NEWS (Editorial): On Gun Violence and the Illusion of Representative Democracy

I can't believe this was the sentence that happened in my head reading through the news in the morning, it's disheartening, alarming, and enough to make you spit:

"How many school shootings do we have to have before something is seriously done about gun violence in America?"

That was what popped in my head going over a recent summary of shootings: 13 school shootings in the first 6 weeks of the year 2014 alone, that have in total led to 28 deaths since the Newton shooting in December 2012. (via the Guardian US)

I fear hearts have gone cold to the issue; the violence has become a commonplace staple of media in recent times, desensitizing listeners when "another school shooting" comes up.

Am I saying we need to pass legislation immediately, such as Australia did in 1996? No, I'm not even advocating that far (though it'd be nice). I am still stunned to think that this (the least effective of all time) Congress couldn't even pass measures to prevent the purchase of assault grade firearms without background checks for fear of what it would do to the next election cycle.

Politics have become so polarized and invested in private interest that they can no longer do what's right, even when 92% of the country agreed to a need for change because what we see now is that the will of the people has little to no effect on the representative body of government past what is deemed important for elections.

Even with outpouring support for altering gun laws, the watered down bills that came out had been so altered with frivolously added provisions (such as an abusive "anonymous" revision in agriculture paid for by Monsanto) that the final result was no change to help prevent firearms from entering in the wrong hands.

Quite the contrary, gun sales increased from the hype around the legislation.  Now there are more guns out there and we are no closer to managing who might use them. This is a failure of bureaucracy that can only be seen the result of political infighting and mutually beneficial corruption.

I wish there was some better note to end this on, but this has been a failure by no other other words, and it should make people more wary of the role they believe their opinion plays in the game of governance.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/12/school-shootings-newtown-study-gun-violence?CMP=

NEWS (Editorial): Is This Really News? And Random Celebrity had an Affair with the Apocalypse Tomorrow!

That above headline seems like the sort of thing media outlets are writing constantly nowadays. It's hard to tell what is to be considered real news anymore, when my top 3 headlines from what are thought to be reliable news sources (Time, Washington Post, New York Times) are about Flappy Bird, a lady imprisoned for "trolling herself" (read, actually impersonating others and making slanderous/lewd remarks to family members), and a wine that cats can drink.

"Hide yo kids!"

Sure it's a bit humorous, but headlines like this are being written as clickbait, a vile new word, where websites just write whatever will make you go there to get you click, and in addition their spinning the content of the news to make it sound more incredible or interesting than the true story is.
I think it was last week that MSNBC interrupted a former congressman speaking about the NSA to bring "breaking news" of an over-famed teen being an imbecile.

News is being overwritten, and it's all starting to remind me of that old "E!" channel (entertainment news) that used to run 24-7 gossip blips.
Add in some of the just plain false headlines from photoshopped photos passed off as real and we start to need a news channel to review all the other news channels to know what to believe now (And they are Cracked and The Daily Show, most definitely). Even when major media gets railed as fools, they are still getting attention.

Fox & Friends reported that the LAPD were going to purchase $1billion dollars in jetpacks. Their source for this outrageous breaking story? The tabloid paper "Weekly World". Wow. No wonder it sounded so silly.

Between the never-ending battle for ratings and clips views, there's also an escalation of the severity news intoned by news. What FOX headline doesn't end with "... and will destroy America!" at the end. I think they're popping more dolts a day, just to illicit some crazy response, as the channels still masquerade as serious news, but the people are starting to realize the difference.

I know there are many more reliable sources, like (un)surprisingly PBS, and a number of decent news blogs out there, but the majors that get the most coverage are really failing to bring a greater range of domestic stories and international coverage.

We'll see where the trend takes media, however I'll still be here to post what I feel is worthwhile for folks to know.

NEWS: On Increasing Minimum Wage, and the Crafted Illusion of Job Loss

NEWS: Is it any small wonder that the richest people yowl high-pitched complaints at (also rich) politicians about not raising minimum wage? But try and see past the single example of McD's, and think more broadly on why this idea of raising minimum wage comes off as contentious in the first place.


http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/02/raising-the-minimum-wage-a-mcdonalds-killer-not-a-mcjobs-killer/283638/

This new study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago has economists saying the claims of job loss are over-inflated, which comes as no surprise when you think of who stands to lose out.

Here's a hint: it's just the top business people with the most money, who'd rather keep things as they are instead of adjusting to inflation and the current demands on the poorest of the poor in modern society.

However, the crazy, absolutely insane part is that these avaricious yet monetarily influential people concoct a false debate around increasing the minimum wage, funding and inflating findings of falsified studies, getting pundits to rail on about the negative repercussions that will hit small businesses (what is a small business? Answer: an undefined buzz word). Then the media riles up _people who think they are middle-class_ and *convince them to shame the poor, minimum wage workers* who are much closer to them then they are to wealthy CEOs.

Now with studies like this one out of Illinois, they should not be able to play the "jobs" card when refusing to increase worker wages. Hopefully this will reduce it more to the obvious--the pernicious greed and resistance of change (to adapt to inflation or progress with society) that is keeping wages so low for many full-time workers.

As if a global corporation like McDonald's couldn't find a way to make up for treating their employees to just a partial share of the massive profits the company makes.

This gentrification of ideas about the poor being lazy and not moving up because of lack of hard-work--primarily supported by anecdotal evidence--is the most backwards of arguments. Look at the United States GDP, CEO wages, and lowest paid worker wage comparisons and how wildly they differ from other countries. Yet, political rabble-rousing has people convinced that one of the richest countries on Earth will fall apart if they pay their lowest income workers--who often work a lot harder than the people that shame them--a decent living wage. Some of the states that 'go red' on debates like this have the lowest contributing incomes and the most widespread hunger problems. It's as if so many who perpetuate the debate don't realize they are being fed spoonfuls of bullshit, and still take it as an excuse to feel elevated above other people.

Sadly, even if those who echo whatever they hear from biased sources on job loss with the increase of minimum wage COULD BE converted to think more broadly about the social issues of the poor as seen from this economic viewpoint, IT STILL wouldn't make a difference when you consider how little an influence the ideas of the citizenry have on modern politics.

To do this, it would still take a massive dethroning of private business's money in politics, though at least a study like this narrows their available excuses for not endorsing doing the right thing, compensating their workers more significantly for their contribution.

I hope that through small bits of progress in states insisting an increase the in lowest paid wage, it will reign in big corporation to work more within their means on a level that values the workers that are churning out the profit for them, as well as diversify the market for up-and-coming other restaurants to play in the game.