Good news (again)

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In this post I again want to make a point about “news”, which is that it is “good” when it is a published or broadcasted statement that is factually true and objective in the style of its content.

As I professional writer who has a lot of experience and some graduate-level training in journalism, I know the basic principles that govern the presentation of good news. I’m sure that most professional journalists with the major media outlets and newspapers know these principles that should define their presentations of the facts and the style for their news reports regarding the matters upon which they are reporting. They know the difference between “facts” and “opinions”. They know how to research for data regarding what they seek to report and the importance of being able to cite the sources for what they state in their published or broadcast in their reports. They know the difference between reports of “news” and statements of “editorial opinions”.

The really sad state regarding what is being published and broadcast in our media today is due to the acceptance of really bad standards for news and public statements that are made among the people in our society and the culture in which we live. There is too much acceptance for lies in our public statements. People are too willing to issue their personal opinions in loud and repetitious announcements irregardless of their relationship to any facts or standards for respectful discourse. And too many people apparently don’t believe that it is important to cite any widely accepted respected sources for what they declare. So too many professional journalists have just neglected the application for the principles of good news in which they have been trained to become “popular” or commercially acceptable to those who pay for the news that they distribute.

So the people are subjected to an overwhelming amount of bad news, fake news, subjective opinions, lies, and political “correct” statements that they hear or read every day in their efforts to understand what is going on in this world in which we all live. There is a huge need for “good news” these days, reports of what is happening and being proposed by our leaders that are composed and distributed in accord with the principles for what is true and respectable standards for such news. How can these standards now be implemented by the journalists who feed us our daily diets of “news”? Let’s talk about this.

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Good life and good health

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The basics

A good life and good health are greatly desired, but they are basically gifts that have been given to you. You didn’t choose to be born and you certainly didn’t choose your parents or the circumstances in which you would live the early years of your life. All of the basic resources that you needed for your survival, growth, protection, and welfare were provided for you by your parents or someone else who cared for you. In most countries of the world there are laws against anyone abusing children or even neglecting them, but in some places they are abused, neglected, abandoned, sold, or even killed without many penalties. Your body was designed to protect you from what could be harmful by causing you to cough or to sneeze or to expel the contents of your stomach when it became toxic and to expel the “waste” that was produced from its normal digestive functions. Your parents were loving enough to try to give you only what was “good” for you, but you had to learn to trust them and to follow their instructions for the diet that they provided and recommended for you, even some vegetables. You had receptors in your body that indicated to you what tasted “good”, what gave you pleasure, and even what was not “good” by causing you to feel some “pain”. Not everything in this world is “good” for you, and some places and activities are actually personally very dangerous for you.

Your responsibility

The quality of your life and the maintenance of the resources for the normal health of your body is up to you. They are not the responsibilities of any government, community agency, relative, or friendly neighbor. As a child or even as a growing youth, you may not always realize this, yet it is your basic responsibility to manage your life and the resources that you will consume or use for your ongoing health. You have inherited some benefits in your genes and maybe even some disabilities, and it is up to those who care for you and ultimately for you to manage these resources in your life as you seek to experience a good life with ongoing good health. But since everything is not always “good” for you and you may not be wise enough or experienced enough to know what is “bad”, you have to decide whom you are going to trust to provide you with what is “good” and what rules you are going to follow for your own welfare and protection. At a point in your life, probably while you are still somewhat “young”, you will become an “independent” person who is relatively “free” to consume what you want to put into your body, to go where you want to go, and to do what you want to do. You will be “free” to consume what makes you feel “good”, to deal with your “pain” as you choose to do so, and to establish the personal disciplines (rules) that you determine will provide you with the qualities of life and health that you seek for yourself. You may be able to buy some insurance to help you to cover the costs for the necessary resources and care, but no one has to provide you with the funds to do so.

What is good?

What have you discovered in your life that is “good” for you? Whom do you trust to direct you to what is “good”? For some resources that are “good” forever, I invite you to check these out at christianityetc.org. As you are seeking a “good” life and “good” health, let’s talk about this.

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Thoughtful discourse

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Im sur tht u can rd ths prbly becs u r mor acostm 2 spking thn 2 wrtng bt I wld prbly hav sum trbl mkg my pont if I cont vry lng in ths styl of dscorse.

Spoken discourse and written discourse are very different
The above garbled text illustrates this fact very well. Children learn to speak long before they learn how to write. It is easier to mimic sounds than it is to learn how to spell words. It is easier to shout louder than it is to secure one’s attention by a clear authoritative order. Every beginning student of journalism is taught the difference between an acceptable report of a new’s worthy event and an editorial opinion regarding something that happened, and the different statements are usually displayed differently in reliable printed news media. Written discourse requires more work and thought in order to be clear and positively received than spoken discourse.

Problems in current styles of discourse
A fact should usually be accepted as something that is true and reliable. A lie is a statement that is not true. Mistakes in factual details regarding something that is reported should be recognized as just that, mistakes, that are probably due to sloppy research or sloppy discourse. Fake news is really expressions of opinion and not reliable reports of anything that can be depended upon. Interviews with eye witnesses should be recognized as “hear say” and not as “evidence”. Protests should be recognized as expressions of anger and not as positive expressions of solutions to any problems. Talk of “impeaching Trump” should be recognized as no more thoughtful or helpful than talk of calling someone to fix your computer with a hammer. Tweeting in statements of 140 characters or even 280 characters should not be recognized as being “thoughtful discourse” like a factual statement of logical announcement or appeal. Filibusters in Congress (or other legislative body) should not be recognized as having any value in contrast to thoughtful debates regarding proposed legislative bills to solve real existing problems in anyone’s civic operations. Duly authorized decisions should have more authority than statements of blame for failed efforts to influence others.

Time for thoughtful discourse
It is apparent to many that it is time for our politicians, and probably for the American people, to stop “shouting” at each other about what is “wrong” in America and begin to engage in some “thoughtful discourse” that is articulate enough and logically strong enough to get a sufficient majority of people to agree to work together to fix our serious civic problems. Well written sentences of subjects and verbs that are clearly organized into concise paragraphs and summarized in good logical conclusions are very beneficial statements of thoughtful discourse that in many ways are much more beneficial than most of the style of discourse that are filling our major platforms for communication today. Let’s talk about this.

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Coming together

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The basic necessary strategy
It is apparent to most of our citizens and our politicians that it is not going to be an easy task to unify the diverse people of America with their political, religious, ethnic, and gender different needs and agendas. Beneath all of the political talk of the election of our president and the patriotic demonstration of thousands of people coming together for his inauguration and President Trump’s inauguration speech, the only strategy that is going to really accomplish a coming together of the American people is for the passing of some very crucial bills of legislation on a bipartisan level of agreement on what is good for all Americans. This quality of bipartisan legislation will determine whether or not the non-shooting “civil war” within these American States is ended by the political unity of our legislative processes or whether our “fights” for different personal “rights” and benefits in our civic lives continues.

The simple way to do this
The simple way for our legislators to implement the coming together of their constituents and all of the people of American is for them to thoughtfully work together to compose and to approve legislative bills that cite specific rules for conducting of civic business that clearly reflect bipartisan strategies for the fixing of our common basic American problems. This means that these legislators will have to rise above many of the political agendas of the major political parties in America and begin to see their responsibilities and personal insights with more of a “federal” perspective than that of their “party” or even their local communities. The halls of congress will have to really become a place where the legislative work for all Americans is done, and it will have to be recognize by those who engage in this work as a place that is quite different from all of the other legislative halls in this country.

Some of the problems that Americans face in this country are so serious that immediate action by our President and our legislators is going to be necessary to fix them in order to protect our citizens from personal and economic destructive forces that threat us, and it is going to take more than patriotic talk to implement these fixes, but a new form of political action is being implemented in our government as we are coming together. Continued “fighting” and protests regarding our various political and personal agendas for securing our civic rights and blessings will not enable our President and our legislators to fix our common problems.

Let’s talk about this. What are you willing to do to encourage your legislators to be more “federal” in their perspective on the bills that they compose and pass that this process for coming together in this country might really be implemented? The government of this country is practically being returned to the people. What are you going to do with the new opportunity and authority that you have to influence its processes?

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Thanks

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Your interests
Thanks for your reported interest in my website and blog. According to the Awstats for my website, christianityetc.org, and its blog there were 100,459 “unique” viewers to this site in 2016. These stats also indicate that there were 164,717 “visits” to this site, and the “average viewing time” was 2.4 minutes. That means that the average viewer probably read at least one of my statements on this site during his or her visit. My statement on “faith” was apparently viewed by 24,738 individuals, “morality” was viewed by
23,193, and “redemption” was viewed by 16,986 viewers. According to stats from the Google search engine, my statement on “Christian faith” (at http://www.christianityetc.org/faith.php) is ranked #6 out of 132,000,000 sites for this phrase. According to stats for the Bing search engine, my statement on “Christian morality” (at http://www.christianityetc.org/morality.php) is ranked #4 out of 241,000 sites for this search phrase. And considerable views to various features of my blog were also noted among these stats. I think that these stats demonstrate some keen interest in my website and its blog.

Your particular interests and concerns
I would like to know more about these matters in order to provide more specifically helpful resources and discussion posts on my site and its blog. If you have any particular questions about Christianity, what are they? I will try to answer them for you. If you have some particular concerns about more secular or civic matters of your life, what are they? I would be glad to try to generate some discussion about them from “posts” that I would publish. The more I know about your particular interests and concerns, the more helpful I might be in what I publish on my site and its blog. Let’s talk about this.

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A Happy New Year

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Expect some changes
A new year is coming, and with it a lot of changes are expected to be implemented around the world. A new president is going to be installed in the USA, and he is planning to install a new cabinet of advisors and to appoint some new members to the Supreme Court as new members of Congress assume their responsibilities. Changes in the foreign policies of the USA are already being discussed, and some changes have already been anticipated in how the USA is going to conduct its civic and business operations. These new year changes are going to be extensive, and many of them are controversial. There is no universal agreement regarding the wisdom and strategies for many of these changes, so there is a lot of talk about them and some efforts are already being taken to affect them. But there isn’t much that you or I can directly personally do to basically affect these changes.

Prepare your response
All that we can really do in the face of the new year that is coming with all of its anticipated changes is to prepare how we are going to individually respond to them. That is our fundamental option as we prepare for the New Year. And your attitudes toward this new year and the anticipated changes that it will bring will determine whether or not your daily experiences of living in this world will be ones of being happy, disappointed, frustrated, frightened, angry, sad, peaceful, confident, hopeful, thankful, wise, or foolish. Your attitudes will determine your decisions and your responsive behaviors and they will determine the quality of your experiences, not the nature of the anticipated changes.

Let’s talk about this
What would make you happy this new year? What would make you most sad and disappointed about what transpires from day to day in our world in the new year? What would make you most hopeful and confident in what you see happening in our world in the new year? What are you going to commit yourself to do as you experience the changes that are going to come in the new year to produce the best possible positive results in your personal life? If you would like a to experience a fresh start in your life this year, I invite you to consider this statement New Life in Christ. Let’s talk about this.

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The U.S. Election

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Unify our nation
Everyone agrees that the election of Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States of American was a major political achievement that has seldom, if ever, been seen before. It has been said that he has turned the political situation in these States on its “head”. He and the other political leaders of our country agree that they and the representatives of the people of this country need to now work respectfully together to unite our people at every level of government into a unified body of Americans who are committed to preserving and implementing the ideals of freedom and the rule of law and its principles of justice and respect for individual differences and dreams for everyone who chooses to participate in this special gathering of people in this world.

It is obvious that the people of this country are still divided in some of the basic objectives for their political activity in spite of the fact that one political party holds the majority of seats in both houses of Congress as well as the presidency, so the task of building unity through our political procedures will not be easy. New leaders will be installed into positions of responsibility. Some bureaucratic programs will be changed. New rules will be passed and others will be removed. Relationships between civic leaders at all levels of authority, domestic and foreign, will be reviewed and refreshed.

The residents of these United States will find themselves to be under a revised form of political processes that are somewhat different from what has been practiced for many previous decades, but the officials of these political processes will also be aware of a persist new voice with a clear message from a large group of American citizens who in the past have been somewhat silent and passive in regard to their individual participation in these processes. Politics in these United States will never return to “business as usual”.

Your participation
Regardless of whether or not you voted or which side of the aisle your representative in Congress sit or even if you are not a citizen of this country, you are going to be affected by the changes that are going to be implemented in the way that Americans conduct the business of their government from now on. What changes are you anxious to see made in our civic situation in these States? How do you plan to personally participate in this business from now on? Let’s talk about this in a positive way to enhance the ideals of the American form of government for all of our people.

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