Curtis Dahlgren
"On Wisconsin" or ON AMERICA? (some perspectives, please)
By Curtis Dahlgren
A morning-after in Detroit and Hotlanta,
And you can smile in Green Bay if you wanta,
But a funny thing happened on the way to Utopia.
- my column (October 14, 2014)
THE MORNING AFTER THE FINALS IN MADISON: All I can say is, just be glad you're not attending Garissa University in Kenya. Losing a ball game isn't as bad as being lined up against the wall and executed for your faith one by one. Where are the lamentations over the literal martyrdom of Christians (our State Department called them just "citizens")? Our government-controlled press calls the killers just "militants" and the dead are just a number. A tiny story down in the corner of page one of the Milwaukee paper said (4-3-15):
"Militants kill 147 at Kenyan University"
YAWN. Meanwhile, three-fourths of the front page featured an article about "orange blossom creme cakes" at a local grocery chain, plus plans for a new basketball arena (to go along with the city's planned trolley train). Meanwhile there have been eleven separate shootings in Milwaukee since Saturday when the Badgers were playing in Indianapolis (a city being protested over "to cater" or "not to cater" pizza for "wedding feasts"). Meanwhile an NBA player for the Pacers gets stabbed in New York City. See what I mean about perspectives?
As for TV news, one can watch the NBC Good Morning show for hours without actually seeing any news other than an overview of the weather. The rest of the show is essentially "orange blossom creme cakes" – or whatever! What is journalism "becoming to"? A Rolling Stone gathers no moss, but it is sure to get a lawsuit. Where have all the morals gone in J-schools? When will they ever learn? I was just looking over a 2013 article about the BBC. The big story at that time was about a popular TV host who had died in 2011 and was found out to have been a child sex predator. A subsequent investigation by the BBC was suddenly dropped in 2011, but this story was too real and too big to keep "covered"! The truth came out of the closet and the BBC had to 'fess up. Tomorrow's World magazine (Jan-Feb 2013) reported:
"The BBC – founded as an impartial and apolitical institution – developed the same humanistic bias that has become commonplace among much of the nation's intelligentsia and ruling elite. The BBC came to reflect the decline in moral and ethical standards that was widespread in British society . . Columnist Peter Oborne has no doubts about where the problem lies: 'The corporation has been colonized and captured by a narrow, greedy, self-interested and self-perpetuating liberal elite, ignorant of ordinary people and contemptuous of ordinary morality.'
"..The story went viral on the Internet and a completely innocent retired Conservative politician was wrongly named. The most elementary rules of journalism had been breached . . The result was another national outcry . . The BBC Director General was forced to resign, and other senior managers were sidelined."
The Chairman of BBC Trust admitted to "unacceptable shoddy journalism" and promised a thorough "overhaul." It's funny, but such things never seem to happen in American journalism. Maybe that's why news coming through the UK lately has been more reliable and revealing than what we get from the Associated Press or CNN. What I don't get is, when did the A.P.'s competition, the UPI, get stifled?
Anyway, the bottom line is that, sadly, too many people tune the news out – either because so much of it is B.S., or just too bloody to bear anymore. Brian Williams may have had PTSD or a "brain tumor," but can you imagine the PTSD going on right now in Kenya, Nigeria, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Liberia? Losing an NCAA championship game is the least of our worries! [And I speak as a UW "alum."]
P.S. The sun came up again this morning, so a few words more, paraphrased from my 10-14-14 column:
A funny thing happened on the way to Utopia;
Millions died in Ukraine, Lithuania, and Estonia.
How many years have to go by before they see the signs in the sky?
Is 'global warming' all that you've "get"? NOT.
The four "riderless horses" are beginning to trot.
How many bullets have to fly, how many children have to die?
"Long time passing"? Are we on the road to Damascus? Or to Utopia?
Sorrows and grief from Pretoria to Peoria.
PPS: More to come. Season's greetings, though (the God of Israel is not on the run; He has only just begun).
© Curtis Dahlgren
April 9, 2015
A morning-after in Detroit and Hotlanta,
And you can smile in Green Bay if you wanta,
But a funny thing happened on the way to Utopia.
- my column (October 14, 2014)
THE MORNING AFTER THE FINALS IN MADISON: All I can say is, just be glad you're not attending Garissa University in Kenya. Losing a ball game isn't as bad as being lined up against the wall and executed for your faith one by one. Where are the lamentations over the literal martyrdom of Christians (our State Department called them just "citizens")? Our government-controlled press calls the killers just "militants" and the dead are just a number. A tiny story down in the corner of page one of the Milwaukee paper said (4-3-15):
"Militants kill 147 at Kenyan University"
YAWN. Meanwhile, three-fourths of the front page featured an article about "orange blossom creme cakes" at a local grocery chain, plus plans for a new basketball arena (to go along with the city's planned trolley train). Meanwhile there have been eleven separate shootings in Milwaukee since Saturday when the Badgers were playing in Indianapolis (a city being protested over "to cater" or "not to cater" pizza for "wedding feasts"). Meanwhile an NBA player for the Pacers gets stabbed in New York City. See what I mean about perspectives?
As for TV news, one can watch the NBC Good Morning show for hours without actually seeing any news other than an overview of the weather. The rest of the show is essentially "orange blossom creme cakes" – or whatever! What is journalism "becoming to"? A Rolling Stone gathers no moss, but it is sure to get a lawsuit. Where have all the morals gone in J-schools? When will they ever learn? I was just looking over a 2013 article about the BBC. The big story at that time was about a popular TV host who had died in 2011 and was found out to have been a child sex predator. A subsequent investigation by the BBC was suddenly dropped in 2011, but this story was too real and too big to keep "covered"! The truth came out of the closet and the BBC had to 'fess up. Tomorrow's World magazine (Jan-Feb 2013) reported:
"The BBC – founded as an impartial and apolitical institution – developed the same humanistic bias that has become commonplace among much of the nation's intelligentsia and ruling elite. The BBC came to reflect the decline in moral and ethical standards that was widespread in British society . . Columnist Peter Oborne has no doubts about where the problem lies: 'The corporation has been colonized and captured by a narrow, greedy, self-interested and self-perpetuating liberal elite, ignorant of ordinary people and contemptuous of ordinary morality.'
"..The story went viral on the Internet and a completely innocent retired Conservative politician was wrongly named. The most elementary rules of journalism had been breached . . The result was another national outcry . . The BBC Director General was forced to resign, and other senior managers were sidelined."
The Chairman of BBC Trust admitted to "unacceptable shoddy journalism" and promised a thorough "overhaul." It's funny, but such things never seem to happen in American journalism. Maybe that's why news coming through the UK lately has been more reliable and revealing than what we get from the Associated Press or CNN. What I don't get is, when did the A.P.'s competition, the UPI, get stifled?
Anyway, the bottom line is that, sadly, too many people tune the news out – either because so much of it is B.S., or just too bloody to bear anymore. Brian Williams may have had PTSD or a "brain tumor," but can you imagine the PTSD going on right now in Kenya, Nigeria, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Liberia? Losing an NCAA championship game is the least of our worries! [And I speak as a UW "alum."]
P.S. The sun came up again this morning, so a few words more, paraphrased from my 10-14-14 column:
A funny thing happened on the way to Utopia;
Millions died in Ukraine, Lithuania, and Estonia.
How many years have to go by before they see the signs in the sky?
Is 'global warming' all that you've "get"? NOT.
The four "riderless horses" are beginning to trot.
How many bullets have to fly, how many children have to die?
"Long time passing"? Are we on the road to Damascus? Or to Utopia?
Sorrows and grief from Pretoria to Peoria.
PPS: More to come. Season's greetings, though (the God of Israel is not on the run; He has only just begun).
© Curtis Dahlgren
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