The Truman Show...For Real

5 New Things I’ve Learned This Week…

Good morning. My name is Joel and I’m on a mission. A mission to proactively learn something new each and every day. Yep, I’ve decided to step out of my well worn comfort zone and push beyond that all-to-easy default position of letting others decide my focus. And by others I mean friends, neighbors (haha, like I’d talk to my neighbors), even family, and most of all, the news media. With apologies to my mindfulness practice, I intend to direct my awareness beyond the zeitgeist of the moment. With that in mind, I’m happy to report that in my first week of following this new mantra I have learned many, many new things. Here are my top 5:

1. Scientists, right now, are refining how to store data, like balance sheets, inventories, medical records, etc., inside of DNA…it’s astounding and one of those “I can’t quite wrap my head around it” kind of revelations.
2. In 1910 two explorers embarked on a race to see who could become the first person to actually reach the South Pole. The winner died disgraced. The loser, a full-blown hero. Great story.
3. Up until the early 20th century there were places on earth where close to half the population was inflicted with huge goiters, including here in the United States. One, brave young doctor in Cleveland figured out the unlikely cure - a poison that we now eat every day.
4. The reason for this summer’s travel Armageddon is rooted, primarily, in one action. One kinda sneaky misuse of government bailout funds provided to the major airlines during the pandemic lockdown.
5. Weather forecasting is about to become exponentially more accurate and precise.

I can tell you this new mission is exhilarating, rejuvenating, and incredibly frustrating at the same time. Here’s why: Not a single one of the great stories above came to me from the most logical and available resource - the News. Nope. In fact, a deeper reflection caused me to realize in spite of being almost constantly exposed and immersed in news of all shapes and sizes, I wasn’t getting any smarter, just duller, drone-like, depressed, and very, very cranky. Not a good look. I’m only now begining to wake up to the reality that there’s so much about life and the world around me I don’t know, and don’t even know I don’t know because, well, you can’t know what you don’t know. Nope not a clue…and I’m kinda pissed about that.

The Problem with Narrowcasting…

Amidst my week of discovery I happened upon George Will’s column in the Washington Post which was based in large part on a new book by Chris Stirewalt called “Broken News.” If that name sounds familiar, Chris was the guy drummed out of Fox News for accurately assessing that Trump had lost Arizona during the last Presidential election and being among the first to call it. Right though he was…being so bold did not serve him well, at least not professionally, for all the reasons you know. Anyway, the Will column and Stirewalt’s book talk about how journalism has changed. How it’s become far more singular and incestuous in its focus. One fact or event followed by reaction, counter reaction, counter-counter reaction, and so forth, dominating hours, days, weeks, months, and seemingly years of news coverage. As Will says, it goes something like this:

“What did Trump say? What did Nancy Pelosi say about what Trump said? What did Kevin McCarthy say about what Pelosi said about what Trump said? What did Sean Hannity say about what Rachel Maddow said about what McCarthy said about what Pelosi said about what Trump said.”

To make matters worse, Americans don’t really like to read much anymore. The percentage of people who read multiple books each year has been in decline for two decades and, as Will points out, more than half of us between the ages of 16 and 74 read below a sixth-grade level. Astounding! And, of course, you can’t mention reading without noting that we’re shedding newspapers in this country like a summer tan in December. So…we turn whole hog to video for our news and information needs, which is a very, very bad thing. Video news was never, ever intended to be a stand alone in the world of journalism. Truthfully, the only way it makes sense is in combination with mediums that allow for greater depth, context, and perspective. You know, the kinda stuff that comes from things like books and newspapers or at least their digital equivalents. Uh oh.

The Truman Show…For Real

If you’re not familiar with the Jim Carrey movie, it’s basically a fictional story about the mother of all reality television shows. The premise is that Carrey’s character, Truman Burbank, was born and has lived his entire life - 29 years - in an amazing fake community with fake parents, a fake wife, and a fake job. He’s the only one not in on the joke. His reality has been created by the show producers and force fed to him each and every day. He’s none the wiser.

I kinda feel like that’s where we’re at. We’re being fed a reality by the news that is very narrow, amazingly shallow overall, and yet ubiquitous. It’s distributed in such volume that it engulfs you and, over time, convinces you (or simply beats you into submission) that it’s reality. I’ve begun to wake up to the fact that this is not the case. Not even a little. Nope, there’s a whole ‘nother world out there that, chances are, you haven’t been exposed to on a regular basis. Stories, when consumed, can change your whole outlook on life, bring perspective that better informs your values and even your emotions. And, at the very least, lets you know that there’s waaaaaay more to life than what Trump, Pelosi, McCarthy, Hannity, and Maddow, are telling you.

Instead, of telling those stories, however, as Stirewalt points out in his book, the media has become obsessed with the easy sell, viscerally charged, lowest common denominator approach to reporting the news. Stirewalt believes the media treats news coverage “like sports.” The coverage is “entertaining but with no meaning deeper than the score.” And, in this day and age, nothing is easier to cover and elicit a response from than…politics.

“The fans, consumers of emotional-impact journalism, wear, figuratively speaking, their teams’ colors - red shirts against blue shirts. This journalism’s constant attention to politics instead of government - to gaining power instead of its exercise - makes the players on the field (as Stirewalt says) ‘want to show off to the fans in the stands instead of trying to win the game.’” George Will

It becomes a game by every measure. Red meat. Outrage. Reaction. Counter-reaction and so on over and over again.

Maximum Velocity…

It’s a diet filled with allegations, opinions, wild assertions, and life reduced to strong but largely trivial tribal loyalties. Amidst this storm, which hits you from all platforms relentlessly, the truth becomes almost impossible to discern, which, in turn wreaks havoc with our basic equilibrium. Emotions high, truth lost in the noise, and walls seemingly a few inches closer than they were when the day started. And, to borrow another theatrical reference, everyday is Groundhog Day.

In this scenario the media is merely just a part of the fray. A delivery system for the chaos making us unhappy. Is it any wonder nobody likes us? Did you like the kid in elementary school or junior high that felt it was his or her duty to tell you bad things another kid said about you or your friends, then take your predictable response back to the original rabble rouser and on and on it went until…until emotions reached the boiling point and…fight, fight, there’s a fight on the playground everybody!

Here’s the amazing thing. Those five things I learned this week made me feel better, actually breath deeper, even see the world in a much better light. I got to ponder things never thought about before and, at least for a time, made the walls recede back to their normal place. I found myself seeking out other new information from those same sources that delivered the five. I liked them. I respected them. I trusted them. They made me feel something other than angst, frustration, and hopelessness.

Now, I know what you’re going to say…in fact Will covers it in his column…“we’re just giving the audience what they want; what the ratings and data tell us they respond to.” True, but that’s what we’ve taught them to be and now it’s time for re-education and re-orientation. I don’t really have a good idea as to what that action plan would look like, I can only testify to the fact that my new mission has had a dramatic impact on me. Besides just feeling better I have an urge, even enthusiasm, to share what I’ve learned. Just that little bit of new perspective, the deviation from the onslaught has improved my life and caused me to take everything else I’m seeing with a healthy grain of objective salt. Do with that what you will.

And By the Way…Speaking of Salt

Because almost no one clicks on the links inside the newsletter (shame on you, by the way - it’s good stuff! - and it is more work for your’s truly, but don’t worry about me even though my neck and shoulder are still sore. It’s ok, really.) I will tell you that each new fact learned was from a podcast - my new refuge from toxic information overload. So, for those who just can’t be bothered…here’s the gist of the 5 things I learned this week. A freebie cause, as mentioned, I now like to share.

• Info/DNA - Yes, information can now be stored inside manufactured DNA. In fact, the entire Internet can be contained in DNA that fits a shoe box. Not kidding. And, info stored that way is guaranteed to last for hundreds, if not thousands of years which amounts to a major upgrade over the current need to change out computer servers every 5-7 years or risk losing the data.
• Race to the South Pole - It was won by a Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, who bested a much better equipped and funded British explorer, Robert Falcon Scott, whose expedition came to a tragic end. And yet…Scott became the hero, not Amundsen. Look it up - or better yet - listen to the podcast.
• Goiters, oh my! - Until the early 20th century goiters, some as big as volleyballs, were pervasive among populations in certain parts of the world, including the Great Lakes region of the United States. A young Cleveland, Ohio doctor, David Cowie, was one of the first to prove that Iodine could cure them. His greatest achievement, however, may have been getting the salt companies to agree to include small doses of the stuff in the salt packages sold to the public. It turned out to be a great delivery system for a substance once thought of simply as a poison to be avoided. Oh, and why did Cleveland and the surrounding region have the high incidence of goiters in the first place? Has to do with glaciers…look it up.
• This Summer’s Travel Armageddon - The upshot is this: During the quarantine stage of the pandemic, the government sent $53 billion dollars to the major airlines to allow them to maintain their workforce in light of the fact that almost no one was flying. Instead, many used the money to buy out high priced employees, most notably, their most experienced pilots. When this summer rolled around, sans quarantine, and travel returned to pre-pandemic levels, the airlines were not able to find enough qualified pilots to hire to replace those bought out, and, many of those they did hire required extensive training on aircraft they’d never flown before. Double whammy = cancellations, long-lines, major frustration. The domino effect was that most new pilots hired were drawn from regional carriers which left those airlines in the lurch meaning no connections to major hubs, more cancellations, delays, mayhem, and general frustration.
• Better Weather - Within the next few years, a small company called Tomorrow.io will launch a “constellation” of weather satellites that will ring the earth providing a comprehensive view of the globe 24/7. Currently, that function is provided by just one satellite that sends regional data every 2-3 days. This is being made possible by micro technology which allows for smaller, far less expensive satellites that are launched into space by micro rockets, also smaller and less expensive. In fact, the whole constellation of satellites will cost far less than the single one currently rotating the earth.

Now…get out there and discover on your own, and feel free to share with the rest of us. Spread the enlightenment…it might just catch on.