Tired Road Warrior

I’ve quit watching the national and local new shows.  They are just not that informative any more.  They assume I have a 2-minute attention span, the IQ of a 5th grader, and are hooked on celebrity news.  Sometimes it hard to tell the difference between the national nightly news and Entertainment Tonight. 

The national news likes big disasters because they are photogenic and the local news likes fires, shooting, etc. for the same reasons.  Interviewing people in pathetic situations is the latter’s staple.  Both love to give unneeded publicity to people on the fringes who do violent acts.  This publicity encourages future violent malcontents and people with mental problems; it gives them their 15 minutes of fame.  In some respects, the news is responsible for many of the personal tragedies out there because of the publicity that they provide to the instigator(s).

Yesterday I heard about two Internet efforts–one present and one future–that have the capacity to change the news business significantly.  One is a local effort called “Salt TV”.  According to Vince Horiuchi of the SLTrib:  “The new independent local news cooperative, launched in beta version this last week (mid-July 2010), is expected to be fully functional next month.”  It involves an unimpressive list of old news warhorses.

“Salt TV” promises more indepth reporting and a return to old-style journalism.  While I applaud the effort, I wish they had a better list of participants.  I just don’t see Terry Wood providing me a hard-hitting, indepth story, but I hope he suprises me.  The individuals they have signed up are big local names, but none are really noted for their reporting skills.  But even if they only highlight a more positive side of the new, I will be happy; I certainly look forward to seeing stories by Kimberly Perkins.  There has to be more to the news that just drive-by shootings.

The other effort is international and involves using the Internet for the publication of allegedly classified information.  This effort seems particularly noteworthy because it provides more transparency on issues that are potentially important to the public.  The website–wikileaks.org–has recently received a great deal of international publicity for its release of classified US documents concerning the war in Afghanistan.  (This release has been compared to Daniel Elsberg’s leak of the Pentagon Papers.)  Wikileaks has also received local publicity by publishing parts of the LDS Church Handbook of Instructions (1999).

Accordint to Wikipedia, “Wikileaks is an international organization, based in Sweden, that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensative documents from governments and other organizations, while preserving the anonymity of their sources.  Its website, launched in 2006, is run by The Sunshine Press.”  The website has received a number of newsmedia awards for its reports.

I’ve always admired the oximoronic idea of “organized chaos” or “creative pandemonium” or “efficient tumult.”  For me, organizations spend way to much time perpetuating their institutional structure and not nearly enough time on their stated mission.  Organizations, as they mature, get increasingly rigid, and less creative.  Maybe they even have life cycles just like all of God’s creatures.  It is difficult for aging institutions to stay vibrant and young, to maintain their creative juices.  They frequently don’t know when to die.

(more…)

The following appears on page 32 of the 2009 Lonely Planet “The Netherlands:

“The 1960s were a breeding ground for discontent and anti-establishment activity, and in the Netherlands this underground movement led to the formation of the Provos.  This small group of anarchic individuals staged street “happening” or creative, playful provocation (hence the name).

(more…)

The Sunday before last, there was a one-hour tribute on 60 Minutes to the recently deceased Don Hewitt.  Don created and was the inspiration behind one of TV’s longest running shows: 60 Minutes.  While I don’t usually watch shows that pat themselves on the back, this one caught my eye.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to watch the entire show.

(more…)

It would seem to me in this electronic age, the traditional committee and/or staff meeting is becoming outmoded.  The evening of November 1, I attended a small gathering of individuals to listen to a lecture on Mormonism and the environment.  After the BYU prof made his PowerPoint presentaion, there was a lengthy Q&A session.  This latter activity was dominate by one very loud, overbearing, and foul-mouthed individual.  While I didn’t disagree with most of her points, but why did she think her opinions were more cogent than those of others in the audience?  By her dominating the conversation, we will never know what others attending were thinking.  We will never know what the silent individuals could have brought to the discussion.

(more…)

The following is an quoted from the book “Mountain Beyond Mountains:”

“Farmer (Paul) was learning about the great importance of water to public health, and he was conceiving a great fondness for technology in general, also scorn for ‘the Luddite trap.’  He liked to illustrate the meaning of that phrase with the story of the time when he came back to Cange (Haiti) from Harvard and found that Pere Lafontant had overseen the construction of thirty fine-looking concrete latrines, scattered through the village.  ‘But,’ Farmer asked, ‘are they appropriate technology?’  He’d picked up the term in a class at the Harvard School of Public Health.  As a rule, it meant that one should use only the simplest technologies required to do a job.

(more…)

The book “The Moral Underground” was recently given a short review in Time Magazine (Dec. 14, p. 23).  In her book, Lisa Dodson (BC sociology prof.) paints a rather dismal image of corporate America, who she feels is building wealth by abusing low-income workers.  “Helping the less fortunate in this context becomes as a form of civil and corporate disobedience.”  Time lists three of her examples:  (1) supervisors who alter time cards so that employees can take better care for their families; (2) the school nurse who keeps cots in her office so those with bad home situations can get a few hours of sleep; and (3) the doctor who thumbs his nose at insurance regulations in order to provide medicine for an entire household.  ”All see their behavior as necessary and moral acts of conscience.”

(more…)

In a recent edition of SIVault, L. Jon Wertheim writes about the decision-making of the football coach for the Pulaski Academy Bruins (a high school located on the west side of Little Rock AR).  For me the article, brought to my attention by my son, is more about life than sports.

(more…)

Time Magazine (Sept 28, 2009) has an interesting short article on Wikepedia:

“. . . early in 2007, something strange happened:  Wikipedia’s growth line flattened.  People suddenly became reluctant to create new articles or fix errors or add their kernels of wisdom to existing pages.”

(more…)

At one of the 2009 SLC Sunstone workshops, a Weber State Professor — Michael J. Stevens — taught a short course in management.  He described 4 types of managers ranging from disrespectful to respectful, and dominant to submissive:

Q1:  Imposer — makes authoritarian decisions

Q2:  Ignorer — avoids or postpones decisions

Q3:  Ingratiator — wants everyone to be “one happy family”

Q4:  Integrator — promotes self-direction in others

With the ideal being Q4. 

(more…)