What do you control?

By Jerry Robertson July 30, 2013 News Worthy

I have been reading while on vacation. One of the books I read was Lexicon by Max Barry and I found it enjoyable. Not a deep book but one thought I got from it was about how the media controls what we see. I remember being in Shreveport, LA several years ago and the local news had the tagline ‘all the news we think you should know’. I thought it was wrong that they should ‘filter’ what we see but today it’s just that way. Even if you watch the news on a channel you agree with (Fox vs MSNBC??) it is filtered, washed and spun to suit the people who watch. Even when it’s ‘fair and balanced’ it’s not really. It has a bias.

Lexicon brought out that maybe we ought to watch some of the ‘other side’ so we don’t get a totally skewed perspective. I agree and have for years gotten most of my news via Google News. Less filter, more perspective. It can give you a perspective from outside the USA and from several view points so you can dig out details and think for yourself. Seldom is one side totally right and the other totally wrong.

Even the thought that there are ‘sides’ is biased. Aren’t we in this together?

The discussion recently about the problem of racism as perceived in the context of the Zimmerman trial is a good example. One side says the problem is poverty and the reduced opportunities for jobs and education as a result and the other side says a lack of education causes poverty.

My question to open this was ‘What do you control?’. If you don’t control something you are a victim. We need to focus on what we can control or we are doomed to be a victim.

If poverty causes problems like high crime rate or lack of education it is really hard for one person to see a way to make a difference in all that. Throwing money at the problem of poverty won’t fix it. Money alone is not the answer.

What if it’s the other way around? What if lack of education causes poverty and high crime rates? What can you do about that? We’re stuck with the schools we have (although we can work on that at a local level) so there is not much we can do to fix that either. We have thrown money at that problem for years without a positive result.

I believe we should not raise a problem if we don’t have a suggestion on how to fix it so I have a suggestion.

Read. Everyone can read (or learn to read).

I remember when I was 12 years old. I knew how to read but my choice was to focus on what we called comic books then. Graphic novels now. Not very deep and really was just a form of entertainment. Then I got sick. I ended up in intensive care in the hospital for two weeks over Christmas. I ran out of comic books and was bored to tears. Some one brought me a book. I started reading it out of desperation and was introduced to Tom, Becky, Injun Joe and many others. I was transported from that sterile hospital room to a raft on the Mississippi river and into a cave where I got lost with my new friends Tom and Becky. It was incredible.

Dr Ben Carson lifted himself out of poverty by reading. His mom made him read 2 books a week and write a book report for her instead of watching TV or playing video games. He credits that with much of the success he has enjoyed. He recently retired as head of Neurosurgery at John Hopkins. I would say he was successful. His book America the Beautiful tells more of that story.

My goal is to read 2 books a month and allow them to influence me in my work and personal life. I got to read 3 books in the last week and this article comes from some of that. Reading books give you time to think and something to think about. Magazines and TV just can’t do that.

Reading expands your horizons. It opens your mind to possibilities you did not see before. It increases your opportunities. What we do with our time is something we control. We don’t have to be victims. Library cards are free. Go read. Freedom can come out of reading. It is one of the reasons slaves were forbidden to read. Freedom is the result. Read.

There is more to say but this has gotten long enough for now but I would love to hear from you about your thoughts on this. Email back or comment.

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Thanks for listening,