This I Used to Believe

I used to believe you could fight doctrine with doctrine.

In the first speech I gave for my presentational speaking class at the beginning of my freshman year, I told my classmates that, as a result of all the research I’d done into the validity of my faith and others, I truly believed that if someone was objective and honest in their search for truth, they’d inevitably find Jesus.

I hadn’t always been so fervent. In fact, when I arrived at St. Edward’s I was closer to God than I’d ever been. I’d just taken a year off of school, and in that time I’d found a supportive community at the Methodist church back home that helped me understand my life and the world around me through the Christian worldview, which offered me a sense of purpose and fulfillment I’d long burned for. That worldview included belief in things like the lie of evolution and the truth of creationism, the unnatural and sinful nature of homosexuality, and the need for religion within government.

My tight grip on these ideas also had a lot to do with something else–a girl. We’d been together since my junior year of high school, and in response to her fanatical belief in Mormonism, which clashed with the more traditional Christian faith I’d grown up with, I started to get fanatical. I wanted us to be on the same page spiritually, so we could stay together. I wanted to prove her wrong.

Needless to say, we began to debate religion, which turned into argument, which became all-out fighting, and the night before I left for St. Edward’s she told me she’d always be a Mormon.

A couple of months into my freshman year, my faith was taking a pretty hard hit. In intro to the Hebrew Bible, I was coming across strong evidence that suggested ancient scribes revised the Old Testament to make it look prophetic long after major biblical events happened. In Science and Theology, I was hearing a more logical explanation of evolution than the straw man rundown I got in my youth group. And throughout Austin, I was meeting people who smoked, drank, and fornicated, sometimes even with people of the same sex. And a lot of them seemed like genuinely good, honest people, rather than the embodiment of evil.

So I started to scrutinize my faith and its tenets, not because someone yelled at me, laughed at me, or ridiculed me, but because I was challenged on my own principle–here were objective, honest views of the world, and yet they didn’t point to Jesus.

After my faith was pulled out from under me, I was angry. I was seething. I was lost. But I began to find good in other parts of the world around me. The dialogue with the Mormon changed, and I began to try to understand her faith and the logic behind it, and eventually we landed on common ground. And though we’re not together anymore for other reasons, the whole experience taught me something very important.

You can’t fight doctrine with doctrine. Whether you’re a religious person talking to another religious person, or a non-religious person talking to someone of faith, pointing your finger and yelling or ridiculing does no good. For the most part, we are all good people. We are all confused. We all do the things we do and profess the things we profess out of a love for the people around us and the world we live in. Understanding that and showing empathy and compassion to everyone regardless of their beliefs is key to helping yourself and others find truth.

Question

Why did the French Finance Minister fire top, underperforming bank executives after gaining significant stakes in their institutions through bailout money, while our government continues to support companies like AIG?

Why did Obama ask the CEO of GM to resign, but not anyone from failing financial institutions?

I think too many individuals in Obama’s cabinet are simply too close to the top players in the financial sector for them to look after the general public, rather than the already-rich elites.

Where’s that change we voted for?

(Yes, I got most of these news tips from The Daily Show over the last few weeks. Guilty as charged.)

Out of the hallways and into the streets

I encountered a disorienting difference of opinion about what constitutes hard-hitting journalism while catching up on episodes of my favorite podcasts this week.

“Sometimes the conversation happening in the hallways at these meetings, away from the microphones, are the ones we should really be paying attention to,” Washington Week moderator Gwen Ifill declared of her team’s coverage of the G20 summit, which consisted mostly of quoting the politicians at the event and was nearly devoid of critical analysis.

After asserting that Obama’s trip to Europe for the summit was “as much about appearances as substance,” debating the importance of Michelle Obama’s wardrobe during the trip and discussing the futility of diplomacy (in reference to North Korea, but nonetheless), the Washington Week crew patted themselves on the back for winning the 2009 George Foster Peabody award.

Meanwhile, Bill Moyers was interviewing Amy Goodman of Democracy Now about her reception of the first-ever journalism award given in the name of I.F. Stone.  During the conversation, Goodman talked about the importance of taking journalism to the streets, citing her experience at last year’s Republican National Convention, at which she and her team were arrested for trying to cover the protests outside.

“It’s not just a violation of freedom of the press,” Goodman said.  “It’s a violation of the public’s right to know.  If they’re just inside the convention they get one message–the orchestrated message, and that’s important to cover.  You gotta get into the corporate suites, and you have to get into the streets.

“Democracy’s a messy thing, and all of these voices must be heard.”

Granted, Goodman is a more inflammatory figure than Ifill.  But their actions and words in these instances show that the level of vigor and reflection in Goodman’s work surpasses that of Ifill’s.

So why is Ifill the one moderating presidential debates?  Why is she winning the more reputable journalism award?  After all, there were protesters at the G20 summit, too.

Why doesn’t she get out of the hallways and into the streets?

Puppy love

Sophie Tucker, once again living the life of luxury.

OK OK.  I know this isn’t the most important story to be talking about.

But as a guy from a family that once lost an amazing pet dog to some very unfortunate circumstances (we miss ya, Sam), I gotta comment on how cool Sophie Tucker’s story is.

After falling off a sailboat near the coast of Australia during a storm, the Australian cattle dog swam five nautical miles to St. Bees Island, where she managed to survive for four months before being reunited with her owners.

The story of her survival isn’t quite as charming.

[Owner Jan] Griffith said that when the dog was first spotted on the island she had been in poor condition.

“And then all of a sudden she started to look good and it was when the rangers had found baby goat carcasses so she’d started eating baby goats,” she said.

Yum.

X-Men: Putting the spotlight on filesharing

"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" leaked on April 1, and it's fueling the filesharing controversy.

UPDATES

4/6/09 Downloads of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” top 1 million according to TorrentFreak.

4/7/09 FoxNews.com columnist Roger Friedman puts his job in jeopardy by promoting the leak according to AV Club and the Associated Press, though AV Club speculates Friedman has a chance to save his career.

__________

So a copy of “X-Men Origins:  Wolverine” leaked on April 1.  And naturally, a lot of speculation is flying around.  Filesharing advocates claim that the leak will either help turnout for the theatrical release, or won’t have any effect at all.  But those with a vested interest in the film’s financial success, like Fox’s production studios, are certain that those who download the leak will skip the theater altogether.

I’m all about unhindered filesharing.  I like to get a taste of my prospective purchases when it comes to music and DVDs, and I also find out about a lot of artists through filesharing networks that I wouldn’t otherwise.  And if you think filesharing keeps filesharers from coughing up cash, I invite you to take a look at my complete 9-season collection of The X-Files on DVD, which took a bigger chunk out of my bank account than I’d like to admit.

But I understand the overall controversy, as well as the importance of this particular leak.  I can’t think of any other instance where such a highly anticipated film fell in the laps of prospective theater-goers a month in advance.  So the success of “Wolverine” should be an indicator of the degree to which piracy of copyrighted materials affects their actual sales.

Pro-filesharing news source TorrentFreak is already getting a jump on the issue with a reader poll:

TorrentFreak's X-Men poll on the morning of April 6.

The polling question is phrased a little awkwardly.  And I’m well aware that those who say they’re excited to see the movie as a result of the leak may just be hoping to advocate the filesharing cause.  But I hope that as the release date comes and goes, we can get some accurate information from all sides.  I’ll be interested to know how many tickets Fox expects to sell and how many actually get sold.  I’ll also be interested to know how many people actually download the movie and how that affects their decision about whether or not to see it in theaters.

‘Cause honestly, I’d love to have a quality legal filesharing resource, as I’m sure artists, industries, and fans alike could only benefit from it, and this sort of event really has the potential to turn the tide.

As for me, I won’t be downloading the movie or seeing it in theaters.  I dig the X-Files, but not the X-Men so much.

The truth behind the bank bailouts?

Five banks paid back $353 million in bailout money today, and according to an Associated Press article, they did so to avoid increasingly tough restrictions being placed on the money.

For a second, that banks would give back money they realized they didn’t need struck me as an honest, noble gesture on the part of some in an institution that’s seemed fraught with corruption for the last few months.

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if the return of this money is just an indicator of the futility of the bailouts.  Banks take taxpayer dollars out of a supposed need to stay afloat, but as soon as we start actually monitoring how they use that money, they don’t want it anymore.

It reminds me of a memory I have of my dad from when I must have been somewhere between 4 and 8 years old.  I really wanted a Coke, so I begged and begged my dad to buy me one, telling him I was dying of thirst.  But when he offered me a sip of water, I refused. He said something like, “If you’re not thirsty enough to drink water, you must not be that thirsty.”

I’m reluctant to say that if the banks aren’t hurting bad enough to take bailout money with strings attached, they must not be hurting that bad.  But maybe they’re hurting so bad that they know bailout money isn’t going to do anything for them that they couldn’t already do anyway, so they don’t want the money if they’re not going to be able to use it to pay out bonuses and the like.

Just a thought.

Couple questions, though:

• What are the restrictions that seem so unattractive to these banks?
• The end of the article mentions that the banks have five days to buy back warrants, but warrants aren’t previously mentioned in the article.  Anybody know what warrants are, why there’s a deadline to buy them back, or how they’re at all related to this returned money?

April Fool’s was Wednesday, Obama…

Apparently the White House provided journalists with a number to a sex hotline instead of a London conference call with senior officials earlier today.

Nice gag, but just a little too late.  Gotta wonder who was actually behind that one.

April Fool’s

Warner Bros. loves The Pirate Bay

Wow.

I logged onto filesharing news source TorrentFreak for the first time in a few days to be met with a shocking announcement: “Warner Bros. Acquires the Pirate Bay.” If you know anything about filesharing, you know that this would be an unprecendented corporate embrace of the underground, unfiltered filesharing culture that so many of today’s youth are engulfed in. Especially since the two have recently been locked in a court dispute that threatens to take down The Pirate Bay.

For a second, I thought I might now have a good place online to legally acquire new music, rather than lamenting over the low-quality, Apple-formatted, DRM-infested files over at iTunes.

April Fool’s.

When the clown is the soberest person in the courtyard…

Newspapers are collapsing and most people I know have little to no faith in mainstream news outlets, and I think I know why—a comedian is beating them at their own game.

Whether you followed it closely or not, the “feud” between the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart and CNBC’s Jim Cramer probably seems like old news to you.  And admittedly, some of the runup to their actual confrontation was trite.

But the incisive critique that Stewart gave during his interview with Cramer was incredibly indicative of how mainstream media outlets aren’t just failing to make money; they’re failing to serve the public.  Stewart honed in on many of the investment schemes that caused the current economic crisis and argued fairly convincingly that financial news outlets like CNBC were keen to them, but reinfored the deception rather than exposing it to the public.

At one point in the virtually humorless interview, Cramer tried to point out the moments where he’d played the investigative journalist, but Stewart wouldn’t have it.

“As Carly Simon would say, this song ain’t about you,” he said.  And if you listen closely, you’ll realize it really isn’t about nailing Cramer as much as it is about calling out the media for being complacent with corrupt systems when the public most needed it to be tearing them down.

Sadly, even PBS’s Newshour with Jim Lehrer, a news outlet that I consider to be fairly levelheaded and informative, couldn’t understand the significance of Stewart’s implications.  Nor did they take the time to investigate them.  They didn’t look to the financial news outlets and ask, “Why didn’t you adequately question the bank and investment firm CEOs, with whom you are in frequent contact, to see if their claims were accurate?  Why didn’t you see this crisis coming?”  They didn’t thoroughly examine and report on the records of the finanical news outlets.

Instead, they had a couple of financial journalists on their show and simply asked them, “Do you think you’re doing a good job?”

BusinessWeek editor Peter Coy claimed his publication’s record was solid, while Los Angeles Times business columnist Kathy Kristof declared most financial journalists had been “the voice in the wilderness” in the runup to the crisis, but were silenced by bloggers who she decried as only wanting to “perpetuate fraud.”

“The thing that people need to realize about journalism is that it’s largely telling you what has happened, not what is going to happen,” Kristof went on to say at the end of the segment.  “The only part of journalism that tells you about what is going to happen is investigative journalism, and that’s getting savaged right now in a lot of media companies where they’re laying people off.  I think that there’s a lot of blame to go around, but journalists, I think, are doing what they can do.”

Kristof obviously isn’t familiar with the important responsibility that many journalists have felt in the past to make informed predictions based on the best available information, as the late Molly Ivins did when she warned of chaotic civil war in the wake of the Iraq invasion, even before we’d gone in.

Yes, news outlets are losing money, and yes, they’re slashing jobs as a result.  And there are a lot of factors behind these events.

But maybe it’s not the intangible media companies that are “savaging” their investigative journalists.  Maybe the very journalists who should be approaching their craft with an investigative mind are savaging themselves by failing to do so.

More on media failure tomorrow with one more Daily Show analysis—Monday’s interview with CNN’s Jack Cafferty.