Latest Attacks on Freedom of the Press & How Fox Manipulates Its Audience
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: I made up my own quote today.
One Way Fox Manipulates Its Audience: A dissection of one method Fox uses to prejudice their readers before they’ve even read the article (if they ever do).
Washington Post cartoonist resigns over paper’s refusal to publish cartoon critical of Jeff Bezos: One more brick through the window of democracy from Bezos.
MAGA Civil Warriors: Free Speech Guy Elon Is Silencing Us: Musk is only one part of the GOP’s full frontal assault on news reporting that doesn’t agree with their agenda.
Kareem’s Video Break: This dog does something truly amazing. I’m envious.
What I’m Watching at the Movies: A Complete Unknown, Nosferatu, and Heretic. One is great, one is good, one sucks (the pun should give it away).
Kareem’s Sports Moments: Muhammad Ali stops his fight in a show of compassionate sportsmanship.
Peter, Paul and Mary Sing “Early Morning Rain”: Peter Yarrow died last week. Here, we remember him at his harmonizing best.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
The world without Kareem is still the world.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, tall guy
The other day I was annoyed by something so petty and I can’t even remember what it was. When something else just as minor irked me later that day, this sentence popped into my mind: The world without Kareem is still the world. I found that the moment I had that thought, I felt better, relieved. I breathed easier.
I realize that this is merely a variation of many equally clichéd sentiments: Life goes on. The world keeps turning. Time marches on. And so forth. But this particular wording affected me more, maybe because it was more personal. I imagined the world as it is, then I imagined the world the day after my death. And nothing had changed. Sure, there would be a few minutes of highlights from my career. Someone will dig up something embarrassing about my life. Then the day goes on filled with the joys and sorrows—and petty irritants—that make up our lives. As it should.
I’m not being morbid. Actually, the opposite. The line is a perspective adjustment, the way the optometrist adjusts the lens and asks each time if you can see better now. I think of this sentence and it makes me see better. It doesn’t change my actions or my commitment to trying to forge a better world and it just relieves me of some of the daily burden of taking responsibility for the world out there (I’m pointing out the window) or the world in here (I’m pointing at my heart). I don’t think there’s a special profundity to the sentence, just something that makes me relax a little, smile at myself, and feel better.
The art above is a Taoist work that represents what I mean. It is typical in some Taoist landscapes to present nature as the dominant force taking up most of the space, while somewhere in the painting, nearly imperceptible, is a person fishing, walking, or simply watching. Is there a person in this painting? Is that someone in the lower right corner, or is that a tree? The point is, it doesn’t matter. The mighty water will fall, the trees will grow, and the clouds will hover. And I am content to look on, whether I’m in the painting or outside of it.