consider the source

I am hungry enough to have the shakes and I have to study, as I would rather not go for a record of straight Ds on my physics exams. I will have to keep this brief. I'll also commit to the hope that my summer's posts will be better than what you have presented with thus far.

There seems to have been a lot of good versus bad going on in the past 10 years or so. Maybe I think the past 10 years because that is the about the amount of time that has passed since I left home for college. Regardless, there seems to be a growing perception of dichotomies.

1. Axis of evil vs Everyone (?) else
2. Liberal media vs Mainstream cable news
3. Anti war activists vs Hawkishness
etc.

I won't argue that the extremes don't exist. However there seems to be a failure sometimes to recognize all of the subtleties. It might not even be a failure, but rather a laziness that allows this to occur. So now our responsibility is (if we choose to accept the responsibility) is to sift through all this mess.

I saw Amy Goodman speak at my university last week (host/founder of Democracy Now!). If you haven't heard this program, I recommend a listen and not because I necessarily agree but because I believe that getting a variety of perspectives is a worthwhile endeavor.

I was approached by an anti-war activist who asked my companion and I if we would listen to his propaganda (his word, not mine) which essentially consisted of his asking if we wanted to attend a meeting. The audience consisted of many like-minded individuals, mostly evidenced by nods of agreement occurring in unison in response to Ms Goodman's comments or quips.

I also got to see 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner Sharin Ebadi, of Iran, speak on a panel regarding the new administration and US-Iranian relations.

While I might be inclined to think that the attendees at this event were a little more diversified in their opinions, all shared at minimum an interest in the topic.

What these two speakers had in common was their message on the media. Both essentially said you will never get all of the information you need from one source, let alone the majority of the sources you'll be exposed to. Both stressed the importance of being informed and of the diversity of sources from which one should get his or her information. It was pretty interesting to see two very different and very distinguished women make essentially the same appeal to their audience while addressing two vastly different topics.

It might be the beginning of the end of the bullshit we see in items 1-3.