. A mortar round fired by the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Jihad of Yemen at the U.S. Embassy misses its mark, hits a nearby school, and kills two people.

July 9, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey. U.S. Consulate attacked by terrorists. Six people killed.

September 17, 2008. Sana’a, Yemen. Sixteen people are killed — including an American student and her husband, married three weeks — by terrorists disguised as military officials, boasting an arsenal of weapons including RPGs and two car bombs.

September 11, 2012. Benghazi, Libya.  Four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, are killed in a raid on the U.S. Consulate on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.  The McClatchy news group reports that Stevens twice declined offers of more military security in the days leading up to the attacks.  Republicans are concerned about “talking points,” that turn out to be misreported in major media circles.  “Armchair quarterbacks” question why the military wasn’t sent in immediately as the attack was taking place, leading President George W. Bush’s former defense secretary, Robert Gates, to call that questioning “cartoonish.”

After all those attacks and lives lost under Bush in years prior, it’s the last one under a Democratic president that refuses to go away.  This is what is meant by “beating a dead horse.”

THE IRS HITS THE TEA PARTY

At a time when one conspiracy is being debunked, another charge arises that offers a glimmer of hope to conspiracy theorists when it’s revealed and admitted that the Internal Revenue Service paid special attention in auditing practices to conservative groups filing for 501(c)(4) status as a “social welfare group,” that special attention coming for anyone filing with the words “tea party” and “patriot.”

Logo of the Internal Revenue Service (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s a controversy that’s now claimed the IRS’ acting commissioner.  No one should undergo added scrutiny by the IRS based solely on political persuasion.  How many of the conservative groups getting a closer examination in their applications were denied that 501(c)(4) status?  None.  How many would be willing to bet that liberal groups have gone through the same scrutiny in years past?

The bigger scandal here is what the Supreme Court gave to us in its Citizens United ruling, which opened the floodgates for filings like the ones that have drawn the attention in this case.  A 501(c)(4) status says that social welfare groups “must operate primarily to further the common good and general welfare of the people of the community” — which “does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.”

Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS PAC is allowed 501(c)(4) status.  There’s your real scandal.

LEAVE THOSE AP REPORTERS ALONE

Speaking as someone who’s got the smell of newsprint still running through me, I’d sure hate to know that federal officials were looking at my personal and work phone contacts while trying to see who’s been leaking classified information to me, as has been happening with reporters and editors with The Associated Press.

One good way to stop the free flow of information that’s crucial to a truly free society is to reveal the identities of people giving verified information under an agreement that the source’s name is kept confidential.  The truth all too often has a way of getting lost when that happens.  Reporters and editors have gone to jail defending their sources’ anonymity.

Image via CrunchBase

We live in a very different world these days.  You had to see that coming with the Patriot Act, where even public library records aren’t guaranteed to be kept confidential.

We now live in a world where Republicans want to know why so many “leaks” are happening — including information that would make the sitting Democratic president look good (were the leaks purely for ego, Republicans ask?) — so the Democratic president gives them what they want and his administration investigates leaks like no time we’ve seen before, yet when news of phone records being looked into comes out then the Republicans who wanted the investigations hop on the bandwagon of those wondering how those investigations could possibly take place.

And now, with this latest scandal taking shape, the Democratic president is now suggesting a new federal shield law to boost the legal protections for reporters fighting to keep confidential sources confidential … you know, kind of the way it used to be back in the “good ol’ days.”

I was going to write something here on Benghazi days ago, and then along came the IRS mess so I put it off, and now there’s the mess with the AP.  It’s been a scandalous week.

But here’s the biggest scandal of all.  This is all pretty much politics as usual these days.  It’s a circus, and the sideshows continue to go on while other issues go unnoticed.

Politics as usual.

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Welcome to the United States of the NRA

Ladies and gentlemen, it is now “official.”  We have turned away from the United States of America, and we are now known as the United States of the National Rifle Association.

Official portrait of US Senator Kelly Ayotte. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Need proof?  Check out the crudely recorded, sideways video below of Republican New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte from earlier today.  The woman Ayotte is speaking with is Pam Simon, a former staffer to former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords.  Simon was shot alongside the congresswoman in 2011 at a strip mall in Tucson.

Their conversation turned to Wednesday’s vote in the Senate which turned back efforts for expanded background checks on gun purchases.  Ayotte was one of the minority of 46 senators who voted against the measure, which fell six votes short of passage.  The key part of the conversation is as follows:

SIMON: I know that you voted no yesterday, and I wanted
to ask, is there anything that could be fixed or changed that would make
you more comfortable with gun legislation…

AYOTTE: You know obviously I’d have to look at the legislation. I
can tell you that just the logistics of the legislation, the
Toomey-Manchin one, the way it prioritized gun show checks over retailers. I mean just on a sort of implementation level. A
lot of concern from retailers about that their the way they prioritized
it putting aside the checking of it that amongst retailers there was a
lot of concern from just actually gun shop owners. Which I know is sort
of a different kind of group than you guys… [...]

SIMON: So their feeling was to burden others? People would be coming in doing background checks on them…

AYOTTE: Yes, yes a different burden on them, so that was one piece…

So the bottom line here is that Ayotte’s concern had nothing at all to do with protecting Second Amendment rights, allowing anyone and their dog to purchase a military-style rifle or a 200-round ammo magazine, the unfounded fear that it would mean the big, nasty government is coming to take away everyone’s guns (by the way, I’m putting the challenge out there for any gun advocates to show me anywhere in a piece of legislation outside of NRA propaganda where law-abiding, sane gun owners’ weapons would be confiscated through background checks … no takers yet), etc.

You certainly heard no mention from Ayotte of concern for gun safety, or the burden that gun violence places on victims and their families, or about dealing with mental health issues for those wanting to purchase a gun which certainly needs to be part of any overall deal.

No, Ayotte’s concern came down to what she felt was a burden the measure would put on gun retailers.  And who is it that the NRA is really representing these days more than anyone?  Gun retailers.

Welcome to the USNRA!

Click here for more on this story

UPDATE:  Major NRA member resigns after gun control defeat in Senate

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On days like this, it feels like we’re going nowhere fast

Today’s been a very eventful day in the United States.

A piece of mail addressed to the President was found to be laced with the poisonous substance ricin, on the heels of a letter containing the same substance being sent to a Republican senator from Mississippi.

Major news media outlets — including the Associated Press — got it very wrong when they reported that an arrest had been made in Monday’s tragic bombing in Boston.

The Senate’s side of the Capitol Building in DC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Finally, the minority ruled in the Senate when bipartisan legislation pushing expanded background checks on gun purchases was blocked by a 54-46 vote.  That’s 54 votes in favor of expanded background checks, 46 opposed.  But, with those filibuster rules …

It’s a day when it seems like we’re going nowhere very fast.  It was summed up very well by one person in the comments section online in a story about the background check vote.

“They tell us: its not the gun, its the person, but they vote no to background checks.

“They tell us: its not the gun, its mental health, but they don’t support money for increasing mental health care, and they vote no to background checks for mental health.

“They tell us its about freedom, but they are willing to take liberties away from the mentally ill and lock them up more easily INSTEAD of background checks.

“They tell us its about freedom, but innocents have lost their life and liberty.”

Yeah, there are laws against making bombs and setting them off at a major sporting event — resulting in the deaths of three innocent people and the maiming of about 140 others.  But, just because there are laws against it doesn’t stop people from making the effort and actually carrying it out, does it?

There are laws against sending poisoned letters to U.S. presidents and senators, but that doesn’t stop people from making the effort and actually carrying it out, does it?

You get the picture, don’t you?

Ah, hell, why don’t we just stop kidding ourselves about trying to make this world a slightly better place to live?  We’re so gung-ho about protecting freedoms, how about just doing away with all those nasty regulations that drag us down and let everyone live the kind of lives they choose to live, shall we?

If we want to disobey traffic laws, go right ahead.  That kind of freedom is sure to make life more exciting.  If we want to rip someone off in a shady financial deal, proceed.  The ones getting taken are just suckers, right?  We’re all about protecting our liberty to make a buck any way possible.

Do away with it all, I say, in the name of liberty.  Maybe then we could stop hassling each other over rules and regulations, let the strongest survive when they want to do as they wish.  Weakness is for the weak.

Just think, without all those nasty laws and procedures so many people are expected to live by, maybe we’d fight each other a bit less.  After all, those rules and regulations aren’t eliminating all the bad stuff out there now.  That’s the logic that seems to be ruling the day.  Maybe then an 8-year-old boy’s wish could start to come true.

Martin Richard, age 8, killed in the bombing at the Boston Marathon April 15. (Photo via Facebook)

Is that how we want it?  After all, it’s a wild world out there.  If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

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AMY’S ANGLE: Opening new doors with the horses

By Amy Kathleen Miller

The weather is getting warmer and more enjoyable to be outside.  I love it when the weather is more pleasant, it means I can get more accomplished with what I love to do.

I feel as though there are many more options opening up to me since John has a job again, and it is a good job.  I am continuing to work on the horses’ tricks and see where I will go from there.  There is an opportunity to possibly do some shows for children in the local county  library system.  I am having a library representative come out and see what my horses can do and see if it will work for the libraries’ summer program.  Since I can do many different varieties of shows with many different acts with the horses, I believe that it would be a very opportune moment for the kids in this area to see these different acts.  So perhaps maybe the library will enjoy and make it more than a once-a-year thing.

horses (Photo credit: willg willg.photography)

I have also been working with a student who wants to do a partial lease on Gypsy to learn off of her some important lessons while she is getting the experience she needs around horses to be a great rider and confident horse handler as well as a trainer.  If she could come to the arena at the same time I do, she could work on Gypsy as I work on Cheyenne and she can learn by observing what I do with them.  I can keep an eye on her and correct her when needed.  I do find from my first observation of her that she really is a natural around horses.  I don’t have to hover over her a lot to help her get a point.  She gets it.  However, Gypsy is great at helping to guide the student.  I just love to watch Gypsy work her magic on students, because Gypsy loves students.  It is nice to know that this student looks confident and sure of herself around this horse and the fact that Gypsy is not going to spook and do the jitterbug on her head  like a more green horse would.  Gentle horses are worth their weight in gold.

I do find it important for students, when they are old enough, to learn about horses from the ground first.  It is funny that it took trick training to open up a new door to me about the fact that horses could be used to a higher level than just riding.  They have personalities and expressions all their own.  They want the interaction with humans just as much as we do them.  They desire a relationship consisting of more than always jumping on their backs and using them for riding only.  They desire that one-on-one communication between human and horse that you never just experience when you only ride them about a couple times a week.

The question we need to answer from our horses is this:  Do horses have good days and bad days like we humans do?  Do they desire more from us than we give them?  If so, how do we get that relationship with them and where do we start?  I have found that horses that do have that relationship are happier horses.  The more we teach them language, the more they teach us and the more they try to reach out to us.

Horse watching (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

It brings me to a story that when I teach more language to horses or they teach me more about their language they use language to express themselves to me.  For example, Cheyenne was grazing on grass one day and the lead rope, which I usually drape on their backs, happened to fall on the ground.  Cheyenne accidentally stepped on this rope and scared herself by not being able to lift her head as high.  She jumped, but then looked in my direction to see if I was watching.  Then she gave me the biggest, cheesiest grin ever.  I found that to be hilarious to say the least.  There was another time when Cheyenne snuck over to the where the bales of hay are kept and started munching on some.  I then noticed and responded by yelling, “Cheyenne, get out of the hay!”  She nonchalantly left, and as she passed where I was sitting she gave me another cheesy grin as she went by.  Here are two moments where it was a comical time with her.

In other horse matters, I know I have not mentioned the neglected and rescued horse Milo/Legend for a while, but there was a time I didn’t know what his future would be like.  But, as usual, the Lord answered another prayer of mine and found the perfect person to help him with his problem.  A friend of mine, Colleen, is working him through his aggression issues by teaching him that he can trust people again.  He has just been moved and starved from place to place a little too much.  I don’t blame him for his behavior.  I will tell more on his story later.  But through his aggression, he was not trying to be mean, he was in his own way saying that he was either scared or crying for someone to understand him.  Colleen is doing that with him, teaching him that he can trust her and she won’t hurt him.  She is actually going to take him to her home to work with him.  The driving distance is too far for her day after day and he needs daily guidance to be a trusting horse again.  More to come on him later.

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On the wings of a dove

Amy and I returned to our “home” church for regular worship services this morning.  The first thing that struck me when we walked through the door was a friend smiling and saying to us, “You made it!”

John G. Miller speaks during worship services at his “home” church at the Wasatch Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church in Salt Lake City April 6, 2013. (Photo By Amy K. Miller)

Our attendance at services at our Wasatch Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church in Salt Lake City has been rare these days, more out of a need to keep an eye on our finances than any lack of desire to go to church.  This was a special visit, one that included doing something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while now.

This morning, I gave some personal testimony in front of our church family and visitors on what it’s like to be unemployed for well over a year, and to make it through with faith, strength, patience, trust, and a belief that — if we believe — we can make it through any “flood waters” that come our way.

Like the story of Noah and the Ark, it comes down to trust, belief, and a willingness to take yourself out of the driver’s seat.  It also helps to keep your eyes and your mind open to the signs that can help you through, no matter how small it seems those signs might be … like something as small as the wings of a dove.

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THE BEST OF THE VIEW: What April 4 means to me now

EDITOR’S NOTE:  The need to remember the events of this day 45 years ago is just as important today as it’s ever been.

As usual, the meaning behind April 4 to me has to do with the lyrics of a song.

“Early morning, April 4/Shot rings out in the Memphis sky/Free at last, they took your life/They could not take your pride …”  — U2, “Pride (In The Name of Love)”

Apparently, I’m guessing, I’m not alone.  I wasn’t even planning to write about this until I was looking at my blog stats for Wednesday, and a couple of terms people were using for Google searches jumped out at me.

• “marthin luther king avec les drapeau usa” — that got two hits, probably part of the reason why I got three views from people in France yesterday.
• “picture of martin luther king jr with american flag”

They were pointed in the direction of my MLK Day article, “It’s all about making A STAND!” that has become one of my highest-viewed articles in the nearly five months that I’ve been doing this blog.

They were pointed in the direction of this photo I found on Google Images …

If I were a betting man, I’d put money down that people were drawn to it because of what happened in Memphis 44 years ago on April 4.

And why was Dr. King assassinated?  It wasn’t because he spoke of anything anti-American.  Was it just because he dared to speak up, and when he did speak up he spoke the truth?  Was it because he was, dare I say it, black, and as a black man he dared to speak up and speak the truth?

Is that really stretching the truth?  I don’t think so.  Because even today, given eyewitness accounts and even 911 recordings showing what George Zimmerman said on the night he shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin to death (“F***ing coon!”), it’s almost safe to say that we still have a long way to go to reach that promised land that Dr. King spoke of.  I still see people questioning any racial motive Zimmerman may have had in shooting the black teen, even when Zimmerman’s own words on a 911 recording can be used against him.

People still have a problem accepting the truth, even when it’s right in front of their eyes and passing through their ears.  They just choose to only believe what they want to believe, the truth be damned.

Of course, people are free to believe what they want to believe.  This remains a free country, where people are free to say whatever they want.

With what we’ve seen in the Trayvon Martin case, however, as we reflect at the same time on MLK’s death 44 years ago and the words that he spoke so soon before his death, it’s just sad that we still have such a long way to go to live out Dr. King’s dream.

The truth remains.  Dr. King may be long dead and gone, sad to say, but the truth will always remain.  For those who would fight so hard to deny his words and his legacy, that’s what scares them to death.

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A case of “believe it or not” this Easter Sunday

I have a lot of friends spread out across various parts of the globe.  Some of them are people I’ve only met briefly in person and gotten to know better online.  Many others are people I’ve never met in person and have still gotten to know them online.  Many others are people I’ve known personally going back decades, and we’ve managed to stay in touch online.

That’s part of the “magic” of the worldwide web.

Our personal beliefs aren’t all the same, and that can be said in two of the touchier matters people have to deal with on a regular basis:  political and spiritual.  But in other ways, regardless of political or spiritual differences, we’re still friends.  There’s still some common bond that holds these friendships together, and to me … well, that’s pretty cool.  I thrive on seeing different perspectives.  They help me to more closely examine my own, they help to open up my mind to various possibilities, and they keep my beliefs in check.

Through the years, my perspective has changed in some areas.  I’ve always been liberal in many ways, conservative in others.  It’s been more in the conservative areas that I once had where my thoughts have changed.

When it comes to spiritual matters, that’s an area where my beliefs haven’t changed.  In fact, they’ve only gotten stronger with the passage of time.  I see friends all around me from all parts of the map who either question or outright reject my beliefs, not in a personal confrontation but in stating their own thoughts freely.  And that’s fine, people are free to believe or not believe in whatever they choose.  It’s not a right that I’ve been given to force people to believe one way or another, to think like me.  All I can do is state my own thoughts and beliefs, and if that has an impact, so be it.

It’s called “free agency.”  We are given the power to accept or deny, part of our own free will.  That’s something that gets abused all too often, including those who have strong spiritual beliefs.  Their beliefs are so strong that they may go overboard in proclaiming them, and a good opportunity to be their own “still, small voice” can be lost.

There are also those who’ve had strong spiritual beliefs who have chosen to walk away from their church.  I was reading an article about that not long ago, which raised a question worth thinking about:  Is it so much about the people walking away from their church, or their church walking away from the people?

spirituality (Photo credit: Loulair Harton)

Again, the best I can do is talk about my own beliefs, my own convictions.  And I can readily say that over the past year and a half of struggling to survive with my family through some tough times and coming through it all, my spiritual beliefs are rock-solid, and that won’t change no matter what arguments anyone who believes otherwise might throw out there.

All I can do is remember the things that we’ve seen or experienced lately that strengthen our own belief.

We’ve seen prayers answered in ways that can’t be relegated to mere “coincidence.”  To have prayers answered in a timely manner a couple of times might be “coincidence.”  To have them answered that way repeatedly … it goes beyond that.

Those who have endured can testify to that.  It goes to the kind of spirituality that calls us to witness without being overbearing to the point of turning people away.  It goes to the kind of openness that allows us to communicate with those around us with a courage to show our beliefs through our example.

As we celebrate this Easter Sunday and all that it means, we can show in unique ways that what we believe in is very much alive — not just on Easter Sunday, but every chance we get on a daily basis.

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Why would anyone want to leave the news business?

As someone who spent 16 or so years working in and around newspapers, I saw something last week that saddened me but didn’t surprise me at all.  A friend from my high school days — someone I’d met at a high school journalism convention in my junior year, and someone who’s worked in the newspaper business many more years than I have since then — shared a blog article on Facebook titled “Why I left news.”

It was an article written by a 20-something writer in South Carolina named Allyson Bird.  She left a newspaper reporting career in August of 2012 to take more of a public relations-type job, and when you read her blog article it seems evident that her heart was more in the thrill and the “vanity” of the news reporting game.  The deciding factor in her move was that the public relations gig offered a more secure, less stressful future.

She is far from the first journalist to go that route.

There’s some vanity involved in seeing your name in a black-and-white byline on a regular basis.  There used to be a sense of honor in doing valuable work that could have a real impact.  There’s a big adrenaline rush in having to go out to cover big stories.  It can be an exciting career, no two days are exactly the same, and it’s a career that used to bring respect and in some cases even a certain level of celebrity status.  It’s also been known as one of the more stressful occupations out there, with constant deadlines and pressure to be accurate at all times.

Now, almost 20 years after leaving the profession myself, I can still say that there are things about it that I miss.  Unless you happen to be a big name at a major media outlet, however, it’s not something that will bring you great financial rewards.  And that sense of career security when it comes to print journalism seems to be dwindling to this day.

Bird has only been blogging for the past three months, producing an average of one article in each of those months before her “Why I left news” post hit the web.  But that article went a bit viral, getting thousands of “shares” on Twitter and Facebook since it first appeared last Tuesday, which has led to around 165,000 views.  It’s an article that’s hit home with people both inside and outside the business of journalism.

She started working in journalism in 2005, what she called the “tail-end of the good days.”  In her blog article, Bird lists a variety of things that are ailing the newspaper business:  short attention spans on the part of the readers; competition for instantaneous, 24/7 news coverage on the web and cable/satellite channels and the pressure on print media to match it; an unwillingness on the part of decision-makers to put out the kind of money it would often take to get the good stories, no matter where those stories were taking place; ultimately coming down to budget-cutting, and in effect being more willing to settle for rehashing press releases.

The timing of the release of Bird’s blog article is interesting because of a few things I’ve observed in the media over the past few weeks …

• Ultra-rich and ultra-conservative industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch, according to the Reuters news agency, are said to be interested in making bids for either all of the Tribune company, which includes 23 TV stations and national cable network WGN American, or the Tribune newspapers which include the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Baltimore Sun.
• 

  Fox News Channel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  A group of Tea Party activists — calling themselves the Tea Party Fire Ants — organized a boycott of the conservative Fox News Channel that lasted from March 21 to March 24, demanding that the network take an even harder turn toward the right by spending more time talking about immigration and the September 2012 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead.

• Tabloid-style journalism may get ratings, and one need look no further than CNN to see it lately, but then CNN’s been in a ratings slump itself no matter what it does to fix its leaky ship.  Case in point — Question:  How much time has CNN devoted to stories like the Jodi Arias murder trial, or the passengers stuck on a disabled Carnival cruise ship with their plight being compared to Hurricane Katrina?  Answer:  Tons, proverbially speaking.  Question:  How much time has CNN spent covering legal efforts to keep consumers such as those stranded Carnival passengers from suing corporations?  Answer:  Little, if any, realistically speaking.
• Time Magazine has been able to claim its biggest-selling cover story recently which consisted of a special — and quite lengthy — report from its February 20 edition on the cost of health care in America (which has caused a number of readers who haven’t been able to find it in print any longer to search for it online, leading them to places such as this blog to find it).

Tie those items together, and it could lead to a few different conclusions — there is still a strong hunger for solid, investigative journalism that requires a lengthy attention span; sensationalism is hopefully on the way out, but CNN is becoming a prime example of how tabloid-style coverage at the cost of covering “real stories” benefits the few instead of the many; there is a loud group of people out there wanting desperately to see the news slanted toward their (conservative) belief system even when the outlet they’re shouting at already caters to them; there is tremendous power in the corporate world that would seek to slant the news that’s fed to us even more than it is now.

These are all symptoms of a media that’s failing us, symptoms of a media that continues to drive away promising young reporters and writers such as Allyson Bird or the gifted ones with much more experience than her, symptoms of a media that has a few problems to deal with before it can regain the high standing and pride in itself that it once boasted.

That Time Magazine article on health care costs has been the most-viewed here on this blog for weeks.  Another blog article of mine that continues to get attention long after it was originally posted here, even to this day, deals with “one of the major problems facing our major media today.”  That article concentrated on reporters seeming to be hesitant to ask tough questions on hard issues, regardless of a liberal or conservative political stance.

Part of the reason why we’re seeing this problem all ties together with the issues that have been discussed up above, and I could see it long before the point in time that Allyson Bird mentioned — the “beginning-of the-end of the good days.”  It was a point in time back in the early 1990s when the glory of being a reporter seemed to fade, and I found myself walking out that door at my last newspaper job, in part because that “glory road” of being a watchdog for the public interest seemed to be fading.

I was managing editor at a small daily newspaper, and I had a hand in all aspects of the editorial department — from gathering and writing to editing and supervising, from taking photos to laying out pages and approving them before they went on the press.  I did my share of controversial, investigative reporting, and I got kudos from both sides of the political fence because of it.  After a while, none of that seemed to make enough of a difference.

What mattered were the advertisers.  The editorial department didn’t set the tone, the advertising department did.  It started becoming clear to me when a giant discount chain of stores (which won’t be named here, but it rhymes with “small tart”) came into town and began to set the tone.  They didn’t abide by having small-potatoes reporters doing stories on them, if they wanted publicity they’d have press releases to do it.

You didn’t question them on their PR strategy either.  To do so would mean losing what little ad revenue they were willing to provide to the local paper in the form of pre-printed inserts, which were very few and far between.  That became clear to me when the big new guys ran into some national PR trouble and I made an appointment with the local store’s manager for a local angle.  I showed up on time for the appointment, but it was suddenly and unexpectedly called off.

Any griping I decided to do was quickly squelched, from all angles but my own.

It seemed like “the wave of the future” back then, and it seems that way even more now.

Overcoming that future that’s become more like the present is a pretty tall order.  Can it be done?

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Facing life’s challenges together, 23 years later

We went to the old Granger High School auditorium one last time last night before it gets taken down for good to make way for a place that’s shiny and new.  We went there to watch my lovely wife Amy play violin in a concert with the West Valley Symphony of Utah again, something I always enjoy.

Amy sings in a previous concert with the West Valley Symphony of Utah. (Photo By John G. Miller)

Amy looked gorgeous, as she always does.  But there was something extra special about how she looked to me last night.  She wore that special black dress of hers that’s pulled out just for these concerts, a dress that always looks fabulous on her.  Her hair was styled just the way I love it, long and flowing.

We were a bit short on time before she had to be on stage at 6:30 p.m. for one last practice, and the traffic lights didn’t help.  Amy told me a quicker way to get to the school, and I followed her advice.  I told her I’d drop her off just outside the entrance to the band room before parking the car in order to get her on the stage even faster, and before stopping the car I decided to lighten the mood a bit and pretend that we were arguing, raising my voice a bit and saying, “Get the hell out of this car!”

Our two children in the back seat knew I was kidding, and deep down Amy knew I was too.  She came across more disturbed, however, because she was afraid someone might have heard that and thought we were actually fighting (not much chance of that) and because she has sensitive ears.  But I gave her a smile and blew her a kiss as she got out of the car, and kissed her forehead again after finding her seated at her chair as we walked along the stage to go to our seats, just to pass along the message that I loved her and that she’s very special to me.

I looked at her often as she warmed up with the orchestra.  I found my eyes focusing quite a bit on her left hand as it worked along the finger board, looking at the ring on her ring finger.

Anillos de Matrimonio, Aros de Matrimonio (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It wasn’t that long ago that Amy had been wishing so badly she could have something to wear on that finger to show that she was spoken for, going a few years without anything after her wedding ring had become bent to the point that she couldn’t take it off and it had to be cut off.  She walked around for a few years with an indentation in her finger being the only thing to let people know that she was married, or to leave them wondering if she still was.

I followed my heart in January and purchased a ring at a deeply discounted price that Amy’d had her eye on for a while, just to give her something to wear on that finger, just to let people know she was spoken for.

I followed my heart, despite the fact that any job I had at the time hadn’t started yet and when it did it wouldn’t pay much.  Still, it was one of those things that just felt like the right thing to do, like it was meant to be.  Kind of like my marriage to Amy was meant to be.

I followed my heart, I trusted my gut instincts and that small voice inside that told me it was the right thing to do, even as we were in the midst of one of the most challenging periods of our married life due to unemployment or under-employment, and I was still filing unemployment claims at the time like I’d been doing every week for well over a year.  I wrote out a check and felt good about putting the box that held the ring in my pocket, thinking about a good time to give it to her as a surprise.  I waited a few days, pulled it out during a Saturday afternoon meal while our daughter was with us, and asked Amy to marry me all over again.

Now, here we are — about two months later, I have a better-paying job, and things are beginning to turn around for us again.  And I sat in the middle of the second row with a clear view of Amy last night, and I couldn’t help but look at her beauty and that ring on her left hand that had special meaning.

When the concert was over and we drove home, our children were listening to Adele singing the theme song from “Skyfall” on an iPad in the back seat, and I couldn’t help but look in the front passenger seat at the stunning lady sitting next to me.  The lights along the streets at night gave her a different, even more stunning look.  It felt like my heart was beating faster and harder the more I looked at her.  It felt like my breath was being taken away.

I thought of the fact that Amy and I would celebrate our 23rd wedding anniversary today.  The thought came to me that if I were going to be faced with one of life’s greatest challenges, I wouldn’t want to face it with anyone other than the woman that I call my wife.

She took my breath away 23 years ago today when she was about to walk down the aisle at a Seventh-day Adventist church in Pocatello, Idaho.  That hasn’t changed all these years later.

It’s a feeling that’s only gotten stronger, more intense.

I couldn’t have asked for a better partner in life.

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What’s wrong with this picture?

It was, if I remember correctly, a scene that played out for real on the morning that I was officially offered a better full-time job almost two weeks ago.

parking lot (Photo credit: concrete_jungler101)

There I was — flying pretty high after getting word by phone of the job offer just moments before after a long period of un- and under-employment — about to get into our car in a parking lot after getting a few things at a health food store.

A health food store … what kind of image does that put into your mind when you think of it?  The people who shop there are usually looking for the best ingredients, all natural, organic, designed by nature to help you live a longer and healthier life, right?

There I was — on top of the world at the moment after being told that I had a good-paying job again — unlocking the car door and about ready to put my bag of items in, and I noticed a woman with a toddler in her arms not far behind me walking up to the parking area.  They were looking at something on the ground, and I looked down to see what they were looking at on the paved asphalt.

There it was, something perfectly round with tips on both sides.  It had to be made of rubber, I thought, because it wasn’t making a sound as it rolled on its side like a large coin — around and around it goes, I thought, and where it would stop no one knows.

It rolled around and around, along the dried oil, transmission fluid and coolant stains that had surely been stepped upon by dirty shoes for who knows how long.  And then, the round rubber object finally  came to a rest with one tip resting on the ground.

What was it?  Was it a child’s pacifier?  And if it was, surely the woman wouldn’t pick it up after it had rolled on the ground for a while and give it back to the toddler … would she?

As I got into the driver’s seat of my car, I watched the woman’s next move.  It was a pacifier, and she didn’t hand it back to the child.  Oh, no.  Instead, she placed the tip straight into the child’s mouth, and the toddler was happy to start sucking on it again.

My gag reflex just about took over right then and there as I closed the car door, asking out loud once the door was closed, “Lady, what the **** is wrong with your head?”

It happened at a parking lot outside a health food store.  But just because it happened there doesn’t mean the parking lot is all natural and organic as well.

The things you can see …

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