Can we have conversations about real life through mass communications?

Recently reading the news on a website for a local radio station - the headlines were: woman dies in car crash. Man charged with abusing 13 week old baby.  VT Sugaring facilities smashed and robbed.

While these are current events, I think there are a lot of other current events happening also (including positive things).  It seems like a lot of our news is entertainment based.  I noticed this as I found myself scrolling down the page in search for the next shocking headline.  I wanted to be entertained and excited.  That feeling then made me want to read this webpage tomorrow to be shocked again. 

Then it hit me - this is why I don't watch much TV or read many traditional news outlets.  Our media channels are often based around a traditional profit model in which the company makes money if viewers come back and bring their friends.  And we know viewers/readers will come back if they are shocked/excited. 

So here's the bummer - in some of our public spaces, especially media driven spaces (like TV and newspapers) we aren't having conversations.  We're trying to entertain and excite each other.  So the broader social issues from immigration to gender identity are not being discussed in these channels in an honest, serious way.  Yet, those are the things that create the fabric and future of our shared nation and culture.

I wonder if there are mass communications that would enable us to have conversations about important things.

Servant Leadership, Marketing, Jesus

Reading a post today from Tanveer Naseer's blog I found the stuff of Jesus. I love when this happens!

In this post he's talking about Peter Drucker and an ancient book ('Xenophon's Cyrus the Great: The Arts of Leadership and War'). In the book, a father asks his son: "Tell me how best to get a man to do something that must be done..." The son replies with an answer that is inferior. 

 The father's reply:
“’Simply take care of those you lead better even than they would or could take care of themselves. Always put their needs before your own.’”

Jesus said (as recorded in Mark 10):

Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 44 and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else.

Think leadership that changes things.  Think people like MLK, Ghandi, Lincoln. More recently, we have Steve Jobs who was a bit of a tyrant and was not a slave to others but was certainly a slave to his vision and arguably his customers, or at least his idea of what they would most like.

The Problem with American Presidential Races

The problem with American Presidential races, at least the one that struck me today is this - there's no Jesus! Jesus taught us to love our enemies.  That's a tough teaching.

Hold that in your mind...

Think for a moment about the two-party warfare we have been fueling for many years. At a broad level, the tactic most seekers-of-office employ is to highlight why the other side is wrong. Unfortunately, so often, there is very little detail, evidence or argument and so one must basically adhere to and believe in the story told (there is very little room for thought about specifics). The statements made are simple - "my plan is better than the other side's plan and so you should elect me."  Fine. But then it almost always goes a step further. "By the way, my opponent has a bad plan that won't work (again, almost no reason for why it won't, but rather a repetition of the story being told)."  Often, suggestion is made that maybe the opponent is even a bad person.  Stories are told about how the Republicans or the Democrats messed everything up.  This assumption is nailed fast with conclusive statements like "and it's time for a change."

Our process is full of people directing hateful ideas toward others.  Maybe a little enemy-love would cause office-seekers to actually evaluate their opponents and begin to understand them.

And who knows what could come out of deep understanding not only of the other but also of their situation and our own.  Maybe a well-run government!

Congressional Reform?

A friend of mine just emailed me this thought and proposal.  It was one of those emails that you are instructed to send on to x number of people and then the world will change.  I'm not a huge fan of those emails so I didn't forward it. However, I think it's a good idea, what was contained in that email.

In short, the concept involves moving our civil service positions away from profession and toward service.  It often isn't the right answer to  just go back to a prior way of doing things.  So I'm not sure we should simply revert to the early ways we did governance.  It's also not usually the right answer to leave things the way they are (unless they became that way naturally... sometimes that is a good answer).  Some of the ideas below are good ones, I think.  One other thing I think is that the Church would probably achieve it's mission more fully if we weren't only using a professional model for our pastors.

Brandon

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits. 12 years only, one of the possible options below.

  A. Two Six-year Senate terms

  B. Six Two-year House terms

  C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2.  No Tenure / No Pension.  A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.  

3.  Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately.  All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. 

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. 

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.  

The American people did not make the current contract with members of Congress.  Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.