The Days of Watching the Radio
Posted: Monday, November 08, 2010
by Donovan Baldwin
No Diet 4 Me
I was talking to a young friend of mine the other day. We had been talking about things from the past, and I'm afraid I began to do the "old guy" thing and tell him about a string of things from way before his time.
I talked about the days before cell phones and HDTV. Heck, the days before TV of any kind was common in a house.
Maybe you too are old enough to remember when only "rich folks" had two phones, two cars, two bathrooms, or even a "real" refrigerator, not just an "icebox". If so, maybe you can identify with the rest of this article.
Of course, this tended to be more common among children, I suppose, because my parents often sat in their respective chairs, listening, but my sister and I would be on the floor, staring at the wooden box which held the radio, after we got rid of the old Philco (which was still around and still functional many decades later).
Anyway, we would lie on the floor, stare at the radio, and listen to Johnny Dollar, Dangerous Assignment, Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, and, of course, The Shadow.
In a way, I guess, the box with the voices coming out of it was somewhat magical. Anything so mystical had to have some aura of authority about it. Later, when TV became more common, and began to take its place as the purveyor of entertainment, culture, news, and information, I guess people probably assigned it some of the same respect given previously to the radio, and, before that, the newspaper.
After all, "back in the day", as they say, we had no real way of ascertaining what was true. We depended on the box on the table, the morning newspaper, or the "boob tube" to provide us with the facts we needed to live life effectively and honestly.
We still do.
Not only that, but we have added a new source of knowledge and information...the Internet.
The problem is, and was, that we assign huge amounts of personal belief to the voices which emanate from the boxes, papers, and tubes. The problem with that is that many of these people, and the organizations they represent, have their own agendas.
I am not talking about conspiracies. We all have agendas, and yours, and theirs, may be perfectly acceptable, just not necessarily the same as mine.
What makes the problem more of a problem is that the voices in the box, on the tube, on the screen, or in the column are usually our only source of information. We have to trust them...or not.
We either have to believe them or become detectives to ferret out the actual truth. This is also made complicated by the fact that you and I each have our own agendas (reference a couple of previous paragraphs).
I don't know that there is a real "solution" to the problem of only being able to form opinions based on our own beliefs and the information presented to us as being "the facts". If the facts are not actually the facts, but the facts as colored by the beliefs or agendas of the presenters, we are sometimes not much better off than if we were lied to.
Newspapers and other news sources often had an editorial bias. Hard news was hard news, but what could be construed from the hard news was colored by this bias.
I am reminded of the reporter who, accurately, reported that a woman in an accident suffered lacerations to her breasts. His editor told him that they could not use the word "breasts" and the article would have to be rewritten. The reporter, pressed for time, asked, "What word should I use?"
The editor replied, "I don't care. We don't have enough time for a re-write. Just stick in some symbols."
The reporter did so, and the sentence read, "...she suffered lacerations to her ( . )( . )".
Facts are facts. Opinions about facts are still only opinions. Sometimes it is difficult to tell which we are being offered. We either have to accept what we are being offered, or search through various sources to determine where the truth lies. If we want to know the truth, then we will consider it worth the effort.
We cannot simply "watch the radio" and assume that the words which emanate from our various sources of "news" are always facts. We have to verify for ourselves, to the best of our ability, and then make honest decisions based on our beliefs, not blindly follow the instructions of "gurus" who have their own agendas. Those beliefs will not always be in total agreement with those of all our fellow citizens, but, if we want the same basic results, we should be able to find a way to work together to accomplish this.
This should not only apply to citizens such as you and I, but to those we send to various assemblies to represent us. The voice in the box can say what it wants. Our job, and the job of those who represent us, have the job of finding the truth and making decisions for the good of mankind based on the truth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Donovan Baldwin is a 65-year-old accountant, amateur bodybuilder, freelance writer, certified optician, and Internet marketer currently living in the Atlanta, Gerogia area. A University Of West Florida alumnus (1973) with a BA in accounting, he has been a member of Mensa and has been a Program Accountant for the Florida State Department of Education, the Business Manager of a community mental health center, and a multi-county Fiscal Consultant for an educational field office. He has also been a trainer for a major international corporation, and has managed various small businesses, including his own. After retiring from the U. S. Army in 1995, with 21 years of service, he became interested in Internet marketing and developed various online businesses. He has been writing poetry, articles, and essays for over 40 years, and now frequently publishes original articles on his own websites and for use by other webmasters. He has posted a series of articles on The Law of Attraction , and other self-improvement issues at xtramoney4me.net/internetmarketing/reviews/law_of_attraction_articles/index.html .
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)The age of information has become a complete joke - not a funny one, though. It's more the age of agendas masking as info. And I agree, that it isn't always about sinister conspiracy; often it's about misinterpretations or unintelligent conclusions drawn by people parading as experts who really are nothing of the sort.
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