Only You Can Prevent Ignorance

http://www.businessinsider.com/drudge-report-trump-2016-7

I have blamed conservative media for the rise and inexplicable failure to fall of Donald Trump's political viability.
I now double down on that accusation. I've linked to an article about one of the most interesting figures in modern media, Matt Drudge.
The title of the linked article is The Man Who Could Have Stopped Donald Trump.
The information offered in the article does not provide ironclad proof that Drudge alone could have spared us this torturous dragging out of a very bad joke, but it does indicate that there was certainly no attempt at objectivity on Drudge's part during the interminable 2016 primary season.
Matt Drudge is an interesting side effect of the internet. He is not a journalist. He is a news aggregator. He provides links to articles that usually support his narrative and sometimes provides the links with his own titles, often from quotes within the article, often from his personal conclusions drawn from the article.
I encourage you to read the article. It's very informative, and, from my perspective, damning, even though it seems as if it must have tickled Drudge's vanity since it was on his very web page that I first saw the article. And well it might puff the chest of a man who takes pride in his power to mislead. The Pied Piper could take piccolo lessons from this guy.
Here's a pertinent quote from the article.

I can only speculate as to Drudge's justifications for refusing to link to any article that cast Trump in any light that did not capture the essence of the illusion of the no nonsense Dirty Harry. Perhaps it was genuine belief in the billionaire. Perhaps it was crony capitalism. Perhaps it was a victory lap around the fallen walls of of the liberal monopoly of news. Perhaps it was only a Pavlovian hobby. Doesn't really matter. What is certain and what he even seems quite proud of  is that visitors to his website received only one side of the Trump story.
Now, what should we make of this information? First, we must establish that news is a product. Successful news networks, websites and aggregators treat their customers in a way that encourages return business. They give the consumer what is more likely to be consumed, and more importantly, digested, with no danger of uncomfortable heartburn or acid reflux.
Of no concern at all to the provider or the consumer is the clarity of the environment which is adversely affected by the excessive flatulence that such a diet sorely lacking in nutrients and fiber produces.
News has always been a product to be consumed and has always been subjective. Even if it were just you telling your friend about the Dallas Cowboys game, you wouldn't say they lost by 6 points.  You would say  they almost won. But now, just like cars, phones, emojis and football franchises, you can literally find the news product that suits you to a T and reinforces your views. And sometimes it's a very subtle shading that sells the consumer. The National Enquirer is the obvious snake oil salesman. If it were a car dealership, it would be called Honest Abe's Luxury Autos Under 1000$. Nobody's buying there unless they only HAVE a thousand dollars and 0 credit (ibility).
The respectable capitalists don't insult the consumer's intelligence. There are no outrageous claims that can easily be discredited like HILLARY CLINTON IS HONEST or DONALD TRUMP RESPECTS VOTERS INTELLIGENCE.
No outright lies be told. The good ones are simply very skilled fact selectors.
Of course, Drudge nor anyone else is under any obligation to tell me the truth. Caveat emptor. That is the first lesson I take from this. I'm responsible for the information I take in, and more importantly, I'm responsible for what I believe.
The very first thing to do is to know what you believe. That I tell you to do this BEFORE you consume information indicates of course that I posit that there are transcendent guiding principles that need no input.
I'm pretty sure someone will read this and roll their eyes and mutter Yeah, don't confuse me with the facts.
Let me clarify. You don't need facts or outside information to understand that people have inherent rights. You don't need facts/outside input to understand that asking the innocent to give up rights because of the actions of the guilty is wrong.
Where information comes into legitimate play is maybe knowing that a certain person in question has violated the rights of others, and so forfeited some of his rights
I'm aware that someone reading this may have some beliefs that directly oppose mine. That's perfectly fine. I have enough confidence in my core beliefs and enough confidence that those who earnestly seek truth will find it.
The next step, I believe, is shrinking your area of concern.
If news is only a distraction for you, carry on. I wouldn't presume that news about your city council meeting would be nearly as entertaining or expertly packaged as news about the UN Security Council. Some people watch news instead of soap operas. And that's fine, too, although it does imply that if the news you're viewing is as entertaining as fiction, it might conceivably BE fiction, or at best, "loosely based on a true story."
However, if you consume news FOR the information it professes to contain, and are the sort who then sometimes acts on that information, here are three good reasons to  think local.
1) You will never know all the information about any situation that involves anyone or thing apart from yourself. You may be an eyewitness to a crime, but you would still only have your perspective to rely on. But it stands to reason that the fewer degrees of separation between you and the situation being reported, the firmer grasp you will have on the facts. Every time the information goes from one person to the next, it gets filtered. Sewage can become drinking water, and vice versa.
2) I mentioned a city council meeting as opposed to a UN meeting. Another important difference between the two is you can actually ATTEND the next city council meeting, but if you tried to attend the next UN meeting without an invite, you will be met by men with guns that are far more functional than that miserable knotted symbol of peace that stands outside the UN building.
You can have an impact.
Some (not all) politics IS local.
3) You'll sleep better at night. Less obsession about things outside your control and more actual action taken in matters that are small enough to be affected by you will quiet your mind and strengthen your resolve.

Now, I don't expect you to leave off following national or global news. But, I would encourage you to try to keep it in perspective, balance it with local and state news, and, most importantly, let your conscience be your guide.

The Things Which Are Not

Darkness, because daylight hides the unknown.
The moon, because the sun cannot be looked upon.
The worst, because the best is yet a lie.
The sigh, because the song will end.
Violence, because peace is fragile.
Savagery, because civilization is the refuge of cowards.
Chaos, because order is a prison.
The unspoken, because words have spaces in between.
Broken, because perfection is an illusion.
The awake, because the dreaming must awaken and the awake must soon fall asleep.
The present, because the past and the future are non-existent.
The mystery, because the obvious is treacherous.
The lament, because the ode must never hit a false note.
Death, because life slips away.

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together

Some Other Words For Grace Besides Amazing

No other word for grace but amazing.
But I would like to offer some runners up: inexplicable, incongruous, cognitively dissonant, perplexing, scandalous, subversive, disruptive, inconceivable, difficult, strange, humiliating, liberating, enslaving....
Grace is the biggest hurdle for the unbeliever, and for many believers as well.
What concept is more integral to humanity than merit? What could possibly be more disruptive to fairness than grace?
More impossible than acceptance of the supernatural to the sensibilities of a good person is the idea that no good we can do could ever determine our goodness, and that no bad we could do could ever place us outside the limits of redemption.
I have said before that modern secular humanists, with their incremental, legalistic creed of achieving goodness with no eternal ulterior motive, with no hope of reward, have taken pride to dizzying, unprecedented heights, but it seems I had forgotten a monument called Babel. I have expressed incredulity at the hubris of a current presidential candidate who said he believes in God, but has never felt he needed His forgiveness, but it seems I had forgotten myself.
It is the plain, insipid truth that pride is not merely in our DNA, it is both rails and each rung of the twisted double helix. We, I, will be good enough, or "I" will not. No proffered hand, no vicarious atonement will be tolerated. If I cannot be good, it is revolting and insulting to allow the possibility that something could be a Substitute, a Scapegoat bearing my sins sent into the wilderness while I go unscathed and guiltless back to camp.
Do the math. If I do more good than bad, I am good, even if, no, especially if, there is no scorekeeper.
It could be said that the good atheist is a spiritual libertarian, taking responsibility for his own goodness without incentive, and the good christian is the spiritual statist, abjectly grateful for every undeserved crumb that is thrown him.
Gratefulness is a vile anethema; self preservation a cowardly sellout.

And yet, here am I, the fiercely independent political libertarian, the UPS guy who dismisses all offers of assistance with numerous or overweight packages with "Nah, it ain't heavy." only occasionally aware of the filthiness and raggedness of my own goodness, but living by the almost subconscious certainty that grace is my only hope.

Libertarian Vignette

Most people of any political stripe take their view because they feel it looks in the direction of utopia. From the extreme right of fascism to the extreme left of communism (This popular spectrum, by the way, is misleading, since a person's rights are almost identically trampled on by a nationalist's jack-boot as by a socialist's sandal. It is not so much a spectrum as it is a circle, with authoritarianism having the force of gravity, and drawing everything continually, inexorably down to 6 o'clock.), people form their opinions as to which form of government is best because of the results they expect, or claim to have already observed.
  I take my view not because I have any utopian expectations or even any real conviction that my ways will make things better (at least as we think of better) but because I think my ways are right. I make no claims or guarantees that my ideas will lead us shortly out of this mess and into order.  It should be obvious, in fact, that with my insistence upon leaving more things to individual choice, combined with my view that human nature is fallen, that the individual will not always, or even most of the time, make the right choice. My views are not the results of surveys and studies that indicate that if people are trusted more they will rise to the occasion. My view is not result based. If some well-meaning leftist were to ask me "But does your idea work?", my ready response would be, "Frankly, my dear........."  If they were to ask "Will the individual make the right choice?", my response would be, "What business is it of mine, or, more to point, yours?"
Now, I think that giving people more freedom is the right thing to do, and although I don't believe that gives any promise that things will all work out, doing the right thing is the best we can do. And, since I believe in an active, involved Creator, I believe that doing the best we can do gives us a right to expect better results,
or at least be able to blame God when we don't get better results.

Next To Last Word on Donald Trump

I probably should have done this a long time ago.
It might have spared me some anger. Then, again, it might not have, and it may not yet. I suppose it's even possible that announcing my last word on the subject may even cause me some great frustration. Which is why I won't announce this is my last word on the subject, but I do promise this speaking of my piece will be followed by fewer, if not a complete cessation of, posts about Donald Trump.
One of the reasons I have continued to speak about Trump, apart from it being quite possibly the most bizarre developments in political campaign history, and if the electoral gods will it so, the office of the presidency, is it's hard not to shoot at such a gigantic target.
His outsized persona, once the humorous if abrasive reality TV schtick, is now amplified a thousand times by the scrutiny of an incredulous, ratings-giddy national media. Full disclosure: I do not like people whose self-confidence approaches arrogance, so you can imagine how I feel about this person who has taken "self-confidence" to a Kanye West level in an arena that directly affects us all.
I have said much about his arrogance, mocked his ego, and memed his incoherence.
I have been first amused, then concerned, then shocked, then stunned, then catatonic, then enraged by his continuing popularity, then amused, then enraged, and so on, perpetuating a parallel to that cycle of grief.
It's safe to say that the sheer violent volume of my vocal vehemence regarding this villain (sorry) has caused ears to fall deaf to me, and eyes to avoid any of my posts containing "Trump" by rolling upwards. And that's one reason I pledge to discuss him less.
Among the many things I've said, I have hinted at what I believe is the largest culpable player in this hoodwinking, but I haven't said as much as I'd like, believe it or not.
The conservative so called alternative media has crafted this candidacy as surely as the so called main stream media aided and abetted the candidacy of the man whose politics and sympathies in large part led to the rise of Trump.
First, FOX news. Yes, the very same network whose personalities have been in open warfare with Trump. I have developed some admiration that I did not have for individuals within that organization, specifically Megyn Kelly, Bret Baier, Chris Wallace and John Stossel, but I, of course can have no idea of what sort of possible ratings conspiracies may have involved these television journalists, or if it has been some sort of happy coincidence. If it is the former, I expect Trump will have gotten the better end of that deal, since his many followers have expressed extreme distaste for their formerly go to news source, and will have, I assume, stopped watching, although one can't imagine to what other source they would turn. But, more on that later. FOX has indeed been far from effusive regarding the billionaire, their bias has been more practical. It's called ratings. A synonym for ratings is money. One (perhaps the only) dispassionate observation I can make about Trump is that there has probably never been a presidential candidate in the history of US media that has been more of a financial boon to those covering him. Trump= Yuuuge ratings. He is already an established TV star, an established boss who once tried to copyright "You're fired." And far from what some of us expected, his outrageousness has only seemed to inflate since he began what was up to this point the more serious business of running for President of the United States. The strongest and subtlest form of biased reporting is deciding what to report. I can hardly blame FOX to the extent that I blame other outlets, because I sincerely believe they are motivated by naught but gain, and I don't despise businessmen, I simply distrust them.
Secondly, Drudge Report. I find Matt Drudge on quite the opposite end of this blame spectrum. I don't think that Drudge is not motivated by money, but his complete abandonment of any pretense of objectivity would seem to indicate that his desire for traffic is at least matched by his desire for revenge. Drudge has always been more or less unpretentiously biased. He does, indeed link to various and sundry news outlets, many of which are hardly conservative, but they are all handpicked to fit a narrative that is hardly unique in purpose to Drudge, but definitely unique in unapologetic malice.
In the past, he has displayed vendettas against sometimes inexplicable targets. Newt Gingrich found himself the unlikely target of Drudge's ire, likely because he was running against Romney in 2008. Yes, Drudge was once an obvious Romney disciple. http://www.webpronews.com/romney-has-drudge-2012-01/ In fact, inexplicable becomes explicable when you know who Drudge supports. This time around, his bromance with Donald became painfully, awkwardly obvious after the debate in which Marco Rubio went after Trump, mocking his incoherence and lack of knowledge of.......anything. A couple of memorable Drudge headlines following that brawl read WINLESS RUBIO PECKS AT TRUMP and a photo shopped image of the Florida senator as a dwarf accompanied by the headline THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING CAMPAIGN after Rubio bombed the Mississippi and Michigan primaries. http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/drudge-report-resorts-to-using-photoshopped-marco-rubio-pic-in-latest-pro-trump-move-60336/
That link segues into the third largest player in this deception, Brietbart.com
I believe that Andrew Brietbart would be dismayed at the PR firm his dream has become. He seemed to be an independent thinker with a conservative bias, not a revanchist carnival barker. If you only read one link in this article, read this one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/01/breitbart-news-the-conservative-outlet-taking-swings-at-all-of-donald-trumps-opponents/ It has ample evidence of Breitbart's targeting of the clearest and most present dangers to Donald Trump, even to the diminution of attacks on who you would suppose might be their primary target, the self declared democratic socialist Bernie Sanders.
NewsMax follows, not as a true news site, but as an aggregate site of syndicated columnists and bears not as much responsibility for this travesty in actual content as in their advertising pitches for new viewers using Trump as their bait and spokesman.
Now for the last, possibly most influential form of pro Trump media.
Facebook memes. Memery has encapsulated everything that is best and worst about the information superhighway.
Succinctness is a reckless wager. It can certainly get across a point with levity and brevity. It can deliver a message that would otherwise go unread, but in streamlining a message, you can very easily omit information. But the very entertaining nature of these sometimes factoids, more often obfuscations makes them ubiquitous and therefore perhaps even more influential than all the other sources combined. A picture is already worth a thousand words. Combined with the 10-45 words often contributing to the meme, you have up to 1,045 unaccountable words, who have no obligation to be truthful, or even well-intentioned.
As a result of this betrayal of any sort of journalistic ideals in favor of ratings and Fight Clubism, I have fortunately found a few sources who, although I don't exactly trust because....I can't anymore, appear to be issue honest, and have had Donald Trump's number for some time. Reason.com, Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh come to mind.
Ultimately, I am left with a sobering, boring lesson. Believe nothing you hear, and nothing you see.
The best you can do, in order to be informed about important issues (although another lesson I have learned is it might not be a bad idea to shrink your circle of concern, "Worry Local", perhaps) is to keep reading. Read conservative and liberal media, national and international, and rely on your instincts, not your biases, and not your disgust for the status quo.

The Beautiful Unknown

I am drawn to the beauty in understatement. I like earth tones. I wear muted clothing. My mind comes alive at night. The desert inspires me. A forest utterly devoid of human presence electrifies me.
The psychology of this fascinates me, partly because psychology intrigues me, and partly because I may or may not be slightly self-engrossed.
I think it's safe to say that a significant cause of this penchant for simple elegance is a strong suspicion of magnificence. And that likely has a great deal to do with the conviction that anything that promises to blow my mind or sate my senses will ultimately disappoint. It is virtually impossible to oversell me on anything, since any advertisement that garauntees anything more than one step above mediocrity will automatically earn my disbelief.
However, I don't consider myself morose. Melancholic, slightly mercurial, reserved but not perpetually depressed.
And it really isn't that I feel that understatement is just not getting my hopes up, it is truly beautiful to me.
I find stone cold reality exciting because it is reality and not because it is exciting.
But it must be contingent upon something.
I don't believe that there is any way gazing into a dirty reflection could make my heart beat faster if I didn't know that it was a reflection and that it was dirty.
When I am asked on occasion what I base my faith on, if I were being brutally honest and not trying to say what I think the questioner expects or needs to hear, I would say that it is because of this irrepressible smile that is buried so deep and cautiously within that it never shows. Since I have no tangible proof, I suppose you could say that it is a gamble, as if Pascal were wagering with me personally, and I, even as a man vehemently scornful of false hope and empty promises, a man who would die before he bought a powerball ticket, place my bet with a reckless joy. The joy of pressing the pedal to the floorboard, the joy of leaping from an airplane, the joy of sitting in total darkness, joyful because you know Something is there in the darkness beside you.

My Christmas Carol

Some Christmas movies can be watched several times throughout the season; the light ones, the funny ones. But usually just once a year I get out a DVD of A Christmas Carol. I have seen and enjoyed the animated version and I know there are untold renditions, but my favorite version of the miser is portrayed by George C. Scott.
Scott sinks deep and dark into the role. The first version I ever heard was the Disney version with Scrooge McDuck and Goofy as Jacob Marley (some of the quotes are still stuck in my head) and perhaps set the tone for what I thought of as the character of Ebenezer Scrooge: cranky, miserly and in need of an attitude adjustment and some perspective.  But Scott gives us a usurer who has grown first flippant, then arrogant, then bitter and as we find him snarling at his nephew, we find that bitterness has metastasized into a malignant malevolence that glitters in his eyes and crackles in his mirthless laugh. The timeless words "If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled in his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart." are relieved of their gruff humor and tinged with an almost sinister ill will.  And when Fred extends his Christmas dinner invitation, Scott's Scrooge does not brush him off with the air of someone who is ill at ease, but with a cool contempt, "I'd sooner see you in hell."
His interaction with the gentlemen collecting for charity has that same active hostility, and his dealing with his colleagues at the exchange show his greatest joy in life is conniving and squeezing.
Even as he begins his baptism by fire into the world of spirits with the arrival of Jacob Marley, he is defiant and sarcastic. Marley's overwhelming overriding of Scrooge's analytical dismissal as he screams "MAN OF THE WORLDLY MIND, DO YOU BELIEVE IN ME OR NOT??!!!"" is quickly forgotten, like a man who quakes at fire and brimstone in the pew while the last verse of There's A Great Day Coming plays and then finds the sweat quickly cooling on his brow after the dismissal in the foyer.   He goes to sleep uncomfortable, but hopeful that it was, after all, an undigested bit of beef.
He is brusque with the Ghost of Christmas Past. His coal-fired exterior does begin to show some cracks when presented with his days as a young man. You see him trying to make something of the coldness of his father, and you see him pitying his young neglected self. You even see him express surprise at the Ghost's strategic dismissal of Old Fezziwig and insist that his old employer was a kind taskmaster. Such are the memories of the bitter. The irony never presents itself to them. And then, when she begins to press him to make the hypocrisy apparent, he grows angry and demands to be left alone.
The stroke of two finds him a bit more apprehensive, but as the tone dies away, and no spirit presents itself, he begins to sneer at Old Marley's promise of a second visitor. He is slightly more sheepish in the company of the Ghost of Christmas Present. As their voyeuristic travels take them through the homes of his clerk Cratchit and his nephew Fred, he is dismayed at how people see him, then defensive. A positive sense of pity begins to invade his empty soul when he is shown the homeless family cooking potatoes that fell from a produce wagon, and then the sneering, mocking Ghost eviscerates him with his own words "Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses??"
As the Ghost of Christmas Present leaves him in the dark, Ebenezer begins to do what we have all done with our Creator at some point. He begins to bargain. He is no longer the one calling the shots at the exchange, he now has something to lose. He has had to admit to himself that he has been self-centered, and myopic, and needs to do better. His offers of meeting the Spirits halfway, however, fall into the empty blackness. The Spirit of Christmas Present isn't coming back, and he is alone.

And then comes grace, the amazing grace that the slaver John Newton tells us taught his heart to fear.
The black, hooded skeletal herald, lacking only a scythe, stands motionless and mute as Ebenezer turns, knowing and dreading what will he will behold. The Ghost of Christmas To Come holds every card, and Ebenezer obeys his silent bidding, quaking with an almost paralyzing fear. As he witnesses the callous, but perhaps justified, reaction of his colleagues at the exchange at the passing of a peer, as he expresses distaste and outrage at the auction of his worldly goods in a seedy pawn shop, we know he must know. But he refuses to follow logical conclusions. 
It is only at his own tomb that the bitter, hateful, selfish old man sees he has nothing to give in exchange for his soul. It is only now, that his ultimate fate is sealed, barring the death of himself, that we find him, and he finds himself, on his knees. The pride has melted and is literally gushing from him in sobs and pleas. I remember that moment. I remember when I first had to die. There is no agony like it. No humiliation equal. And there is also no shorter measurement of time between agony and relief, no equal comparison between night and day, than when Scrooge awakens to find the snow covered tombstone to be the rug on his bedchamber floor and the night of his death to be the morning of his and his Savior's birth.
I tear up. Every time.  The weightlessness of his unburdened soul threatens to release him from the surly gravitational bonds of earth to soar to the face of God. And I remember just how amazing grace really is.