Happy New Year and Satisfying Your Inquiring Mind

Happy New Year!

I don't know about you, but I stopped making New Year's resolutions a long time ago.  I hate beating myself up so early into a new year that's ripe with so many promises and wonderful possibilities.  But I do make decisions about how I want to live my life and about the things that I want to accomplish for the year.  I don't resolve to do them, I just make an earnest effort.  That's pretty much where I am with this blog.

I really like having an outlet to write about the things that interest me.  The problem however is that I don't have enough time or energy to write as often as I'd like.  Actually, time management (or a lack thereof) is the major issue, but my job also takes a toll on my energy level.  I've been trying to come up with a way to maintain my blog at the level I'd like to and I think I've come up with a solution. I'm going to continue writing original content on my blog, but I'll ocassionally post an article and write some brief comments about it.  This way, I'll reduce the gaps between posts.

Today's post stems from the feeling of uneasiness that I've been having for quite some time concerning what's happening in our world, yes...but more specifically, in our nation.

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The times are such, that fearful and foolish men will surely perish. This is not a quote that I can attribute to anyone other than myself.  It's my attempt at poetically stating that unless you have spiritual grounding, inner resilience and a sound mind, you are going to unknowingly be taken down a road that will ultimately lead to a very ugly place.

According to a number of polls, the issues that people are most concerned about include economic instability, threats of war, terrorism, moral/ethical/religious decline, violence, political and corporate corruption, personal finance and a society that seems to be turning on itself.  These problems worsen when it appears that no one really knows how to solve them, which is leading to a general sense of insecurity about the future.

Feelings of insecurity are compounded when the public is consistently fed misleading information about these issues. And that makes it difficult to understand why these things are happening.  It also makes us more willing to accept "solutions" that won't solve the problem, and quite often only makes them worse.  It's not that we the people aren't smart enough to come up with viable solutions, but we the people don't make the decisions.  And since most people are misinformed....well, you get the point.

It takes work to access facts.  It requires research, reading source materials from think tanks (available on the web), reading news from websites that are outside the mainstream news media (I'm not talking about quack sites) and foreign media.  Sadly, you can no longer rely on television news or many US newspapers to be objectively informed about much of anything other than political stories that really have little to do with proposed policy, but lots to do with personality; crime, entertainment and lifestyle stories. When it comes to objectively reporting on the big issues--the ones that are nagging at us, the so-called mainstream media is failing miserably.

With little effort, I frequently find and read stories--indepth stories--days, sometimes weeks before they're reported--I should say mentioned-- in the mainstream press. It's eye-opening to see how the same stories are reported in so-called alternative media.  In the mainstream media, the reporting is usually biased, lacking in scope, depth and most importantly, facts.

 For example, take the issue of climate control.  It doesn't matter to me whether you accept it or not.  But here are some glaring omissions that should concern everyone about the reporting on this issue.

• There is no "concensus" of scientists that believe climate change is man-made, and certainly not 97%. There are however, numerous, highly-respected scientists--as opposed to quacks--that either question the accuracy of the widely reported climate change projections, believe that it is a naturally occuring phenomenon or believe that humans have contributed, but at a very limited level.
• Pope Francis' much heralded environment encyclical included only scientists who agreed that climate change is man-made. 
• Amazingly, during the UN Climate Summit in Paris, activists wanted the UN to deny climate change skeptics access to the conference.  The activists were not obliged, however, the UN allowed only one skeptic to have a table at the confernce.
• What exactly are the details of America's commitment to climate change?  You certainly can't get an answer from congress...they were left out in the cold after President Obama made the decision to use his executive priviledge.  By the way, the US's financial commitment will be astronomical.
• As for the details of the global climate agreement (they're still being hammered out, with the next summit taking place in Morocco), the climate is clearly not the only thing on the table. You can read it for yourself,  But I warn you, don't read this before bedtime.

I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I really want to encourage you to be discerning, use your gut instincts and seek deeper answers to the many issues that are transforming our world.

I'm running late now, but I invite you to tune in to urbanbroadcastmedia.com today from 4-6 pm CT.