The LA Times and Washington Post Choose Commerce Over Conscience & Trump Sued (Again) for Defamation
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: Yogi Berra has something to say about the idea of utopia.
L.A. Times’ Billionaire Owner Blocks Paper’s Planned Endorsement in Presidential Race: How much influence should a news platform’s owner have on editorial policy?
Exonerated 'Central Park Five' sue Trump for defamation after debate comments: There has to be a legal limit on how long you can defame others with lies.
Trump Raged at Slain Soldier’s Funeral Bill: ‘$60K to Bury a F***ing Mexican’: The headline says it all.
Kareem’s Video Break: A return visit to one of the best viral videos ever.
As the World Series approaches, baseball still struggles with racial bias: The MLB still has a long way to go to stamp out racism.
Hug it out, but make it quick. New Zealand airport sets time limit on goodbyes: I’m less concerned about the time limit than I am about why this became international news.
Joni Mitchell Sings “Cactus Tree”: Joni Mitchell just gave a successful concert in Los Angeles and released a bestselling album. Here, we revisit one of her early songs with a haunting melody.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.
Yogi Berra, baseball guru
Once again, Yogi Berra finds the right words to express a complex issue. We all like to imagine a perfect utopian society like the ones Quaker minister Edward Hicks painted in his series of 62 paintings called the Peaceable Kingdom, where animals and people all live together in non-violent vegetarian harmony. It is the nature of people to seek safety to survive and raise a family. That safety can only be assured through mutual peace. So we imagine societies that have achieved that balance of peaceful bliss.
Yet, it’s funny how in so many of our dystopian stories (The Hunger Games, The Handmaid’s Tale, Logan’s Run, THX 1138, Fahrenheit 451, Serenity, etc.) the horrific society portrayed is the result of attempts to create a utopia. The problem with utopia, as with so many other things, is the devil is in the details. Because we can’t agree on what a utopia looks like, how it will function, or who it will serve, we end up with the strong imposing their will on the weak, forcing all to live inside their vision of paradise. Naturally, their vision includes themselves as absolute rulers.
Sound familiar?
There is no utopia because we’ll never agree on what that looks like. But we can agree on certain principles that make for a better, more peaceful, and more prosperous society. To me, it looks like a place where children are taught how to think logically so they can grow up to be adults not easily manipulated by parents, peers, or politicians. No more relying on personal biases that have people believing Trump will improve the economy when all evidence points to the opposite. No more voting for people who think hurricanes are being controlled by political enemies. No more hostility toward our neighbors because someone lied about them eating pets. That’s dystopia.
From that educational bedrock, we build a society that values all people of all backgrounds and provides equal opportunities to everyone. Once they have the opportunity, their success depends on merit and will, not race, gender, or rich relations. Of course, we’ll still have disagreements—that’s healthy—but we will resolve them through rational discourse, not death threats and internet trolling.
Edward Hicks’ Peaceable Kingdom is a pleasant fantasy, but my Peaceable Kingdom is within reach if those with open hearts and minds work together to bring it about.