Cutting-Edge Theory, Analysis, and Application For The Anti-Social Media Age Backup

September 16, 2019 admin 41 comments

This is a backup of Peter Vadala’s Anti-Social Media Theory Writings created in the event that Microsoft-owned LinkedIn destroys the originals on the LinkedIn Servers.

Here is the original link page with links to the originals; this page simply copies all the text of the originals and drops it in here as a means of protecting these historic writings from the Silicon Valley and the FAANG/Fake News Axis of Evil.

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Cutting-Edge Media Theory, Analysis, and Application for the Anti-Social Media Age

America’s Man’s Man February 28, 2019 Uncategorized Edit”Cutting-Edge Media Theory, Analysis, and Application for the Anti-Social Media Age”

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This page is shadow-banned on LinkedIn and Google. You won’t be able to find it on Google no matter how hard you try – well, they may unblock it now because of this page. But nobody can find it because of the shadow-ban. Originally published on LinkedIn JULY 19, 2017. Leftist College Professor
Siva Vaidhyanathan would later attempt to warp the observations I made in this original book into a diatribe against conservatives in a book he published and unimaginatively “borrowed” the title of this article, “Anti-Social Media.” He published his borderline-plagiarism under that title May 15, 2018, and nobody’s buying it because they see straight through its stupidity. It’s heavily discounted but it’s worth less than the paper it’s printed on.

Some Highlights of Peter Vadala’s original concepts and stories can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stay-ahead-clinton-samsung-hollywood-peter-vadala

Fellow Authors: Please remember to correctly attribute quotes and original theses from your favorite Peter Vadala articles. Thanks. Feel free to reach out to Peter via LinkedIn.

In this series of musings and articles, you’ll learn things that the media doesn’t know about themselves.

It was once common knowledge that the performers on television, even news performers, were, just like most stage performers, those from the fringes of society and those from less-than-stable upbringings who have nothing better to do than dress up like they’re going to a cocktail party at 5a.m. in the morning, as former ABC Religion Reporter Peggy Wehmeyer put it to an audience of mostly liberal Gordon College students in 2005. That’s the rule, anyway; there are notable exceptions. But the checkered personalities of the talking heads are just the tip of the iceberg.

NYU professor and Media Theorist Neil Postman, who left us in 2003, though not a believer, wrote a profound explanation of the parable that even the secular critics respect, which we know as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

It’s not that the journalists wake up every morning determined to do something really evil; but neither does the ISIS brand of terrorist, or the World Trade Center bombers. And as Christians, we don’t wish ill upon the journalists; but you wouldn’t appoint them as pastors of your church either. And essentially, they’ve usurped your pastor’s moral authority.

Historian David Barton recounts that in the early days of the best nation on earth (with perhaps the exception of Israel, God’s historic chosen people), you found out about issues of the day from your pastor at church. And why not? Your pastor is a man that you actually know personally, and he is versed in the moral law and the salvation of Christ that ought to motivate decision making. On that basis, he used his theological knowledge and pastoral experience, and based on his proven character, told his congregation what God told him to say.

But a new pastor has emerged with the advent of the newspaper, which Postman asserted was not an advancement of literature, but rather, a product of telegraph technology. You’ll want to read Postman’s complete epistle, but key to us here is the fact that rather than basing his authority on his good character and standing in the community, the television talking head derives his place in your life based on his ability to manipulate a very expensive set of technological toys, serving both technical and advertising interests.

The articles that follow are a guide for both pastors and all Bible-believing Christians alike to help understand not just the psyche of the media talking head and new iterations of electronic news delivery; but also the systems in place – and their built-in bias, which makes it an unreliable and anti-Christian force which must be strongly dealt with.

I maintain, as President Donald Trump has, that the American media is the enemy of the people, I would add poisoning the well of American faith and wisdom, which is the source of all the blessings we have.

I assure you that these articles have only stirred controversy because of how orthodox they are, however, new iterations (virtual reality, smart phones) of the same old threats (salacious TV, records, and film), though unrecognized as such, call for a new explanation suitable for their specific effects. In other words, Neil Postman wrote his landmark epistle, Amusing Ourselves to Death, the year I was born, 1985, critiquing television specifically. Today, 95% or more of the population carries around portable televisions; highly interactive portable televisions, making them infinitely more potent than the old set-top box. But, of course, we don’t call them portable televisions; thanks to Steve Jobs, we call them phones. Also, Neil Postman was not a person of faith, to my understanding, so his book can perhaps be appreciated better by pastors when interpreted within the light of our faith. What makes it notable to the Christian is Neil Postman’s respect for God’s chosen medium of Salvation, incarnate in His Son – the Word. Jesus was and is not “The Television of God.” I’d maintain that we are naturally created beings, made in God’s image, and that electronic media is a medium which unnaturally disrupts our natural minds, appropriating what people of faith call “natural revelation,” and the Word itself.

Now that our vocabularies have shrunken about 60% since the 1960s (source unavailable), and terrorism reigns in both public cities and schools alike, and nobody is allowed to read the Bible in public schools, or pray – though our president is working diligently to restore such constitutional freedoms – it’s clear that something has got to be done about the media. And this is, without apology, a warning that things shall only progress for the worst if Google has its way.

In case you’re wondering, since I do make claims of orthodoxy, here are just a handful of the authorities I rely upon for my media theory:

The Holy Scriptures (The Bible), by God, generally as interpreted from a pre-media perspective, particularly in regard to the contemporary liberal theology regarding sexuality.
Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman
How Now Shall We Live by Chuck Colson
Story by Robert McKee
Wild At Heart by John Eldridge
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Christian Reflections, Mere Christianity, and The Great Divorce by Clive Staples Lewis.
The Collective Media Performances of Hilary Hinton “Zig” Ziglar
The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul II
The writings and work of MassResistance (not a Christian Organization)
My own personal experiences as a small-market radio reporter and at a top-ten-market radio newsroom
My own personal experiences as a small-market radio reporter, as a Christian and secular radio producer, and at a top-ten-market radio newsroom
The Christian-leaning Teachings of Franciscan University, including the experience of managing the student radio station there and producing the feature-length, original College Musical
Marshall McLuhan’s writings

Some of the articles you’ll find here are more formally organized; I’ve been trying to keep my writings more short and focused lately. Others are more stream-of-consciousness ramblings. And if you need clarification, or would like to request that a certain topic of interest to you is more formally written, please let me know. In any event, I am accepting your feedback to help regarding both clarity and focus, as I’m just a servant of God trying to communicate as clearly as possible. If there’s anything I can do to make this guide more useful to you, please let me know.

Yours in Christ,

Peter Vadala

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Netflix, Hollywood To Teen Girls: “13 Reasons Why” You Should Kill Yourself

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Netflix, Hollywood To Teen Girls: “13 Reasons Why” You Should Kill Yourself

Published on August 4, 2017
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Netflix, Hollywood To Teen Girls: “13 Reasons Why” You Should Kill Yourself

The Critical Mass Of Media Indictability; and the Bully-Suicide Myth

Liberal Massachusetts court logic – the same court logic that brought legalized sodomy to a once hallowed Christian nation – recently deemed that a girl who allegedly texted her boyfriend into suicide – be imprisoned for 15 months.

That same tool, the text, is also responsible for accidents. And a closely-related variant, a game called “Pokemon Go,” is also responsible for the same.

The Netflix Web Television Show, “13 Reasons Why” has recently come under fire for causing Web searches for “suicide,” and the obvious implications.

The link between media, from online television shows, all the way to the more interactive sort like texts or social network messaging, begins to scream the question – are we, as humans, responsible enough to govern ourselves with respect to technology, or, are we simply, at the individual level, hard-wired such that we are most prone to mistake the sometimes suicidal suggestions of our devices at face value, as we would from a trusted friend?

Do we need courts to intercede to tell us how to use it, and to threaten us when we misuse it? What’s the best way to prevent media-induced suicides – or shall we call them “accidental deaths” and injuries, in the case of Pokemon-ing while driving?

The Bully-Suicide Myth By The Associated Press

I remember from my days at CBS Radio Boston that the one thing we weren’t allowed to report on was suicide, because CBS Radio was so afraid of lawsuits from resulting deaths that they didn’t want to touch it. This is pretty standard policy in media.

Now, granted, media presents plenty of topics besides suicide that also lead to death, like the infamous homosexual act, most recently pushed on teen girls, of all people, in Teen Vogue, as reported by Salem Communications’ Eric Metaxas.

But then CBS Radio changed their mind about Suicide, perhaps because of the bursting journalism bubble. Nobody’s listening to the radio any more, so CBS Radio needed something extra-sensational. What if they could ascribe an oversimplified scapegoat to suicide that fed CBS’s overall marketing goals, which are similar to those of the mainstream media as a whole? You can read more about them here, but generally, mainstream media values dictate that instant gratification, no matter what the cost, is the key to a fulfilled life. Of course, it’s much more complicated than that, but in the case of suicide, the media says that the solution is simple: find the bully, and shame the bully. Presumably not to the point of bully-suicides, I would imagine.

In the process, the media has also created a hero, as all good television and radio junk always does. If the villain is the bully, the protagonist is the noble character who commits suicide.

Now, certainly, it’s not the mainstream media’s attention – and by mainstream media of course we mean the legacy networks CBS and cohorts – to encourage suicides. The intention is to promote the same show-business anti-values that are a product of the instant-gratification, thirty-second-story ethic. What does that mean? Well, when the bully-suicide myth was first manufactured, largely in Boston, with help from the subversive Associated Press, based on unsubstantiated press releases they expect you’ve long forgotten from far-left, hard-core homosexual organizations, the news-makers at CBS finally figured out an excuse to take part in a behavior that they knew would lead to more suicide, and this is where the media precedent for inspiring suicide began.

CBS Radio understands that reporting on suicides causes suicides, as do most media companies, which is why there haven’t been any television shows to this date about suicides.

However, since the “serious” media, the “news” media, found its own justification to begin taking part in a practice it fully well knows causes suicides, and I’m talking specifically about CBS Boston (WBZ-AM) and others like it across the country, the entertainment media has decided that it has license to follow suit.

Just like the most profound legacy of homosexuality in America is “AIDS,” we can see how, in a rather clear-cut way, America’s embracing of homosexuality has led to the “news” industry’s embracing of a practice that it knows full-well causes suicides among its audience members. And why? Well, just look at the free publicity.

As a nation, we’ve been so zealous to jump on the politically correct bandwagon – even Fox News, trembling in fear at the mention, at the very suggestion of the new American Golden Calf of homosexuality – as in this interview – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RdMDSFaVSg . Why do Fox News Anchors tremble in fear when the subject of sodomy comes up? Well, we all should, but they’re doing it for all the wrong reasons.

The cowards at Fox News, as well as a good number of American Christian professionals carrying the “pastor” label, are afraid to talk about what evil Hollywood is all too eager to profiteer off of.

They’re not all cowards. In fact, there’s at least one Fox Sports gentleman on this “Fired For Faith list,” which I need to update: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/fired-faith-running-list-peter-vadala

But right now, the Human Resources Department are forcing the Fox News anchors, just like at CBS Radio, to sign documents during the on-boarding process, that attest that nobody will, essentially, speak out against homosexuality. Just like at all the major corporations in America. And it is the worst kind of First Amendment violation ever, made worse by one of the most insidious Supreme Court rulings ever.

Nobody put it better or more simply than Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty:

1. It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical. – Phil Robertson

It’s very sad that we have to go there, but Phil Robertson, being a man of Christian character, saw fit to go there, and I do, too. That’s because media has, unfortunately, created a myth which has set up the worst kind of behavior, homosexuality, as a higher moral ground than suicide. CBS Radio Boston and media outlets like it have evangelized a Christian nation into thinking that somehow, suicide is justified if you’re bullied too much. In the great news drama of our day, the stupid, simplified, hedonistic, immature, anti-social, anti-family, anti-human, anti-faith parable of the news media, there is one hero: the person who does anything and everything to seek immediate emotional gratification. This includes not only homosexuals, but suicidals, and especially homosexual suicidals. And the villain, according to the media gospel of instant gratification, is yours truly, the one who says, “we need to stop this.”

How many suicides is Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why responsible for? And what corrupt souls posing as moral, educated, pastoral, fatherly types on CBS, ABC, NBC, and all their hedonistic copycats are responsible for the gumption and gall responsible for Netflix’s greenlighting the project? All of the culpable, no-doubt, have smoothly evaded their very real guilt and very real responsibility, a guilt which I’m sure will lead to their own deaths in God’s own time for profiteering off American suicide.

There’s only ever been one answer, and that is the foundation of America – Jesus Christ. But you won’t hear about Him from the anti-social media. You might have to shut the laptop, and go to church this Sunday if you’d like to hear more about how you can avoid the suicidal media’s agenda.

Cutting-edge media theory from Peter Vadala for the anti-social media age: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bible-believers-guide-anti-christian-media-peter-vadala

also of interest:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ritarubin/2017/08/04/almost-13-reasons-why-netflix-show-linked-to-spike-in-suicide-related-internet-searches/#3b4bfee46b6dReport this

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Evidence Of Fox News’ Pro-Homosexual, Anti-Christian Bias

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/black-activist-dont-compare-civil-rights-climate-change-peter-vadala

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Black Activist: Don’t Compare Civil Rights to Homosexuality. Or Climate Change.

Published on August 3, 2017
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Please don’t forget to correctly attribute your favorite Peter Vadala original quotes, theses, and news observations, especially “hot news.” Thanks.

The Fox News Anchors are in deep with some homosexual “journalist” professional organizations, so they’re not allowed to talk about it.

But here, Gianno Caldwell clearly says that you shouldn’t compare homosexual activism to the sincere struggle of the civil rights movement. He says the civil rights movement is incomparable to any other fight.

It’s not in this clip, but Brian Kilmeade said something about a “Book of Revelations.” Don’t worry; he’s reading this. He won’t make that slip-up again… Did Ron Emanuel call it that?

Can’t see the video? Click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RdMDSFaVSg&feature=youtu.be

And be sure to check out even more media theory, application, and analysis for this anti-social media age here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bible-believers-guide-anti-christian-media-peter-vadalaReport this

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Rachel Alexander Shares A Peter Vadala Observation On Fox News

Published on July 11, 2017
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Housekeeping note: Don’t forget to correctly attribute your favorite Peter Vadala quotes and original theses. Thanks so much. And check out even more Peter Vadala firsts here.

I’ve said it time and time again; written it here: the AP’s putrid “style” is really muddled, divisive morality. The AP uses its stylebook to impose an anti-morality upon the press; and “pressed” for time, all the local news outlets simply repeat whatever the AP tells them to report. (another: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLXQ0qbq6jY)

Did you catch Fox And Friends First this morning?

(See the original Peter Vadala series of LinkedIn articles calling attention to bias in the AP Stylebook, including a VIDEO I posted years ago, here:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/journalism-professions-marketing-problem-peter-vadala Ah… right, forgot about that header with our former Fox friend Megyn before she lost it over President Trump. That’s why Fox hasn’t called me. Or perhaps it was this… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihQDvVTjllk
More recently and more specifically: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/anti-american-journalists-isis-does-inspire-anything-look-vadala
And most specifically, where I again bring up the Stylebook specifically: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/execution-style-attacks-drive-by-msm-part-series-american-vadala?articleId=6288503346043056128

Guest Rachel Alexander from The Stream (?) shared an observation previously published by yours right here, on this LinkedIn page, quite a while ago. The AP Stylebook is tainting our news.

Granted, she brought up some new examples, but you can stay ahead of what’s on Fox News, evidently, by simply checking this LinkedIn Page.

In case you’re wondering why Fox and Friends didn’t invite me on; apparently they didn’t like it very much when their personality Peter Johnson was – less than friendly during an interview back in 2009.

Fox and Friends, while making pretense of being friendly with Christians, is rather cozy with the homosexual movement. They don’t like to talk about it because Christians comprise a large chunk of Fox and Friends’ audience, and Fox doesn’t want it to get out that they’ve been affiliated with homosexual journalistic associations. Granted, it’s the same carelessness that’s infected the rest of the industry; but in the journalism industry, carelessness like that does kill.

It would be nice to be given proper credit for my observations, but more power to the team at Fox News and to Rachel Alexander at The Stream, whatever that is. I guess I can honestly say, as Rush Limbaugh has, that the media’s show prep truly does begin here – on this LinkedIn page, where you can stay ahead of the news. Whatever “the news” is, and why you’d want to stay ahead of it is beyond me. But this is the place to do it, apparently.

Staying ahead of the news…

Find more cutting-edge media theory from Peter Vadala here. Keep track of other Peter vadala firsts here.Report this

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Full Text Of CRC Public Relations Release on AP Stylebook’s Reckless Bias

Published on July 12, 2017
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See ORIGINAL ARTICLE on pertinent Fox News story here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rachel-alexander-shares-peter-vadala-observation-fox-news-vadala

(Editor note by Peter Vadala: What follows is the text of the PR Form email signed by Emily Degnan of CRC Public Relations. In it, you can clearly see that she’s publishing an original thought that I’ve previously published numerous times before (see my original posting this morning), namely, that “the (AP) stylebook rules … (lead) to liberal bias.” Below is the complete form-letter email released to media outlets leading to today’s/yesterday’s (7-7-17) media appearance by Rachel Alexander in which she made the above claim which I’ve published, albeit in much more accurate (and stronger) terminology, many times before on this LinkedIn profile.) END EDITOR NOTE, BEGIN VERBATIM PRESS RELEASE, WITH SOURCE INFORMATION REDACTED. (It’s a form letter, so if you work at a media outlet, you probably have a copy of the same sitting in your inbox you can verify yourself; feel free to share if you do. I’m not trying to misquote anyone here.)

****************************************************************

From: Emily Degnan [REDACTED]

Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2017 [REDACTED]

To: [REDACTED]

Subject: The Stream’s Rachel Alexander on Liberal Bias in the AP Stylebook

Good morning [REDACTED],

“It aims at neutrality, but requires liberalism,” writes The Stream’s Rachel Alexander on the AP Stylebook for journalists. Rachel, a senior editor at The Stream, and regular contributor to Townball, The Hill, and The Christian Post, talks about the inherent liberal bias to which journalists must conform. On Fox and Friends this morning, Rachel described the stylebook [SIC(ed-note-PV)] rules as a “sanitization of language” that leads to liberal bias.

The AP Stylebook requires that words like “pro-life” are replaced by “anti-abortion” and “refugee” by “people struggling to enter Europe.” Are you interested in speaking to The Stream’s Rachel Alexander on the built-in liberal bias in the AP Stylebook, and censorship of conservative voices in the media?

Thank you,

Emily

Emily Degnan

CRC Public Relations

2850 Eisenhower Ave.

Alexandria, VA 22311

Office: REDACTED

Mobile: REDACTED

If you would rather not receive future communications from The Stream, let us know by clicking (REDACTED)

The Stream, 2760 Eisenhower Ave, Alexandria, VA 22314 United StatesReport this

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“Execution-style” Attacks By The Drive-by* MSM. (Part of a series on the American Media’s Partnership With Terror)

Published on July 5, 2017
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The Associated Press sometimes uses the word “style” rather carelessly. Like in the “AP Stylebook,” which is, more essentially, a kind of satanic Bible for what to call things. Thus, “Miss,” the emblem of purity, became “Ms,” homosexuality became “gay,” and really, it’s anybody’s guess what they’re planning next.

Bottom line, the AP doesn’t understand English style, and has no business on earth dictating to reporters what we ought to call things, or even suggesting as much.

This Video From The Archives…

What’s style? Style amounts to an artistic choice; a creative nuance that we earn the right to choose based on our moral authority (which the AP has absolutely zero of, by God’s standards or that of your average American). It’s a detailed choice that we make regarding words only after we’ve mastered the basics.

Once the foundation and the rafters of a house are in place, we can attend more stylistic choices. Pick the drapes for the Oval Office. There are Gothic-style buildings which hearken to the fine academic traditions of Oxford. Many churches today somewhat mistakenly think that evoking a more traditional style chapel, complete with stained glass and gold communion chalices, will make up for a lack of strong Biblical ethics. Nonetheless, these are examples of style, and we call it style because it is a rather inconsequential choice.

Did you happen to catch the ABC Nightly News? WITHOUT QUOTING A SOURCE – and of course, we do not believe anything a network says without a properly quoted source these days – they quoted “OFFICIALS” as having reported an “execution-style killing.”

Now. It’s very possible that officials may have used such phraseology, “execution-style killings.” However, someone who writes for a living ought to know better.

What do you call a series of gunshot killings? Well, first of all, why don’t we call it a murder at the very least. A serial killing or terror. Let’s stop playing the “let’s not call it terrorism” waiting-game yet, like the AP did with San Bernardino, refusing to call the Islamist or Islamic terror threat what it was. It’s deceptive when you don’t name the terror as such. Now, farbeit from me to dictate what media ought to call anything, but I will say what it is irresponsible, and actually borderline aiding and abetting terrorism to call it an “anything-STYLE” killing – as if it were, say, a New Orleans-style themed hotel, complete with the old-fashioned pull-chain toilets evoking a simpler time. [The latter is a stylistic choice; the former is a crime. Granted, people within law enforcement who study crimes for a living have an excuse for identifying with terrorists and murderers, so that they may reverse-engineer the perps’ psychology. We could make the same case for the journalist if you could prevent such sympathies from bleeding through in your writings to a mass audience, but alas, you can’t. Probably because you as a journalist are over-worked and underpaid, which I personally empathize with; however, when you get to that stress point where you must churn out an article – unfortunately, whereas the member of law enforcement’s job and his implicit survival coerces him to act in such a way that prevents evil; may I suggest that it is your dependence upon prolonged American misery which sustains your journalist career which pushes you in your moment of go-to-press to lean on the side of lending, in your writing, tacit approval of terrorist and murderer doings. Because what you seek is a mass-market story; you profit from juicy irony. Law Enforcement, conversely, profits – in terms of job security – is rewarded – when evil doesn’t happen. Your interests as a journalist, survival-wise, job-security-wise, pit you against both Law Enforcement and the safety of America, the national security of this great nation. (And this is why the AP is biased against America, by the way.)] (bracketed section updated 7-12-17 by PV)

In a previous article, I called your attention to the fact that the media repeats over and over again, with examples, the terminology of “ISIS-INSPIRED Attacks.” Again, only in the demented mind of a career showman posing as an omniscient talking news-head could ISIS ever inspire anything. (As opposed to, say, “provoking” an attack.)

Here, the same issue arises. The media’s terminology it uses to describe grizzly attacks by what are obviously murderers or terrorists or both – first of all, it uses the terminology “killing,” which almost evokes the Islamic Terrorist’s tradition of “honor killings.” Killing is a neutral word, morally, however unpleasant. We kill dangerous people via lethal injection in accordance with the law. We kill sick birds and dogs to put them out of their misery; though we don’t kill bird-dogs from the Clinton campaign. But when someone comes into an innocent American’s home and shoots the innocent American, a murder has taken place. Or at the very least, as an appeasement to the nonsensical, prosaic AP, we could call it – at the very least, a “suspected murder.”

The bottom line here? There is nothing stylish about a string of murders in Ohio. The fact that the word once again – just like the media seems to gush over the “ISIS-INSPIRED” attacks, as the networks call them – indicates some sick and twisted admiration of what ISIS is doing, and what the arbiters of the latest horror have done to eight family members. “Eight family members were shot in the head,” would be an appropriate headline. It may not sound as “sexy” as “EXECUTION-STYLE.” It may not provoke as many clicks to see – oh, gee, I wonder what kind of style that must be; sounds interesting to look at.”

There’s nothing stylish or inspirational about terrorism, ABC NEWS, Networks, ISIS.

News media, for the benefit of the poor souls who still consume you, would you please, please stop expressing your gushing admiration for terrorism and murder. I know how much it means to you that murder and terrorism continue to happen, because you anchors and reporters depend upon such American misery to earn your daily bread. But can you please contain your excitement just a little bit the next time you freakishly can’t wait to show another “inspired” “execution-style” killing? I’m not calling for a ban on language, but I am calling you to be responsible and think, already, about the way you’re “inspiring” terror. This is why nobody trusts the media; especially the Associated Press and your prosaic, abominable “Style-Book.”

Also of interest:

*credit Rush Limbaugh for “drive-by media.”Report this

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To Anti-American Journalists: ISIS does not INSPIRE anything. A look at how Mainstream Journalism’s language reveals deep-seated hatred of America

Published on June 20, 2017
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A Freudian slip, maybe. Does ISIS inspire you? I know that it inspires CNN and even Fox News to make many a pretty rating/share point.

Let’s just review, really quick, what some MSM outlets have said about the always inspirational ISIS. Inspirational, that is, if you’re an American journalist.

Are you feeling “inspired” like Newsweek is?

Let me be very clear. Terrorism provokes. It threatens. It colludes with. It foments insurrection; aggravates; agitates. Read a thesaurus. Forget the thesaurus, read a book!

But reporters don’t read books. Reporters are taught to read and write exclusively at a fifth-grade level, and never question the bloody AP wire. Rip and read. And you wonder why the high art and science of the journalism profession is being co-opted by unthinking machines, including literal drones.

At the moment, it seems that journalists are realizing that it’s not a great idea to continue inspiring terrorism – at least not overtly – for mere entertainment value targeted at Americans who, 99.99% of which, can’t do anything except wonder why their blood pressure is rising when they consume this news smut.

Also of interest: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/us-medias-partnership-terror-peter-vadala

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“Rip And Read” – Understanding The Media Industry

Published on July 16, 2016
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It’s a quick and dirty term and practice that goes in one ear and – well, lives on in the subconsciousness of the people who mindlessly receive, repackage, and spit out virtually everything you know as “news.”

Part byproduct of technological determinism and part consequence of the modern, secular attitude toward work afflicting many industries, not just media –

“Rip and Read” is the much-hushed “racism” of the media industry. It doesn’t have anything to do with race, but I draw the comparison because that’s simply how ingrained it is in the soulless consciousnesses of generally everybody who brings you news.

At a “Renewing America” conference long ago, one Newt Gingrich, I believe it was, explained that bureaucracy – mammoth operations – is generally what is responsible for making the government one of the least efficient charities, as measured by high overhead, and, by implication, the least percentage of income actually serving its intended purpose. (Something like 25%, don’t quote me. Comment for clarification- it’s a pretty standard principle to those who work with charities.)

Private enterprise can share the same pitfalls. Why is centralization generally bad for government, or any other kind of operation? And I hate to develop this theme, but I do suppose it may have been something that inadvertently, Reagan’s de-regulation contributed to, insofar as large media operations.

With the centralization of news sourcing, along with again, technological determinism – reporters – whom, left to our own devices, have enough opportunities for evil – suddenly were faced with a kind of pressure-cooker mentality to our jobs. What happened, is that, well, granted, broadcast news has never been about credibility, but our lack of credibility took a certain sporadic and exponential acceleration in its nose-dive as technology began to take hold.

As satirized in my Alma-Mater’s video here, and please do forgive the Catholicism, which I believe whole-heartedly is a kind of cult, no thanks to the Boston Globe –

The fact is that people gobble up things that appear to be true, may be true – it doesn’t matter whether you’re watching news or a sci-fi thriller. The legacy of photojournalism and its child, broadcast journalism (Postman) and it’s grandchildren, social media, is that you put a picture and an explanation of anything in front of people’s faces, they’ll believe it. Don’t believe me? Good.

And when it comes to producing lies, visual and textual and subtextual stimulation to titillate the brains of unsuspecting victims –

Fact is, the Internet is much more efficient at it. Who needs actors when you can essentially get a 3D model who is much more perfectly put together than all the Babes of Fox News combined and who instantly knows everything, because she’s plugged in to the Internet? She doesn’t need to pause live on-air, press her earpiece in and say “wait a minute, I’m getting some breaking news here”- because – well, you get the idea.

So, essentially, what we journalists have become, is servants of the machines. There is the role of “news judge,” or “editor,” the person who ultimately serves at the gatekeeper for what you watch. And it’s usually someone unqualified for that role, for whatever that’s worth from this Christian.

But the “facts,” and by “facts,” I mean irrelevant pieces of trivia – are coming in to your news source, I don’t care, WXXX, or yahoozle, or whatever you watch or read – much more quickly than it’s efficient for editors, writers, on-air people to actually read for you. They’re kind of overwhelmed – as you are – by everything there, and soon, the decision making tends toward the arbitrary, morally, otherwise. There’s simply no time to think about deeper issues, moral implications, because the “facts” come so fast, and you have to make sense of them at the speed of a computer processor. Which, of course, is impossible.

And so we trust algorithms to take on a larger and larger role, and as I said, the humans in a news room become less thinkers, less feelers – because the job is too important to our survival to be meddling with larger issues such as if human life is important, or what really happens during an abortion –

It all just kind of gets lost. And if you stop to ask too many questions – the modern cynical Baby-Boomer-controlled workplace – ethics just aren’t a priority because – well, who really cares about anything?

Anyway, so we’ve resorted to this “ripping and reading” mentality in broadcasting, but really everywhere.

What is it? Well, you change the content just enough – just enough – and this happened, happens, everywhere I’ve worked in broadcast news – so that it appears original. But – of course, it isn’t. Some ripping and reading takes place by mutual agreement by the “initial” content producers – and like in every bureaucracy, the source is so removed from the final product that it’s anybody’s guess where the information really initiated – so long as it’s got the AP stamp of approval, everybody assumes it’s legitimate.

And when I started out in broadcasting, I really didn’t appreciate the principle of “localization,” because I figured, well, content is content, and whatever’s efficient and profitable. It keeps the paychecks coming.

And again, this kind of highlights the idea that unfortunately, the phenomenon of photojournalism and broadcast journalism, and now New Media journalism – is more predicated upon illusion than – it’s simply so awful that I need to stop and I can’t even keep writing. And this is just it. Is that there’s one list of trivia with a beginning, middle, and end, followed by another, and another, and another –

Long story short, because, unfortunately I do have other tasks in truth-telling to get to, but – as in life, the “ripping and reading” of – virtually every “journalist” you’ve ever heard or read, who, in turn, is reading off a TelePrompter –

Is just another instance of humans serving machines, rather than the other way around. Except unlike Enron looking very good on paper – we have state-of-the-art technological gimmickry to bolster our appearances of noble truth-telling.

The point, I suppose, “Ripping And Reading” – most of us who call ourselves journalists generally just unthinking minions scared for our jobs, and churning out whatever chaotic cocktail of trivia we think will excite you with appeals to your primal senses of survival, etc. enough to tune in before you check out.

It’s okay, anchors. You can admit it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaAReport this

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A Running List: Anti-Social Media’s Self-Serving Bias

Published on May 11, 2016
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Psst! If you like this “Running List,” also check out the “running list” of those of us Fired For Faith in America by clicking here. Send your suggestions and I will credit you in the list.

I disclose, naturally, my unabashed belief in technological determinism.

The purpose of this running list is to present clues. Rest assured, this list shall always be edited by – a person. To the extent that LinkedIn publishing is done by a person. Which, the person part of this publication cautions – is more than we think it is. By design.

Bias in Media: A Running List Of Stories And Other Evidence Of The Deception Of the Anti-Social Media and Low-Information-Technology

1: Scientists Warn About Bias In The Facebook And Twitter Data Used In Millions Of Studies

http://www.forbes.com/sites/bridaineparnell/2014/11/27/scientists-warn-about-bias-in-the-facebook-and-twitter-data-used-in-millions-of-studies/#5459a2da5ddc

2: Religious Broadcasters’ Study: Social Networks ‘Actively Censoring Christian Viewpoints’

http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-philbin/2011/09/20/report-religion-theyre-anti-social-networks

3: Facebook Workers Admit They “Routinely” Suppressed Conservative News

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-05-09/facebook-workers-admit-they-routinely-suppressed-conservative-newsReport this

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Vice is the Archetypal Terrorist Media Outlet

Published on November 11, 2017
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You’ve heard it said that children tend to inherit and amplify the worst qualities of their parents.

FoxNews is the big kid on the block these days, a brand that built its fortune, in many respects, on media like Family Guy, which, despite the flood of obscenity, possesses a key defining characteristic of recklessly deconstructing the very medium it’s printed upon – Television. I’ve already written a report on why FoxNews style is taking the industry by storm, and is likely to be one of CableTV’s last survivors, a true Cash Cow in the dying cable & broadcast medium.

How did Fox rise to the top of the News game? I’ve written a complete analysis on the style that Fox built, which will likely outlive Fox. To recap, what FoxNews really did was to invent a new gimmick to outdo all the other gimmicks, because remember, broadcast news is not public discourse – it’s Entertainment. Built, as every good ditto-head knows, upon shock, awe, knee-jerk reactions.

Television isn’t that different from Hooters, in that regard. It’s the perfect combination of good, wholesome, factual information, delivered by a combination of supermodel infobabes and the same kind of late-night, lonely-hearts ranters who are the cash cows of Talk Radio. Well, kinda.

Now, you’re probably thinking, well, heck yeah! The News industry will call out all the evils in the world, and then, there won’t be any left to speak of. But you’ve probably also noticed that in the 80 or so years of commercial broadcasting in the United States, we’re even worse off than we were before broadcast, and electronic media.

If you know anything about history, children didn’t used to shoot each other – on purpose! Particularly not mass-shootings. Not the likes of Columbine. And for whatever reason, the Muslim world, cultish as it is, left us alone for a good 200 years. Now, suddenly, they’re all in our hair, and in our skyscrapers, and nightclubs, and major cities with their rental cars. The fact is, terrorism isn’t defined by a weapon. ISIS is the UBER of terrorism. They’re adaptable. They’ll do whatever they have to do to commit murder where-ever, because their religion teaches them it’s how they get laid. And if that’s not a formula for peace and love, and marital bliss, I don’t know what is!

Would America have been better off if every major news network didn’t plaster live images of imminent human death, a live anti-Christian holocaust, of sorts, right in front of our eyes? Absolutely. But if CNN didn’t put live, smoking buildings on television as it was happening – well, then CNN wouldn’t be important any more. CNN, and all of our media, even Fox, did exactly what they continue to do today, playing right into the hands of terrorist, making their dirty deeds SENSATIONAL! And dropping, for some sick, perverted, commercially-motivated symbol of American failure right in our collective living rooms.

As awful as that example is of how media operates, the fact is, it’s what television does every day and has been doing every day since the advent of broadcast.

Media feeds off our collective human stupidity. And it’s not that we’re stupid people! We’re the World’s exceptional nation. That said, just like Twitter, what media essentially is – and this is why I say that media is not public discourse, it’s entertainment –

Is that media – just like pornography, to use a salient, to-the-point example – and I promise this is not gratuitous —

Media shortcuts your ability to think rationally by artificially invoking the images that our more primal brains associate with death, destruction, and reproduction. Because remember, the same part of your brain that controls aggression controls libido.

But What does it all mean?

Well, if you don’t want to read my complete article, with references, about the history of media, how it messes with your mind, and how it simply messes up EVERYTHING- with lots of help from Neil Postman – Just keep this in mind, for now:

We are natural beings, and the people on television, the people who make VICE media are drawn to that craft because they are attention-seekers. And they will do anything to incite a mob, because, well, that’s what media is built for. And granted, they will apologize afterward, just as Kathy Griffin did after transmitting the image of her holding President Donald Trump’s severed head.

Like all media, VICE media knows who its low-information consumers are. VICE doesn’t respect its audience. Just like Low-information, #FakeNewsCNN, because remember, #CNNisISIS – CNN has been doing ISIS’s bidding since September 11th and then some, swearing on the air that Islam is a religion of “Peace and Love,” as we watched the symbol of good, Christian, American capitalism go up in smoke — or when CNN put out its own dog-whistle to the #CharlottesvilleKiller to turn a peaceful demonstration into a national murder –

You keep in mind that the purpose of VICE media is to do precisely what the title, precisely what the brand says. The purpose of VICE MEDIA is to encourage, in the slow, sure way that Satan always does, yes, I said Satan. And if you think talking about the devil is stupid, here’s the question I propose to you.

How stupid do you have to be to subscribe to a media outlet that posts an image of blowing up Mount Rushmore?

The IdiotBox has always been watched by idiots. And now, you’ve got an entertainment organization that calls itself “Vice.” Do you think that a piece of entertainment called “VICE” will encourage the kind of good, wholesome content that makes a strong America, or do you think that VICE will bring out the VICES in people?

The answer’s very simple. You know it, I know it. And we both know that if you CHOOSE to patronize Vice, and it is a choice, it’s only because VICE is doing what media always has done, which is to use sensational images to shortcut the part of your brain that thinks rationally – and lead us all into certain death, if we should choose to ignore what is right and do the easy thing, which is to keep allowing ourselves to be deceived.

Be not deceived. Choose the right; turn off the television, and, I’d prescribe, talk to your congressmen about ways that this powerful tool of terrorism which is the media, may be put at bay, that we may destroy the modern electronic idiotBox, that terrorist, within our borders.

If you don’t; if you choose to let your guard down in the presence of media, don’t be surprised if one day, you just happen to find yourself a part of the next Charlottesville violent mob, and don’t be surprised if you don’t happen to find yourself on VICE’s new likely reality show, “America’s Next Terrorist Bomber!” Don’t be surprised if you find yourself defacing a national landmark, hijacking an airplane, or – blowing up Mount Rushmore.

Thank you.

For a more complete guide to today’s anti-social media, and to prevent otherwise certain destruction of our beloved American homeland, click here.Report this

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In Defense of Christmas Carols

Published on November 9, 2017
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Well, the grinches at bloody CBS are at it again. They’re after our Christmas music, but what they’re really after, of course, is Jesus Christ, whose birthday Christmas celebrates.

Why does the FakeNews hate Jesus so much? As I’ve written about before , part of the reason that media hates Jesus Christ is because Jesus Christ is a direct threat to the media business. You see, when this country was first founded, the pastors were, in effect, the “anchormen,” not because they had fancy electric television studios, but because they were morally qualified to execute what’s known today as “news judgement.” That is to say, what’s important for you to know, what is edifying, what helps you, and what doesn’t.

Today, of course, the #FakeNews is running scared. Their aging audiences are watching television less and less, and turning more to the Free Internet in search of information. This means #CBS and related outlets are losing ad revenue.

Hence, CBS’s latest assault on Christmas, and as always, the #FakeNews has an “expert” with all the credibility of a fancy lower-third to prove how horrible Christmas is.

We Christians – and remember that America IS a Christian nation, regardless of what the #FakeNews tells you or implies by omission, and every other crafty way it thinks it can –

We Christians, we Americans, hold Christmas dear to our hearts, because it is a celebration of the birth of the man who divided all history between AD and BC – Jesus Christ, our Lord.

In a recent article from demonic FakeNews CBS, an “expert” was called in to attest that Christmas carols are bad for America’s health, or that singing Christmas carols too early can be bad for your health.

On the surface, it sounds true, right? But remember, you’re listening to or watching the #FakeNews, so really, it’s only a partial truth.

Remember that the FakeNews and Jesus Christ are moral enemies. If you were fully contented with the comfort that only Christ can bring – you’d have very little need for the fake news, or for the various electronic trinkets it advertises.

And the truth is that while, yes, sometimes Christmas can be a depressing time for many of us who have either lost loved ones, or cherish it that much that we prepare our hearts and homes for the Birth of Our Lord and Savior, who gave us everything we have, including the best nation in the world –

The “depression” that this article talks about is really just negative spin about Christmas. Keep in mind, as I’ve said before that good things are worth working toward, and this is another way that the #FakeNews is diametrically opposed to the Gospel of faith and Jesus Christ. No effort, no reward; no pain, no beauty. Remember, we’re celebrating the birth of someone who died on the cross, a most gruesome penalty He did not deserve, that we may be freed from our own sinfulness.

The real prescription of this FakeNews article from FakeNewsCBS is to ignore the nostalgia, because, apparently, it will only depress you more. What FakeNewsCBS is failing to mention, of course, is that CBS, not Christmas, is the real source of your current stress, and while confronting holiday memories may be painful at times, it is only because those memories are so joyous, that a part of you really knows that what makes them painful is that they remind you of a certain joy that yes, it takes effort to attain.

The FakeNews gospel is that that joy is forever gone, that it is make-believe, that it is a fantasy, and that dwelling in the fantastical realm of Christmas is somehow hazardous to your health; that trusting and believing in miracles is as futile as the power of a simple mustard seed. Small. Insignificant. Worthless. Jesus is worthless, in other words, according to the fake news. According to the fake news, Jesus never existed, or if he did, he was just a man, and reports of his crucifixion and resurrection are exaggerated.

Well, the FakeNews is exaggerating, as they always do, to make you feel miserable, and unnecessarily. They’re trying to deprive you of joy, in order that they may present another solution that will NEVER make you joyful, which is advertising. And they are inciting terror at this very moment, as you read this, a willing partner of ISIS and every other Obama attempting to sabotage the lives of you and yours.

I’m here to tell you that Jesus is real, and he really died to save you and me. And the proof is in the testimony of those good memories that all come flooding back when you’re in a commercial venue like a shopping mall or coffee shop, or perhaps warming by a fire.

Now, granted, you do have to be very careful, because yes, Christmas music is intended to manipulate you into buying things sometimes, quite often. It is intended to distract you from all those things that really bother you, same as CBS is doing here with its stories of the alleged “horrors” of the nativity, and nothing could be farther from the truth.

In the quiet of your heart, do yourself a favor, and find one of your favorite Christmas songs. Preferably, not using demonic Google, but whatever works for you. (Because Google will- again, try to sell you something for the privilege of listening to the thing)

Listen to the Christmas songs. It doesn’t have to be religious. Any Christmas song will do. And think upon that song. Meditate upon it. Instead of ignoring the tremendous blessings God has bestowed upon you in this most #blessed nation of nations, God’s exceptional nation, the USA, delve deeper.

If the song bothers you, think upon that sentiment. Why does it bother you? I don’t mean in the way that some Christmas songs are overplayed, but I mean, does it make you feel a certain sadness of sorts, or a certain happiness?

Don’t ignore whatever that feeling is. And if it does become too intense; leave it for a while and come back to it.

Here’s what I think bothers those crafty #fakeNews CBS experts about Christmas music. I think they’re annoyed by it for the same reason feminists tell women not to trust men. Because they’ve been hurt in a rather awful way, and so they are threatened by the joys of other people, and furthermore, the fakenews has a profit incentive in quashing the joys of other people.

The fact is that nostalgia isn’t merely nostalgia. The good old days are not just a figment of imagination, or a fleeting dream, here one day, and gone the next, like smoke in the chimney.

The thing that threatens the Fakenews, and everyone who has given up on America, is that Christmas represents a joy so great that we’re so accustomed to the gloomy Fake world of the FakeNews, the thought of living a joy so great – not just at Christmas but throughout the year – threatens those who have committed to living a life as scrooge. As a Grinch.

And do you know why that nostalgia is threatening to them? Why even pastors swear off nostalgic Christmases-gone-by?

Because there’s a part of those Christmas naysayers in the Fake News who know, who know, that even within them, there’s a child who once dreamed big Christmas dreams – dreams that were knocked down by unfaithful lovers, or FakeNews misrepresentations of reality – however, even they know that what they themeselves want is to recapture that Christmas again in their hearts.

Even the psychotic psychologists, who generally go into the field trying to figure out what’s wrong with themselves –

Even the psychotic psychologists will tell you that nostalgia is not mere fantasy. It’s a tool God gave the human brain for just a moment as this in our human history, when we need it most. It’s a tool, an emotional “switch” that we can flip, whereby all the old good things come rushing back, that we may once again joyfully “progress” back to a better way, a better sociology; a better cultural center, whereby Americans were more objectively happy. When there weren’t school shootings; when there weren’t Columbines, and terrorist bombings, and Muslims haunting America on every corner, and sodomizing our nation’s children’s minds, hearts, and souls.

Listen to the Christmas music, and dare to face that ever so powerful dream that’s “haunting” you according to the fakenews, and realize that the reason that Christmas music is such a scary thing to the FakeNews atheists and their silly “experts” – is because it reminds them of the greatness America once was and still can be in Christ, a greatness that they have allowed to die within themselves in the name of FakeNews Terrorism, in the name of Islam, and homosexuality, and all manner of evil that Christ and Christmas is not.

Dare to listen to Christmas carols now. Dare to let those Christmas songs be the gateway by which you begin to prepare your heart for the holiday of holidays, the birthday of the objectively best man who ever walked the earth, and the God who loves America and blessed us with everything that we have.

What are you waiting for? Listen to Christmas carols now!

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Media-Induced Psychosis: The Electronic Appropriation of Human Relationships

Published on August 9, 2017
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Many academics and amateurs have intuitively called attention to a trend they call “social media psychosis,” but in order to get a true grip on the source of the problem, we must investigate the apparent rash of American craziness in light of larger historical trends. These trends, like most, are difficult to understand when taken only within the immediate context of the last 30 years.

In a larger context, the phenomenon of first broadcast, and now the emerging “Virtual-” and “Augmented-reality” realms of connectedness serve the purpose of essentially replacing real people and social interaction with simulated interaction. In a hyperbolic, extreme case, you might consider this akin to a mother assigning a robot to rock her baby to sleep.

All communication, from television to so-marketed “smart phones”(which are really highly-advanced televisions) serves this larger purpose of simulating for the subconscious human brain, authentic human communication and fellowship. This tricks the human mind and soul into simulating, as any good drama is designed to do, the forging of authentic social interaction, when in reality, it is, like all shortcuts involving human interaction, a farce. A parlor trick.

However, as more and more Americans “binge” content, a term which rightfully has its own negative psychological connotations, the brain comes to accept electronic, simulated human relationships in lieu of authentic, in-person relationships it was designed to execute in local community and fellowship.

As the brain is trained, or conditioned, to accept electronic simulation of the human interaction, inevitably, the attitudes and behaviors of Americans change from that which benefits authentic human communities, such as churches and social groups and families, to the kind of values that reflect the best interests of the electronic media which appropriates those relationships.

You might say, “Well, electronic media cannot convince me to do things or believe in things that I don’t want to believe in.” In other words, you’re an adult, or a critically thinking young adult, and you’re capable of making up your own mind, and media does not effect your thinking in a way you don’t allow it to.

But I’m here to tell you that we tend to give ourselves too much credit in that regard, as humans. And if there is anything that the greatest writers, including God Himself, agree upon, it’s that pride or out-of-control hubris is often the end of otherwise capable men’s undoing.

I believe, both from what Christians call “natural revelation” [God’s fingerprints upon nature, including within ourselves (Lewis)] and scriptural or literal revelation (The Holy Scriptures) that we are natural beings, and that unnatural, artificial technology has the sum effect of twisting American’s view of ourselves, like the old fun-house mirror at the fair.

By artificially setting unrealistic expectations of what humanity should be, and thereby reflecting a misshapen set of values (i.e. right and wrong “best practices” for successful living), all forms of media, from the most innocent-seeming rotary telephone conversation to the most obscene kind of virtual reality game, all have the sum effect of training us; first Americans, and then the rest of the world, into undermining our essential humanity, time-tested values that serve Our God, ourselves, and the people we love and care about, in lieu of an artificial social construct, a kind of hijacking of the human imagination, such that we are trained to respect appropriations of social situations. And when people in the “real world” don’t meet the expectations set by media appropriations, in the words of millennials, we “freak out.” It’s a classic delusion, and this one has a root cause.

The answer cannot be found in the kind of pill that is advertised on television. Ironically, the television advertisement is close to the heart of the problem. Here are the symptoms and the cure for American Media Psychosis.

You don’t need to wear a tin hat; as it were, all you have to do is stop watching television, even this modified television that you’re viewing this article upon right this very moment.

Symptoms of Media-Induced Psychosis

Primary symptoms

You have a daily appointment with “appointment television.”
You are certain that the nice man or woman on television would make a great friend in real life.
When celebrities you’ve never met break up – or when “your team” loses, your day is ruined.
You feel psychologically naked when you have no internet access, or when your device of choice is broken.
When your device sounds a familiar noise or vibrates, you feel a compulsion to press buttons on it. Marketers would call your conditioned button-pressing as “engaging with” the device. In other words, you feel an immediate sense of guilt if you refrain from pressing buttons, particularly after hearing a familiar noise from the device.
You have a lingering feeling that you shouldn’t be spending so much time pressing buttons on your device, but feel you don’t have a choice. Or maybe you think you have a choice, but for whatever reason, despite your better judgement, you go ahead and pick up the device and press buttons on it anyway.
You spend more time “engaging with” devices than you do with people. After all, you perceive the devices as a tool to engage with actual people, despite the fact that over the long-term, prolonged device use does not lead to actual social engagement.
You value the mechanical production of your own image, and that of your loved ones, more than natural human reproduction. In other words, you believe that realizing your full potential as a human being is best manifested means first seeing yourself “immortalized” in digital film, or “coding” of various sorts, or products thereof; and that the human family comes second to your ambitions of seeing yourself in a YouTube video, or any digital or non-digital video or virtual reality capacity. You think that appearing in some form of media, even in a text, or a “Snap,” or somehow “inside” any number of popular apps, is as valuable as, or more valuable a use of your time than appearing in-person at a social gathering, either organized or spontaneous.
You believe that American suburbia is a dangerous place, and that there’s a good chance that if you don’t lock your door, a dangerous person will intrude and do something horrible to you – even though you have no logical evidence that suggests that you live in a dangerous area.
Your device, including your television or Smart Phone or tablet, is the first thing you reach for or “watch” in the morning, and/or the last thing you reach for or “watch” at night before going to bed, including time you may spend “talking on” your device.
You value binary code, the language of media, more than you value the English Language, or for foreigners, whatever your national language is – in other words, you aspire more to better speak the language of machines, and its unrealistic standards for people, than the language of actual people and human beings.
You’ve experienced suicidal thoughts after consuming media product; i.e. listening to electronic reproductions of music or synthetic music; reading magazines virtual or paper; watching “the news”; viewing a “news app,” or any other “app,” perceiving that you were “bullied” while watching, pressing buttons on, and otherwise “engaging with” artificial people on your “device.”

These are just a few of the symptoms of Media Psychosis, the kind that America has invented by excessive media exposure, first as a means of reaping a profit from its own people, and secondarily, as poisoning the rest of the world. Please let me know if you think of any others I should add to this list.

And for more ways that you can better understand the millennial’s place in history, how media has induced psychosis on a wide-spread hysteria level, and how you can begin to escape this psychotic American paradigm, be sure to read Cutting-Edge Media Theory, Analysis, and Application For The Anti-Social Media Age, free for a limited time as of 8-9-2017.

Don’t forget to unplug. I’m not your friend, and you’re not following me.Report this

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Dems’ Dichotomy Between Winning And Purity Started On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Ended With Howard Dean back on MSNBC

Published on August 7, 2017
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Don’t be like Howard Dean. Attribute your favorite quotes and stories, like this one:

According to Democrats, apparently, moral purity and winning is an either-or. The other disturbing thing about this story is that it demonstrates that the democrats are watching too much television…

To see more ways that America is falling in lockstep with Google and the old legacy media, check this mind-blowing piece out.Report this

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“Dr.” Zach W’s “Mickey On The Cr+ss”

Published on August 5, 2017
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note: I decided not to post the photo, but you may contact me to obtain a copy. It’s suspected to have been made by “Dr. Zach W” (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-zach-w-25bb4899/), and apparently intended by him as a joke. I find it incredibly disrespectful, however I also see potential in it to be used by God as a warning regarding the clash between authentic American faith and Disneyfied Christianity, and Disneyfied American values. Or more generally, media-fried American values.

Gentlemen,

Attached is a very, very disturbing photo. I am sharing it because I believe that it epitomizes in a powerful visual the effect that media has on faith.

I think it illustrates, in the however most sacrilegious manner, the danger of Disneyfied faith. On the most literal level, it reflects how Christians tend to pretend based on Disney’s old legacy values that it produces safe content.

On a much deeper, macro level, it reflects the Disneyfied gospel, and the out-of-control marketing frenzy of many mainline churches, intended to compete in all the wrong ways with the entertainment world.

I think it underscores the clashing, the crossing, of entertainment, and theology, the two most incompatible things in the world, and where we’re headed if we continue to attempt to confuse the two.

I do have to warn you, it’s a pretty jarring graphic, of Mickey Mouse nailed to a cross with rats below attempting to overtake the cartoon character.

It brings to mind the manner in which Disney scrubbed all religious references from its historical speeches within the parks, and has long since embraced an evolution worldview in its entertainment, along with pro-homosexual policies.

If you’re easily offended, or disagree with the nature of the commentary, which is perfectly understandable, please don’t open this.

It’s long been my contention that the Gospel of Christ directly contradicts the Gospel of Technological Determinism, or the television ethic; because the Gospel of Christ is one of faith in things unseen; implying delayed gratification; and the Gospel of Television or Technological Determinism is one of faith in immediate visuals all the time; and instant gratification (Postman).

Thanks,

Peter

More media theory for surviving the Anti-Social Media Age here.Report this

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When You Help Your Audience, They’ll Thank You

Published on August 1, 2017
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Peter Vadala reminds you to correctly attribute original quotes and theses from your favorite Peter Vadala articles, like this:

Fake Journalists and their failing fake broadcast news owners, are actually whining about their very station owners for trying to help them give the public the truth that the public is now demanding of television.

Back when I was a CBS Radio intern, my virgin radio ears didn’t know quite what to make of a sales meeting in which a veteran salesman compared the advent of radio to Peter Pan.

“It’s like voices flying through the air,” the CBS Boston salesman said. Nobody understood how the voices magically came out of the mysterious boxes in the window.

Think about it. All your life, you’ve been living in a fairly straightforward world, in which the only voices you heard came out of people’s faces. People like your family members. Your pastor. Your work associates, working on that rah rah ad campaign. Okay, maybe not.

But you get the idea. Suddenly, there’s a magical box with voices coming out of it. The only thing you can compare it to in your frame of reference is the way God spoke in the Bible. At no other time in history did a mysterious voice seemingly pop out of thin air.

If somebody approached you on the street with a boom box, and asked, “Did somebody say McDonalds?” And then proceeded to offer you a mix of dollar hamburgers and frightening facts about murder in the neighborhood – unless you’re among the breakdancing 90’s New York crowd, I’m guessing you’d probably run away screaming, or fight for your life.

But what if that same voice came from a magical box. Hamburgers for a dollar? Demonstrated omniscience? Clever factoids and charming wit? Well! That’s credibility, isn’t it?

Well, we’ve had radio and television with us for a while now. There’s virtually nobody alive today who hasn’t had mysterious omniscient boxes of all sorts telling us what the weather’s going to be; whether we should break up with our spouse; suggesting new spouses for us to marry; suggesting how we should live our lives; suggesting what to buy with our hard-earned cash, or not-so-hard-earned cash.

Yes, we’ve paid no small amount of attention to the myriad of little screens, and big screens, and talking screens, and three-dimensional screens, and screens with little cameras on top, and screens with a camera on the front and a camera on the back; and screens on our refrigerators with more cameras greeting us as we open the door, and wishing us a good night as we inadvertently drop them in a cup of water and have to pay Apple $700 for the privilege of getting it replaced because we didn’t by Apple Care. Maybe not.

It’s no surprise that since we spend so much time with these little screens and big screens, and screens that fold up, and screens that roll up, and screens that don’t even exist except in the form of a holographic projection that puts Star Trek’s Holodek to shame, we spend quite a bit of time and money on them. And we desperately want the screen’s approval, so much so that we’ll look down from the windshield to text, risking our lives, and we’ll even take clumsy “selfies,” just to make sure that the screen knows we’re still here.

The age in which we verified our importance by seeing ourselves reflected by the commentary of the local journalist is all but over for this reason. Well, that and that most journalists have been lying to our audience for a very long time now, in the form of “Fake News.”

So, the highly esteemed profession of the broadcast journalist is in major trouble right now, since audiences don’t need us to validate their existence, as the myriad of screens can do that all by themselves now. It’s a trouble for our profession that many journalists have a rare opportunity to fix right now, if journalists were willing to do our jobs as promised.

The problem is, the industry has been enabling a kind of untruthful, even slothful journalist for a very long time now, and the modern journalist can’t seem to cope with the fact that he has been lying to the public for most of his professional existence, if only by passing on the latest Associated Press wire gossip as passively as most Americans watch television. And now, the untruthful journalist is being exposed. He could start telling the truth, but that would mean admitting that what he’s been doing for most of his career is wrong, and so really, there’s a rather sad, stubborn kind of a misshapen anti-moral conviction deep within most journalists which is the product of the industry bubble and various forces that have been feeding the misconceptions of that bubble.

Audiences have always resented the lack of truth, the “fake values” of the television world, but again, absent the new “smart devices,” when all the audience had, way back when, was “magic voices,” and magic talking heads coming into their living rooms, they were willing to reluctantly accept a little bit of fake news and disrespect in exchange for the convenience of having a virtually free (and I do mean only virtually free) service that essentially talked them to sleep every night, or helped assuage its boredom, like, say, a good father or husband or friend might have done in a better, more historical American context.

But now, audiences are cheating on television, and with good reason. There are more sophisticated voices that respond to the audience’s needs, usually in the form of ringtones and other beeps, which the audience clicks on, and gets an immediate electronic response. Now, mind you, the likes of the new television, the Smart Phone, the Tablet, etc., are merely more advanced “magic voices,” just in another form – forms that are not dependent upon the “journalist.” Eventually, the audience will figure out these new technologies, and then an even newer, even more expensive technology will rush in to steal the audience’s sensibilities away yet again, and so on and so forth.

Where does this leave the poor fake-news journalist, who has been living in the journalism bubble, with forces like the Associated Press feeding its delusions about a “random” and pointless universe, filled with pointless lives that don’t matter? And you have to keep in mind, the journalist is not like the hard-working American. I once read an article by a journalist which claimed journalism and music are two of the least trusted professions among Americans. And it’s not wonder to me why.

There is a very real sense in which it’s impossible to tell the truth on television, even if you say all the right words, and don’t lie outright to your audience, because all television is inherently entertainment first. It has to be, otherwise, it couldn’t financially survive under the advertising model. That’s because, by employing the “magical tools” of the trade, in a sense, we’re simulating a human relationship with our audience that simply doesn’t exist, and runs contrary to the way that we humans were designed to interact. There is what you might consider, physiologically, an economic “net loss” of the wondrously-designed neurochemical reactions which manifest even when two strangers meet on a street corner, or even pass each other, without even looking at one another. Without going into too much detail, when you watch television, all the strange and wonderful autonomic and other biological responses of meeting another human being are activated within. And in an actual human relationship, these would create a kind of platonic chemistry which synergizes in such a way as to improve your mood, and not only that, but it also serves the purpose of, if it’s a good interaction, desiring more of the same good thing. Television capitalizes upon this phenomenon in order to extract more of a profit from us which can be described in the industry advertising jargon as “habit-forming.” That is, the process of selling you advertisements is actually predicated upon tricking you into thinking while you’re watching television that you’re actually helping another human being in need when you buy the advertised products. This capitalizes upon your innate desire to expend effort to help other people. However, your only real reward for buying advertised products comes at a very dark cost, which is the blessing you might have had if you had only put that innate relational effort where your Creator had intended it.

One of the reasons television is becoming more truthful these days is that audiences are discovering, in large part thanks to the newer, more seductive and shiny interactive toys, just how plastic the world of television is, and how empty and false the narratives of fake journalists over the last century have been – now that those false narratives, that “fake news,” if you will, has been stripped of its electronic magic. The Associated Press is just one of a myriad of forces working hard as a trade organization to preserve the delusion of fake news’ appropriation of truth.

While that may seem like a bad thing for the television industry, there is, of course, a proven way to adapt. Who proved it? Fox News. But, for the fake news journalist in the bubble, again, who is a performer at heart rather than a truth teller – is psychologically predisposed, in his confirmation bias bubble built up for an entire career spent psychologically enabled as a pathological liar – if that’s not too strong a phrase – admitting the fundamental fault of his craft a very difficult thing to do. He likes to perform; he likes attention. And that kind of motivation is very different from the kind of motivation befitting the moral authority necessary to do what his stated mission is to do, which is to inform the masses judiciously (with what he calls “news judgement”).

And I’m talking of course, about telling the truth. Telling the truth not just about the world around us, or actually attempting to not spin things toward the fake values that media is always inclined to do to serve its own pernicious goals, and I’ve written about the underlying factors behind that extensively, based on a rich tradition of trusted media theorists you should really read, like Neil Postman, and Marshall McLuhan, and Chuck Colson. I’ll post a link to some more articles to that end shortly for you.

But again, let’s consider the case of Fox News. One of the coolest features of their new, very expensive set is the literal framing of the White House and other objects of significance. Have you ever noticed that rather than just switch to a live establishing shot of the White House, Fox News will show a screen upon which the White House is projected inside a visible set filled with what could be traditional theater lights, suggesting, as journalists always have, but never quite as blatantly as this, that really, the news drama is merely a show, and is not to be taken seriously. And furthermore, that the folks at Fox News are really showmen. Now, granted, they’re some of the most trusted showmen whose image graces your preferred screen, be it the big screen, or the small screen, or the fold-away three-dimensional Holodek.

It’s not even so much an act of willful, idealism on the part of Fox News, necessarily, as you, the skeptical liberal journalist no doubt suspect.

The fact is that television’s cover has been blown. And if you want to survive, if you want to keep an audience, because the one thing that the audience has on its mind, a constant distraction, if you will, from whatever it is you have to say, be it fake news or an earnest attempt to convey the greater moral questions of our existence under God –

If you respect your audience, which you show by demonstrating that you know your audience and have taken the time to understand them, you have to get the elephant out of the room. The set design of Fox News is just one example of how in their daily “pitch” to the television audience, they kind of get that illusory-nature-of-the-craft distraction out of the way by tacitly acknowledging it, and this why Americans find Fox News so credible. This is why Americans find our President so credible, the off-teleprompter nature of what he says. Again, the old magical technological tricks don’t work for politicians any more than they do for television.

And yet, you can do Fox News one better, if they don’t first. How? By telling a story that really matters. By not only tacitly acknowledging the elephant in the room, but by revealing how he got there, and asking all the other questions journalists are supposed to be asking about things that matter – especially when they’ve inadvertently found themselves as the subject of the story.

When Fox News tacitly, or explicitly acknowledges the plasticity, the vaudeville nature of the medium, be it the projected “White House Under The Kliegs” every morning, or the anchors’ overt references to the teleprompter, to Shepard Smith’s occasionally admitting the profession’s empty hand of knowledge – now, granted, that doesn’t make the television performance any less a performance. It’s still entertainment; it’s still designed to steal as many minutes away from you as possible, likely many more minutes than are actually useful to you in somehow applying to your life purpose, unless you’re Donald Trump, and even then …

That said, I think the number one thing that a content creator of any kind can be honest about, particularly in an age where the real, invisible story is how content, and may I say, content far beyond television – is dramatically effecting our lives – the very tip of the iceberg in terms of journalistic honesty today is a real, genuinely self-effacing kind of understanding of the fakery of not only “news” in the sense of the stories, but in the sense of the underlying medium and technology. When we remove that log from our own eyes, we can see clearly to remove the splint in others’.

I know that’s a bit of an academic, crackpot-sounding concept when stated consciously and directly for the majority of my readers here, however, it is my very best attempt to convey to, even convict and exhort, an industry in complete disarray the underlying foundational weakness that journalism has in terms of maintaining an audience, and I outlined this phenomenon in a previous article in which I describe how each new medium that’s introduced starts off with the luxury of fake liberalism, but then is forced to become more truthful as its life cycle pans out.

It’s a lie to suggest that the elusive “new media” is somehow inherently more truthful than broadcast media, or that somehow the people who work in it, or who program algorithms are more virtuous than those who necessarily become television anchors, because all of these new technologies are impediments to, rather than true facilitators of human interaction. No matter how hard they promise – just as the old News Anchor did – to assist human interaction. That, of course, is merely a lie of the profession. The nature of technological edge, once again, merely helps the operators of that new technology (“social media”) manipulate truth all the better.

And if we could only see the fault in our own journalism profession, perhaps we would indeed see clearly the real story, which is the even less human, even more technologically-driven, human-less future that new technology is dragging all of us into. And it’s a heck of a story indeed.

Even Mark Twain, an atheist, and a proponent of the Associated Press (at least, according to the Associated Press) famously said that when you tell the truth, you don’t have to worry about inconsistencies among all the various fibs you tell. It’s simply easier to act with integrity.

And the truth is, fake journalists can’t hide the truth from your audience any longer, because if you’re not truthful, they’ll stop watching or engaging in your content. What’s more, fake journalists have made real truth-seeking journalists look bad.

In an age of ubiquitous oversupply to the point of psychological “overload” of information, the way you set your content apart is by being the most honest. Content is ubiquitous, but good, edifying content is not. If you can provide the truth to your audience, and they know that you care about their success, I guarantee you there will always be a place for your commitment to their satisfaction, particularly in a fake news climate like this one where by comparison, you’ll shine so very brightly. I am in no way trumpeting the virtues of the machines (i.e. “social media”) that have made this so, because clearly, they introduce more problems than solutions.

The mainstream media bubble was burst with the election of Trump that fake news journalists swore would never happen, based on the fake news’ most highly credible sources and pollsters. Now, the fake journalist is protesting because local television employees, after the NAB mounting a campaign to aggressively fend off the “Bias like you find on cable” (particularly entertaining, “no bias like you find on Cable”– Seriously, NAB?) anyway, these Fake Journalists and their failing fake broadcast news owners, are actually whining about their very station owners for trying to help them give the public the truth that the public is now demanding of television. Their broadcast owners are trying to help the fake news journalist save his career. But the local fake journalist leaks, of its broadcast owner, ” the company did not understand KOMO’s progressive market.” Right.

I expect the liberal journalist to dig his heels in and whine for a very long time, as his fake convictions bleed a long and slow, fake death.

But fake news journalist, just know, that when you let that “fake conviction” die, when it happens, you’re not “selling out” your morality as you mistakenly fear. You’re doing the right thing, by being a diligent steward of your employer and a diligent steward of public trust, even if it’s taken you an entire career to do so.

And, fake news journalist, all of us are thankful that you’re finally using your unique talents and skills for good and not for evil.

Find more tips and tricks for thriving in today’s journalism industry here.Report this

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American Media Values 101: Do You Believe In Real American Values, or Fake American Media Values?

Published on July 31, 2017
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Don’t forget to cite your favorite original quotes and theses from Peter Vadala articles. Thanks so much.

The difference couldn’t be more plain. When media puts America on Television, or even when we put ourselves on YouTube, we Americans suddenly look like a weird fun-house mirror. And it certainly gets everybody’s attention all around the world! But over time, painting America in a distorted light just because it looks “cool” or “stylish” or “dramatic” is harmful to America and the entire world. Here are a couple differences between real American values, and the America that we put on television and export to the rest of the world.

True Marriage Versus Hatred Of Marriage

Real America values marriage, between one man and one woman. But when you go to the theater or watch television, often times, to make the story interesting, they like to pretend that two men can get married. Now, recently, of course, this has made its way into the law. But we expect that America will eventually return to honor the real American value of marriage.

Valuing Life Versus Abortion

On television, producers said, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if it were okay for a woman to kill her own child?” And sadly, this too has made its way into the highest court in the land. But real Americans have always valued life, and understand that there aren’t any shortcuts when it comes to raising children – or not. Most of us don’t have the heart to throw a child into the ocean; and when you murder a child makes no difference. Plus, it leaves the mother more likely to have cancer, and permanently emotionally scarred for a lifetime. It’s not really worth it, but it’s one of those things that the media culture thought would make a good story, and many people today can’t tell the difference.

Socialism Versus The Free Market

Another things popular among most of the folks on television is the redistribution of wealth. That means, you rob the hard-earned or wisely-invested cash of the “haves,” and “transfer” it to the “have-nots.” Lots of times, as on all the silly things you see on television, most television personalities will try to make you feel guilty if you don’t forfeit your hard-earned cash to others who haven’t earned it. After all, we’re supposed to be charitable and of good will. But Americans have always been charitable, and we give freely. Usually, it’s the folks who are trying to force us to “give freely” that are the least charitable of all. Because if you’re not giving of your own free will, of what good is that?

Religion Versus Secularism

Have you ever noticed that whenever the media talks about God or religion, it’s almost inevitably in a bad light? That’s because most of the talking heads you see on television are there because they like to perform. They’ve rationalized in their own minds that they are providing a public service, to the point where they actually believe this lie. But unfortunately, as history has borne out, many of them have atheistic, even atheistic communist leanings. They hate America and the God that makes America tick, and with good reason – at least, if their bank accounts are boss. See, the original American “news anchors” were the pastors. They informed us of what we need to know, and unlike the talking heads on television and the internet, they had the moral authority to do so, because they were well-known members of their communities, overwhelmingly. They were people you knew. When someone appears on television, the electronics make it look like they’re right there in your living room, giving the illusion of being close to you. But you know nothing about them, and in most Mainstream Media circumstances, they’re the last people qualified to tell you what’s important in your world. In fact, they have a name for their imagined prerogative to tell you what’s important. It’s called “news judgement.” And while sometimes they might call themselves the “fourth estate,” the constitution does not regard any such branch of government besides the Executive, Judicial, and Legislative branches.

There are many more differences between real American values and media-values, or the kind which try really hard to look like the real American values, but in the end, were only created because they made for exciting television. But in the end, these false, media American “values,” which many only take seriously because they watch too much television, are hurting America, and may even end America if we’re not careful. By being vigilant about the difference between what’s on television, and the things that real Americans value, like Life, Marriage, The Free Market, and God, we can ensure that our children and their children will enjoy a beautiful and wonderful, safe and secure country for years to come. And of course, there are a few of us who love America – we’re not all bad.

For more cutting-edge media theory from Peter Vadala, click here.Report this

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Analysis: Each New Medium Gets More Truthful At End Of Life Cycle – And Fox News Illustrates The Death Of Television

Published on July 29, 2017
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Please don’t forget to correctly attribute your favorite original Peter Vadala quotes and theses. You read it here first.

You know how it is on your death bed. Well, if you’re not there yet, you will someday. Suddenly, it’s oh, I want to make peace with God. Oh, I was in church on September eleventh. Because it’s almost over, and you’re about to meet your maker.

You may or may not agree with the underlying assumptions that have led the author to this conclusion, but it’s difficult to refute the conclusion. Causality versus correlation, then? I’ll report, you can decide. Which, of course, is Fox’s nice way of saying you’re an idiot if you don’t accept my logic, because it’s logic.

Advertisment By The Author: By the way, don’t forget to contact me about the most valuable cinematic art property, now accepting representation. Just – no consultants, because you guys (consultants) just make everything worse. Okay. Down to business. And by the way, I do apologize for the shameless plug, above. I don’t like plugs, or even having to become an expert in the field of cinema, for that matter. I’m just trying to convey truth. But millennials won’t listen to anything unless you make a gosh-darned movie about it. They need to be told a bedtime story. It’s very sad. In any event, we’ve got the very best movie in the industry. Moving right along…

This is a very simple concept. Each mass-medium that has ever afflicted the American public begins as a cheap opportunist liar, and then progresses to become more truthful until it finally dies out; just like you and I. This is because, you must remember, that media are not people, and are not inherently, as they purport to be, communications tools among humanity. They are shiny toys we like to play with, and delude ourselves into thinking, abashed with lust for their ability to tickle our brains, hearts, and souls – that somehow they possess human properties. Most people, when television was “in,” simply crashed in front of the television and then went to find out “what’s on,” channel surfing and the like. Only later would “appointment television” be discovered. It was the initial process of discovery that would beget “appointment television.” The point here, you’re not in love with the personalities, you’re in love with the concept that there’s a device you can turn on and it will preoccupy you from all those end-of-life questions that you’re putting off until your deathbed. You’re in love with televisions underlying epistemological gospel and life lesson, which is the Gospel of Instant Gratification, brought to you, most often, by the purveyors of the latest technology. It’s one big advertisement.

The Newspaper’s Arc Toward Conservatism

But I must deliver on my premise here. So, we go back to the newspaper. How did newspapers get big? Benjamin Franklin made no pretense of fairness toward both or all sides. Back in his day, newspapers were ranting vessels for anyone who had the means to buy printing presses suited to the purpose. Journalism rose to prominence on the heels of sensationalism; and that’s been its sweet spot ever since. Naturally, after those scalawag “yellow journalists” were found out, you had the more “legitimate” airs being put out rather strongly from the likes of the New York Times, under pretense of being the nation’s “paper of record,” and whatnot, but such attempts at rationality are so foreign to most journalists that it never lasts for very long. Even as the Times flails today, it clings viciously to its liberalism, however that liberalism is, compared to the sensationalism and blatant attack-dog verbiage of journalism’s early days, its heyday, you might call it – are trite. And so I would argue that the New York Times went from super-crazy-liberal, all the way to just mildly liberal. I predict it will continue to drift right – not a monumental conclusion in this conservative resurgence, but again, it illustrates the larger trend. What’s that “objectivity” we see in the papers today that we know as thinly veiled leftism? It’s merely more thinly-veiled leftism compared with the newspapers of yesteryear (if you account for cultural changes and zero it out). And the newspaper got more nuanced because it had to. It got polite, but at the end of the day, those who operate media outlets are still just leftists playing with toys, so they never really, perhaps, really respect their audience. A little harsh, you might say; I’m still coming to terms with it myself.

Radio’s Arc Toward Conservatism

Radio’s conservatism is only so obvious and familiar to us today because we lived through its rounding out at a very comfortable conservative place. We’ve seen how the liberal Air America failed. Who wins on radio? Rush. Hannity. O’Reilly wasn’t conservative enough. Glenn Beck. Michael Medved. You know who they are. Not to belabor the point, but radio, too, also started super-liberal. CBS, of course, shocked and awed by broadcasting War of the Worlds as straight news. It also played a role, with the rest of the networks, in pioneering the wussy-man soap opera, targeted at, who else, but the housewife. That’s where the evil, man-bashing sitcom grew its roots, in radio. “The Soap Opera.” As I said, sitcoms (preceded by radio dramas) are merely, with the advertising, one big long soft-sell, effective precisely because we don’t think about them as commercials, the totality of the programming, I mean. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, here. The point – radio started liberal just like everything else, and drifted from the likes of what you’d expect of your dumb sitcom fare of today, toward arguably the most conservative medium we know in our lifetimes.

“And Then There’s Television”

Television. The devil’s box. The idiot box. The boob tube. Your English teacher was right, it’s all of these things. Now – please please please – you’ve got to keep in mind- because I know what you’re thinking. What about those “innocent” classic television programs like Leave it to Beaver, I Love Lucy, and Bewitched. Remember a key premise of this writing, which is that, in the same way we adjust GDP for inflation, we have to adjust the liberal-conservative value scale of the episode according to the shifting values of the culture. So- in other words, yes, television may have appeared to us to look more innocent back then, however, it was extremely subversive when you consider what the culture was like. Mary Tyler Moore, for instance, Maude, all pushing what, at the time, was a super-feminist narrative. Nobody forgets that rancid Three’s Company bit. And the list goes on.

And Television, in its traditional sense, is reaching the end of its life cycle. This is why Fox News is dominating. As I said – each medium goes from liberal to conservative just before dying out of significant use. TV, of course, having long lost millennials, and mainly the realm of housewives and deadbeat dads.

“””Social””” Media/Web X.0

Again, I want to help you make sure you see the trees for the forest, here, because particularly when you’re living through a given media’s life-cycle, it affects the way you perceive it. If it didn’t affect us, it wouldn’t hold such a powerful sway over our lives. That’s why yours truly is here to help you understand what even the producers of the smut don’t. If they did, they wouldn’t be producing it. At least, I like to believe that.

You have to keep in mind that the real producers of social are those who own the platform. And even I, writing this, am in the middle of Social’s cycle, so it is difficult to analyze what we’re in the middle of as easily as we’ve seen papers, radio, and TV.

I want to clarify that I’m talking specifically about Facebook, Twitter, Google, and search; so I’m not taking into consideration for the moment corporate web sites, online shopping, which are all significant but I haven’t been able to compartmentalize them in such a way that they align with the above trends. I know it will come to me… give me a few weeks.

As Betty White has said, “It sounds like a huge waste of time.” And college students tell themselves this, swearing to get off of this, but they can’t. They know it’s what a better America used to call a “vice.” But they somehow can’t resist clicking again, and again, like a mouse in a Skinner Box. And that’s exactly what it – and all of this is. Like the TV remote. It’s just that with each medium, the clicks get faster. They really all are modified combinations of television and telegraphs, if you think about it. Click, click, click, click, stimuli, stimuli, stimuli. And when you put it in those terms the undignified, dehumanizing nature of it becomes all the more clear.

On a macro-level, and again, thanks for understanding my predicament in attempting to track the values of something we’re still in the middle of-

I guess we would start by understanding that each medium, perhaps, just perhaps, gets progressively more conservative–compared to the immediate culture it’s a part of. In sum, though, if we don’t adjust for cultural norms of the moment, each new medium is more liberal than the last, because culture is progressing toward liberalism as a result of the prevailing liberalizing force that each previous medium has been on culture. Crystal clear, right?

How is Facebook leftist, liberal? You don’t think it is, because, well, you’re the star of Facebook, and you’re not a leftist, are you? Nobody likes to think of ourselves as one, but the very fact that everybody is the star of the show, and that there is no singular moral authority, is in and of itself a leftist ideal. Leftism, liberalism, remember, is disorder. And Facebook, perhaps inadvertently, fed a Baby-boomer-began, millennial-accelerated, resentment of any and all authority, which of course leads to disorder and societal collapse.

So, that’s how Facebook started. But in kind of a buyer’s remorse of sorts – since each of these new technologies is so ridiculously liberal compared to the real world, and thus attracts the rebellious, unchurched, unfamily types who really hate humanity but have the guilt complex which compels them to “protest too much” about perceived evils and whatnot, but evils which aren’t real –

Just like all the media, and you’ve seen it – Facebook and the rest have all suddenly, as if surprised by just how liberal the medium has the potential to be, has run back toward the safe center. However, just like journalism, then radio, then TV, the damage has already been done. And all of this while….

Googlefication

I don’t have a better word for this, but I guess for utter lack of a better and more descriptive term, I’ll describe Googlefication as the more total meta-aggregation (or merging/synergizing) of any and all possible Web/social based services into one. Insta, snap, and biggest of all, SEARCH. I say search because search is really the marijuana, the gateway drug of all other “social.” (anti-social, of course, like each medium before it). Google’s profound hatred of Christians is worse than any other medium in history.

Why? / Conclusion

The reason each medium begins super-leftist compared to the culture and then runs to the right is again, when each new medium is new, it tricks all of us into consuming it by virtue of its newness and unexpectedness faster than we humans are able to understand just how much time we’re wasting with it, because it’s a hypnotic, conditioning device, each medium more efficient than the last. We need a new medium every so often, crave it, eat it up as soon as it’s supplied, because we subconsciously fall for its infinitely more innovative way of captivating our attention more efficiently than the last medium. Today’s smart tv’s don’t just show us a moving image; it makes sure we’re paying attention by coming up with ever-new ways for us to confirm that we’re paying attention, mimicking human interaction but for all the wrong reasons and with none of the natural benefits.

We are natural beings, and lack the capacity, even as just now frustrated millennials fret about how much time we waste on Social, and pull our hair out in an effort to disconnect despite our addiction.

I do hate to say it but President Reagan may have been wrong regarding the free market and communications. Or if we are to take a laissez-faire approach, government-wise to media technology, which the libertarian in me leans toward, then men of good character in America need to recognize just how susceptible we are to each new generation and each new medium’s technological nerd-magicians, and come up with a proactive approach to if not legislating, ensuring as churchmen that these new devices undergo rigorous testing by third-party regulators that we appoint to make sure they stay the heck out of our lives, as we humans are obviously unequipped to deal with them.

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How To “Make An Impact”

Published on July 29, 2017
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Please remember to correctly attribute your favorite original Peter Vadala quotes and theses. Thanks.

Many millennials have a desperation when looking for a job to find an opportunity that not only rakes in the cash, but “makes an impact.” Did you know that Islamic terrorists also want to “make an impact”? If you really want to make an impact, you desire a good thing; but it takes real, objective wisdom to have the impact that you want. And going about it without that wisdom – like, say, an Islamic terrorist, results in a lose-lose-situation for everybody.

It’s probably because most businesses today aren’t really in it for the “greater good,” and media hasn’t helped that end in the least.

It wasn’t so long ago that every company in America had the same exact purpose, and were united with a goal aimed at true immortality. You probably know where I’m going with this by now.

You’ve probably seen the verse on fan signs at football games, or even in street preaching. I’m of course talking about John 3:16. ” For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” It’s not the only verse from the Bible you need to know, but it’s a good beginning. Namely, it speaks to the only real way that you can “make an impact.”

What could be more impactful than living forever, and sharing the inside scoop on how to do so with others?

Sure, you can take part in a bake sale for charity, or participate in that corporate run, or donate to starving children in China. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really fulfill, does it?

Millennials, and post-millennials are starving for truth and the answers to a truly fulfilled life, but the fact is, America is living under a media-imposed paradigm of morality that simply contradicts ourselves, down to our very DNA.

So the next time you find yourself looking for a job where you can truly “make an impact,” maybe the real answer is to simply do what you’re paid to do to the very best of your ability, and when outside work, perhaps disconnect and read the most important news you’ll ever read. I’m talking, of course, about the Bible. I’d recommend starting with the Gospel of John.

God and life awaits, with the purpose and the real impact that He gave you the desire to have in your home, your local community, your blessed United States of America, and the World.

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Steve Doocy "reads" either the Times or the Post on Fox&Friends 7-27-17 — Steve Doocy “reads” either the Times or the Post on Fox&Friends 7-27-17

“This is going to be a big story…” How Fox News Did It

Published on July 28, 2017
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Was monitoring Fox & Friends this morning (7-28-17), which, as the “friends” are all too happy to tell you, the New York Times finally conceded is the most powerful show on television. Maybe it was a Freudian splotch that the editors missed. Maybe it was a cheap trick to sell more papers, since even the Times seems to understand somehow that its days are numbered. Interestingly, the gentleman at the failing Times who wrote the article called it “the illusion of children’s TV — that your favorite show is as aware of you as you are of it — except that for Mr. Trump, it’s real.” Which is a really weak shot, because it tells me that James Poniewozik doesn’t understand, or thinks his readers are too dumb to understand, that that isn’t just the illusion of children’s television – it’s the illusion of all television in general. And if you don’t think that’s why you watch television, then you’re only deluding yourself. Can’t you see, that illusion is the only thing that could make an allegedly “rational” natural creature, which humans are, sit down on a couch and stare at shadows from inside a box for minutes, hours, even days on end. Television is a rather occultish phenomenon, if you’d only stop and think about it. But I’m getting off-topic, and no doubt, I have insulted you. So let’s get to how Fox News rose to become the number one force in cable “news,” and perhaps cable television as a totality. Which, you can be sure, NBC-Universal is busy using their control of the cable networks to try to sabotage as quickly as possible in the darndest of ways.

First off, this is a highly complicated issue, and if you want real answers, you’re going to have to kind of stay with this a bit. So drink some coffee, pop your addle-all, if you’re a millennial, or whatever your coping mechanism is, get in your safe space, get your crayons – no I’m just kidding. But if you want to understand this, point is, this is not going to be an easy read. I recommend as a prerequisite every other article I’ve ever written as well as my own sources, all here. And it’s important. Because media is co-opting your life, and you’d like to take control of your mind back, don’t you? Well, perhaps that’s not worth the effort. But if it is, read this.

Which poses a few questions. First off, as GQ wrote of eons ago, that brings up an interesting marketing question. Fox News has long thrived on a marketing message playing two sides of the same coin; the “underdog” mentality against the evil mainstream media, and at the same time, the “we’re number one in viewership” bit. And in recency, it’s been teetering toward the latter by nixing the Fair and Balanced and upping the Most Watched – Most Trusted. The first, perhaps taking from what CBS has been saying about itself, and the second, what CNN is still saying about itself. And of Fox, it’s probably true, at least, compared to other television.

Taking On The “MSM”

Since Fox and Friends – and the network, for that matter, are at the top of the ratings – and the network has been for the last few presidencies, as Brian Kilmeade said in that earnest and eager way which makes him a great foil to the cool and confident Steve Doocy – and I actually asked Brian in an email about this (no response) – are you folks going to stop attacking the Mainstream Media now? Because Fox News is, at least by the logical, traditional definition, the new “mainstream media” of sorts. Granted, we have to ignore the fact that digital and new media is the new emerging force, and television is really nothing at all compared to the emerging digital realm, or won’t be for long, which is why millennials and post-millennials don’t watch television, etc. By the way, Fox, for millennials, you want to create an ad-free alternative, would be a good step toward capturing more millennial viewers, though your overhaul to stay relevant will have to be much more relevant. Again, lots of tangents here – we’re talking about how Fox News beat out the rest of television, and how it has become the “mainstream media” it is constantly attacking.

Now, it’s not really a moral question that puts Fox News in the wrong, frequently attacking the “MSM.” And honestly, the acronyms have to stop. There are too many acronyms… and I guess part of the charm of Fox News is the distinctly unpolished kind of underdog persona, which is believable because it is more truthful than the rest. You can really tell – or think you can really tell – that the performances you’re watching are extemporaneous compared to the talkers on all the other “news” stations combined.

Granted, some of the performances are more traditionally teleprompter-based, in the tradition of CNN which the main networks still swear by. And the audience knows it’s not real. Especially, again, millennials, which, by virtue of the broken family that raised the millennial majority, are experts at detecting fake personalities.

Here’s the thing, though. Now that the New York Times has, perhaps in a fit of desperation, done Fox News’s advertising for them, ceding the “Most Powerful TV Program” title – let’s chalk it up to sportsmanlike New York news community camaraderie – Fox News might be making a big mistake by obsessing too much over the MSM, even though most of us know what they mean by it – basically, the legacy mainstream media. The “bad guys” before Fox descended from heaven and died and rose again so that the news industry might live. CNN. ABC. NBC. CBS. You know, the “Mainstream Media.”

Well, there’s a marketing problem with Fox continuing to insist on attacking the “MSM” ghost that doesn’t exist anymore, thanks to Fox News (according to the Fox News marketing narrative). First off, there’s a very real possibility that in the very near future, real Americans who hate the “MSM” may find it wearisome that Fox News continues to beat to death a horse that’s already dead. Besides Washington D.C., does anybody actually watch the MSM Boogieman? Why resurrect a boogieman that’s already dead? And granted, much of it is really an emotional marketing ploy on the part of Fox. You can’t have a good drama without a good villain. And let’s face it; traditional legacy media – with exceptions, mind you, is as good a villain as any. I mean heck, media has tanked the morality of this country. There are literally Americans who write death threats, to this day, of all the MSM stations and their affiliates, because, lacking in restraint though they are, they know the toxic nature of television. So there’s kind of a reactive element at work here; and you see it in the “breakfast” segments on Fox and Friends – like in the famed 70’s movie, network. And it’s effective, if only because every other network lies through its teeth so frequently and so blatantly, none the least of which is represented in the inane fumings of the Times TV blogger I opened with here. Which brings us to…

Fox Being Fox; Telling The Secrets Of The TV Trade

Attacking the rest of its industry – mind you for perfectly admirable purposes – is really in the Fox conglomerate’s blood. If there’s anything that Fox news knows how to do, it’s undermine its own industry. And I say most sincerely that I don’t believe that’s a bad thing, because I believe that media is, as President Trump asserts, the enemy of the people. And so there’s a very noble element in Fox undermining its own industry. But we must keep in mind, if we’re to analyze how Fox rose to the top of television news – and News Corp is well on its way in the print arena, if anybody cares – that Fox is simply being Fox, just like Trump is trump. And journalists, just like politicians, always find themselves on the losing end if they fail to “let fox be fox,” or let “Trump be Trump.” Like Trump, its personalities, while less “polished” in the traditional sense, are more real, more honest – or at least they appear so.

For the uninitiated, the Fox network, under much less noble pretense, broke the oligarchy of the big three by veering toward more sensational programming. Back in the day, there was NBC, CBS, and ABC; and before cable, Fox was that lone wolf, per se, that was willing to take its content a little more extreme than the rest to get the viewers, news-wise, drama-wise, and the like. And now, Fox News, of course, kind of being that rogue magician that goes out and tells the audience the secrets of the trade that make the old magic show completely worthless and a dead industry. Think about it; when was the last time adults went to a magic show in your personal experience? Fifty years ago?

Again, I think the audience wins when Fox reveals how the trick is done, because the show isn’t about bunny rabbits, it’s ultimately about the success and safety and sovereignty of the nation we live in. But again, here, I’m not looking to place blame or praise Fox News, I’m just helping you understand how Fox did it. And Fox has a long-standing legacy of that TV network that goes where the others don’t, and in the case of Fox News, it’s gone all out to sabotage its own industry, perhaps for the good of all Americans. I do think that’s to be praised.

Kind of an example, if you ever watch Fox and Friends specifically, are the open acknowledgements of the teleprompter – and all the networks do this now, but none so much as Fox. It is important to acknowledge that the “working set” is in style these days. But again, it’s important to remember that just like the so-called “social media,” the “working” in “working set” is just about as real as the “social” is in “social media.” Just as the so-called “social media” is still media; don’t you ever forget that a working set is still – a set. More to the point, the Fox and Friends set is quite an elaborate set. As a sidebar, does anybody know if The Gap is paying F&F? I suppose that when you’re in the position F&F is in, you don’t quibble over details like that. Did the Gap just get incredibly lucky? I do believe if The Gap survives, it will be because of F&F, as Amazon continues to kill retail.

A Star In A Flailing Industry

Saying Fox News has risen to the top of cable television is not quite like being America’s number one Horse and Buggy Producer. But it’s getting there. Television’s future is necessarily dismal, because the same technological “progress,” really the root of all “progressive” politics (and a malevolent one, I would add) which ultimately undid the telegraph, and then the paper, and as we speak television — television as we know it is on the way out.

When you’re on a sinking ship, you want to be on the top of that sinking ship. America appears to be slowly awakening to the delusion of its prolonged oversaturation of media products. Which is great for America – perhaps we’ll actually regain the intelligence and willpower, and virtues we once had – if we can overcome the anti-social media threats which are taking Television’s place, which is another discussion entirely.

Point is, and this also kind of carries the point about why Fox News may not want to attack the Mainstream Media so much these days – its important to remember that tech is killing television by drowning America in an overly abundant supply of mind-candy of all sorts through digital, new-media channels. There’s too much content, too much supply; and when you have too much supply of anything, value decreases.

Disney understands this threat, at least ephemerally; its scary technologies show that it is poised to use its brand leverage to, essentially, set the morally repugnant goal of becoming the number one producer of the cheap “feelies” Aldous Huxley warned us about in Brave New World. How? By investing in technology to speed self-destructive, imagination-hijacking mind-candy to Americans’ minds faster than anybody else, and more effectively. It all comes down the candy-crush skinner box. How do you provoke a reaction in your audience that keeps them “clicking,” or coming back over and over again for as much time as possible as frequently as possible. It’s very sad, what Disney is doing, its stories morally repugnant and anti-American. Walt Disney himself acknowledged that communists with anti-American sentiments had taken over his studio using the union system, fomenting discord and weakening the will to work hard and passionately. And that’s really what’s wrong with Hollywood, too. There’s no imagination left, no willpower, just programming.

Which is why, returning to the case of Fox News, it may be the long-term television success if only because it is resisting, as Fox News has from the beginning, the false technologically-deterministic-imposed narrative inherent in the media structure. When you run a television station, it’s much easier to program your audience profitably than to act in their best interests. That’s a fact.

But again, there is something real in Fox News, to the extent television can be real – and that is zilch – which, while it’s still television, I guess really, if you’re going to bet anything on television, since content is king, Fox News would seem to have some of the best content on the market, by the ratings, by moral standards. The most edifying content. The most distinguished, or distinctive content. There’s a lot of pandering to its conservative core; there’s major, major insults to morality which are a result of the same technologically-deterministic kinds of media forces which affect all media outlets.

I never really have considered television – and most of us who have worked in it and understand how news works – a generally reliable source of information. But if you must resort to television as a means of understanding the world around you – and even that, I caution against, because all television inevitably leaves you less informed in all the ways that matter – I suppose I’d have to recommend Fox News, as anti-Christian as it is, particularly in regard to the marriage issue.

Conclusion, and Recommendation To Fox News

It’s the best news television. But – of course, that’s not saying very much about the idiot box. To kind of put this in perspective as one of the many talking heads that Fox used to sell itself to advertisers – and really sell you, the viewer, to advertisers – Fox News has served, and is serving, a very useful and good public service purpose by undermining, as it were, the potentially single most toxic force in American public discourse, which is media, as President Trump has so eloquently tweeted. Now that Fox News has served that purpose of neutralizing the profiteers of the legacy “Mainstream Media,” or whatever CNN and the networks, and the AP are going by these days, it will be interesting how once Fox completes its damage of destroying the media villain Americans love to hate – I guess my prescription for Fox News would be that the next step is taking on the new manipulative Mainstream Media equivalent for millennials, which is the anti-social media which is convincing America that it is an unbiased source of information while it is anything but. The studies are out there that Google – the first place many Americans go (even at Fox News, presumably) for quick and dirty research – has some major liberal axes to grind with America, to the point of communist, anti-American ideals. I mean, Google is super-liberal. And they’re going to need a formidable enemy – one with just the very human element Fox News has managed to maintain with sheer perseverance, effort, and that underdog mentality which it maintains to this day, which has gotten it to where it is. Google believes in salvation through technology, whereas Fox, while it makes lipservice to God, believes in salvation through good-old-fashioned Hard Work, which is closer to the Protestant Work Ethic which got America to where it is today. And there’s something to be said for that. I do hope, and trust, that Fox News will never lose that human element, and will always “Try harder,” as Avis once advertised, in the human realm, and never trust an algorithm to do a man’s job.

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Don’t Negotiate With Media

Published on July 24, 2017
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You can’t negotiate with media personalities who hates you and everything you stand for – including the United States of America. It’s in the media’s financial interests for America to fail, and media generally hires people who serve those interests. Granted, there are media segments which compete by bucking the trend, like Fox News, but that is the exception, and even Fox is drifting left, having built a core audience on the heartland. Don’t negotiate with the media. Don’t allow them to use your image, as it only lends unscrupulous people credibility. Media needs you more than you need them. If anything, invest in a better communications effort straight to the intended end-recipient, with all the silly bells and whistles mainstream media uses; optics, professional “personalities,” except with real character. And clearly continue to communicate the nature of the media, which is, in economic sum, opposed to the interests of the United States.

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A Running List: Anti-Social Media’s Self-Serving Bias

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Constitutional Amendment Needed To Check “The Fourth Estate”

Published on July 30, 2016
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Some liberal journalist spoke once at Boston College on journalism’s ideal being to report current events in light of history.

But what happens when media interests are too close to history for the media, itself to report on history accurately?

And that’s the subject of this latest LinkedIn update-musing, my kind of thinking aloud, which, I think, is worthy of its own post.

America, when functioning at its very best, is a constitutional system of checks and balances. The Constitution viewed “the press” as something that needed to be guarded, but didn’t seem to anticipate its weight as a “Fourth Estate” of government, and now, this “Fourth Estate,” this fourth branch of government, seems to have unbalanced influence over the other three.

Below – the original musing that got me started on this line of thought – “J Alberto Leyes” on LinkedIn to credit for sharing the image above.

The Fourth Estate is going for the jugular of our very Constitution – the God who birthed all the rights contained within; even the Bill of Rights. I say, time for the Constitution to fight back.

Be blessed,

Peter

It appears “ironic” only to a nation that can’t speak English anymore and, so everything is “ironic” and “random,” rather than virgin and new. Russia invented film propaganda. The United States – mastered the art of this profound form of mind-control; used it to evangelize the virtues of purchasing Chevrolet‘s in the 1950s, when our nation began its slow, steady descent into hell. The exact opposite of Puritan production; value creation. We made a virtue of consumption; destruction. Deconstruction. And who gains from the liquidation of American society? The communist film/media industry. Ultimately – Russia.Report this

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Media Multiculturalism: Why The Media Hates Christians

Published on July 19, 2017
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Christians have produced endless documentaries and radio commentaries on the nonsensical logic of multiculturalism. All of us know – even the liberals who you ask to stop and think about it, as Ray Comfort, how R.C. Sproul, how Lee Strobel, and all the Christian media heavyweights have done – how ridiculous is the notion that, as I like to put it, somehow, All’AH and Jesus, and Buddha, and the others, are all somehow sitting up there above the clouds governing over their respective congregations here below?

We know that that cannot possibly be the case, because all of their teachings contradict each other, and if they’re all omniscient, omnipotent gods, as at least we Christians believe, then all of them can’t possibly be up there together. If they’re omniscient, then God’s writings would certainly know better; and if they’re omnipotent, I’m thinking there would be a kind of thunderbolt-fest, and the truly omnipotent would emerge. Christians, of course, know what happens when even an angel purports to be like God. God is not mocked, to put it lightly.

And yet, despite the silliness of this idea of them all having some kind of celestial pastor’s brunch up there together, God, and All’AH, and the Buddha – this is, essentially, what the typical American thinks is happening up there. Now, there are many reasons that the typical American believes this. On the one hand, media has imposed a kind of cloud of stupidity upon the American since the advent of print and broadcast. And with each new media technology, each American spends less and less time reading, and our vocabulary shrinks more and more, until the only field we are literate in is that of playing video games. Which is why there’s a whole niche market for training so stupefied millenials called “gamification of the workplace.” It’s a kind of Mary Poppins workplace ethic. If we can trick our employees into thinking they’re playing a game, they’ll be more productive. Perhaps you think that’s a great idea, but that is not the central point of this article, as I am not here to dwell upon the larger issue of the media’s stupefying effect on America, and its general poisoning the well of American wisdom. If you’re interested in that subject, you can read about it by clicking here.

As the secular media theorist Mr. Neil Postman wrote in his landmark work, Amusing Ourselves to Death, which the media, of course, has predictably attacked and censored almost as much as they have religion – Postman made it a point to explain that television’s ratings are dependent upon it attracting as many viewers as possible, and I would add, often when its viewership is at its most vulnerable and not all there intellectually. Such as, after a long day of work; or when we were little, and our parents needed a surrogate nanny – they’d flip the television on to keep us hypnotized for a while so we wouldn’t break anything. That goes double for the modern-day portable television, which is making the post-millennials autistic, where Sesame Street merely gave us millennials a touch of A.D.D., ADHD, or whatever it is the psychologists are calling it now. Shame they just couldn’t have told our parents that if they’d only train us up in the way we should go, when we’re old, we wouldn’t depart from it. So much easier to prescribe a pill to a child than to tell a father that he’s irresponsible, right? And so much more profitable!

In any event, television, and now the “smart television” or “smart phone,” what have you, is essentially a habit-forming skinner-box toy. What it essentially does is tricks our brains into thinking that life does not require effort in order for us to manifest our purpose. What has always passed as television drama, for instance, provides us a situation where – if we would only give the television thirty minutes of our time, we could vicariously solve all the world’s problems. In thirty minutes! And never-mind that we’d have to sit through a few commercials for soap, and juicy hamburgers sold by scary clowns. One of the best dramas of all was the nightly newscast, in which the protagonist, the news anchor, vicariously took us through a series of all the world’s most negative events, only to reward us with a light-hearted kicker story in the end, suggesting that humanity may not be so horrible after all. And all we have to do is watch.

The dramatic payoff, in the days of television, was our “reward,” in the Skinner-box sense, in the conditioning sense. Like Pavlov’s dog was rewarded for salivating, until the habit was formed. In fact, that’s exactly what television programmers, and now video-game programmers call the most important part of their job – habit-forming. Their goal is to get as many people to sit through as many hours of user engagement as possible on their device, or using their programs. I can’t tell you how many times in the last year I’ve seen a child of near-carriage-age being handed a phone in a crowded waiting area, staring blankly and pressing buttons on a machine, and I think to myself, wow, the technology has caused us to act more like rats than we realize. Payoff, reward. Press a button; hear the music, and see the visual on the phone. Could be a picture of your friend; could be an animated avatar; could be a text message — heck, it could even be a Bible verse. Doesn’t matter; the basic idea is the same: stimulus, reward. Hear the bell, salivate. It’s dehumanizing; but it’s how the media has always made its money.

How is this directly connected with the new American multitheism pastors have observed, and argued against, and argued against, and argued against again, and produced expensive videos, like The Case For Faith trying to combat? Well, very simple. Video production is expensive. And so in order to produce the very best video (including film, video games, marketing icons, etc) possible – to compel the largest audience to watch and recuperate production costs plus also generate a tidy profit – the objective of any programmer, or acquisition producer, is to create a product which appeals to the widest audience possible.

It’s that deviously easy-to-achieve mass-appeal bottom line which, at least in the beginning, really began to force the “fake” into the “fake news.” CBS and ABC and NBC realized they could make even more money by not mentioning Jesus, or God, or church. That way, a story about how faith in Christ saved a man’s life became a more “humanitarian” story about a man who believed in himself; a more “universally applicable,” more “user friendly” story about the indomitable and inspirational resilience of mankind. And we’ve only gone downhill from there. Today, of course, the media is afraid to call even recent terrorist attacks terrorist attacks. And why? Because the media is a business with a bottom line. And its “habit-forming” programmers – under the guise of self-serving moral “principles” which are really mere self-serving justifications for what all of us once understood is inherently unconscionable –

The media has created a whole new multitheism which – though they’d never admit such – is principally aimed at retaining the largest “share” or “rating” of its audience that it can possibly obtain. It’s not enough to have the Christian viewer anymore. They can only make one big-budget soap opera (which, Christians shouldn’t be watching, but nevertheless). Or one expensive modern doctor drama (we use “drama lightly- but remember, it is television). And so by omitting all the references to church – at least all the ones that accurately reflect Our Creator in all his goodness – the networks, and other producers – including the Christian ones – realized that they could keep all those weaker-faithed Christians, and also keep their Jewish viewers, and the Muslim viewers. And the homosexual viewers. And the viewers who think it’s perfectly okay to marry their cat. Doesn’t matter! That cat-lover buys kitty litter! And kitty litter can be sold during the commercials.

I am trying to keep my articles a little more simpler and focused, and that just about sums up the origins of American Multitheism or Multiculturalism as we know it today. There’s lots more to be said, and if you’d like to to take a crack at answering any further sincere questions you may have, feel free to leave a comment below, and I will do my utmost to oblige.

If you liked this, here are some related articles you may find interesting:

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Media Multiculturalism: Why The Media Hates Christians

Published on July 19, 2017
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Housekeeping note: Just a friendly reminder to always correctly attribute quotes and original ideas from your favorite Peter Vadala articles. Thanks so much.

If you liked this, here are some related articles you may find interesting:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/medium-message-heres-peter-vadala

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/us-medias-partnership-terror-peter-vadalaReport this

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When Television Turns Church into Slothful, Homosexual Gathering Places

Published on July 16, 2017
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Please don’t steal content. You may borrow original ideas and short quotations without the author’s written permission so long as you attribute them to “Peter Vadala.” Thanks for understanding.

How is television running God’s church? I mean, we could go for the most obvious examples. We all know how much the Bible recommends that women should lead the men of their churches and country. Of course, the Bible recommends no such thing; just the opposite. That’s one television value (or lack of values) that has imposed itself on theology, such that pastors twist, and bend the Bible so much in the realm of marriage and gender relations that if you want to see immodesty, you have only to look at your “Worship Leader” in Sunday service. And the cross? Nowhere to be found in the church, which looks more like a gym than a sacred gathering space.

Here’s a realm that we don’t think about so much, amid the craziness of the homosexual usurpation of moral authority from pastors.

Homosexuality may be among God’s most hated sins, and one of the worst afflicting America today. But we mustn’t forget that it’s only one of many vices the Bible speaks of. And it starts with that, seeds of temptation, planted by not just television but many media.

Sloth is a sin that it would seem that our warped modern theology is making invisible, which makes it all the more corrosive to any kind of productive life. How? Well, you’re no doubt familiar with the way that Darwin’s theory of evolution has been misapplied by poets, theorist, and others without a scientific bone in their body to explain conjured social phenomena, such as “survival of the fittest” as a virtue.

Well, there’s such an emphasis, particularly within my faith of orthodox, Biblical Christianity, upon salvation based on faith alone – that pastors have perhaps been a little bit too adamant about making it a point to say that works don’t matter.

Now, would any pastor in his right Biblical mind suggest that faith without works isn’t dead (pardon the double-negative)? No. But new believers come into the church, and they hear that they don’t have to do anything to earn their salvation —

And somehow, I guess I just don’t think that the very last thing millennials need is to be watching male “worship leaders” prance around the altar in tight-fitting jeggings – and on top of it all, millennials, of course, don’t need to ever, ever be told “they don’t have to do anything to earn…” because millennials just aren’t smart enough to understand that that only applies to salvation. That may sound funny, but there’s a very real way that the very protestant work ethic which is good, and noble, and true, and which God used to build this blessed land – is being killed off by whom else, but people claiming to be good Born-again Christians.

Sure, Jesus is our Lord and Savior, but – particularly considering the parable of the talents – I mean, millennials need to be told that they ought to do something. Anything at all, millennials. No, really. Anything. You can start any time, now…

But the “churches,” like television, are more concerned with feeding their congregations feminized comfort food and rock concerts which pervert the mind. I’m done for now. Maybe I still have a chance to be Amish yet.Report this

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“I refuse to be your fake news.”

Published on June 30, 2017
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They’re everywhere. Sabotaging your business. Trying to make an emotional case for government bureaucracy to force you to hire people you don’t want to hire and destroy your company’s bottom line for the sole reason that it makes for good television, good radio, good “social.”(a misnomer)

So what do you tell those pesky reporters with nothing better to do than stick a microphone in your face and stand in moral judgement over you and wait to turn you into the punchline of their log line?

Simple. Just tell them that you refuse to be their fake news.

The way that they use you as a catalyst for selling “customers” to their advertisers (their audience) is by making you their spectacle. And while sometimes you may think it’s a good idea to get your company’s name out there, ultimately, millennials don’t trust reporters; especially on television and digital television. So don’t lower yourself; don’t denigrate your brand; your town; your school; yourself or your associates by dignifying people with no moral authority or expertise to comment about anything.

When the nosy entertainment reporters (which is most reporters) ask you questions, know that they’re just trying to sell ads. And usually – unless you’re the kicker story about a beached whale or a cat saved from the tree – you’re going to be the punchline.

So when the reporters ask you for a comment, simply hang up. If you’re of the more polite sort, simply explain, “I refuse to be your fake news.”

I almost feel silly saying this, because it’s so simple, but if you’re one of those people who obsessively consumes media, sometimes you’re prone to forget it yourself. But the truth is, they need you more than you need them. By “they,” I mean reporters. Why?

Simple economics. See, you run a legit business that makes things that people actually use. You heal people and save lives; or maybe you protect people; or maybe you sell durable goods. Maybe you sell food people need to survive. Fake news reporters don’t produce anything, 99% of the time. Instead, fake news reporters capture people’s attention for the purpose of focusing that attention on all the negative things in life, which in turn makes both their audiences and you less productive. You because your legit business is reduced to a mere pawn in a fake news reporter’s story, and the audience because 99% of stories are about things that really have no bearing or relevance to the audience but that make for good drama. In other words, most reporters “produce” nothing – unless you count lots of stress for both the customers (audience) they’re selling to advertisers, and the oversimplified one liners (you) they’re leveraging to pull off that sale. So do America a favor. Don’t play the reporters’ game, unless you know that they are 100% moral, Christian people. Again, in pure macroeconomic terms, fake news reporters depend upon your being an object of their usually warped view of the world in story form in order to eat. But you don’t need them, because you’re actually doing something useful. Perhaps, someday, if you refuse to feed the fake news reporters, perhaps they’ll go away and do something useful. Like sell something people actually need. In the meantime, again, simply politely decline to comment, or tell them, “I refuse to be your fake news.” Just remember; fake news reporters need you more than you need them.Report this

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The Myth of “Cultural Appropriation” Explained

Published on June 25, 2017
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Many legacy-media personalities have spouted heavy-handed remarks regarding the evils of “Cultural Appropriation.”

Disney apparently crossed its own morality system when it sold Hawaiian-skin-colored suits as Halloween costumes last year tied into an attempt to make Disney princesses more diverse. Hispanic restaurants have been shut down in Portland for adapting recipes to suit Oregon’s ecclectic hipster tastes. Where would America be without Chinese food, or 24-hour pizza delivery? But those developments came out of an America that, ironically, was okay with innovation, with re-invention. Heck, America itself started as a colony of Great Britain, but even there, we adapted our system of represenative government, improved upon it, made it better. That’s why we live in a democratic republic and not an empire of King George XXXI.

The thing you have to understand about the folks who dream up the freaky terms in the AP style book, people who aren’t in touch with common Americans, and people who make a living snitching on others because, well, they probably didn’t have great role models – is that millennials, and particularly post-millennials are getting wise to the game, and quickly. Millennials don’t trust media for that very reason. The world of television is just so foreign to us; and we would embrace it if it had some deeper moral authority, but that lack of moral authority which has really been the principle cause of legacy news’ unraveling over the past half century is finally coming to a sad, Pelosi-like train crash. Kind of like the shopping mall, or the video rental store.

Some of the terms that media talking heads have imposed upon us, put in our living rooms – many of which you no doubt have been scared into believing are virtuous, I will not hasten to add here, for fear of getting too far off the topic. But Cultural Appropriation is a biggie, and among the latest. (“Bullying” within the context of anything besides a playground would be another.)

The fact is that media itself impersonates authority. As I’ve written about previously, media is a world that is predicated upon a presumption of trust, a trust which has never really been a priority for news makers.

The original American Newsmen were the pastors. Pastors were the anchormen of the colonial days. They may not, perhaps, have spoken the latest bytes with the ease of the lipsticked-reporter man reading off a Tele-Prompter, but they had something even more important than a smooth delivery. They had truth on their side, and moral credibility. See, I can tell you with authority, having worked in “news,” that there is no division between the sales side of a news outlet and the news department. If that is a foreign concept to you, just think about it like this.

The sad fact about human nature is that we’re drawn to drama on television. If it bleeds, it leads, as the adage goes. Maybe you’ve heard of “yellow journalism.” Heck, the news terminology conjures up a picture of a deathly wound leaking with puss.

It’s really a sordid history, going all the way back to Benjamin Franklin, this idea of “news” and even opinion grounded in anything but the Word of God which our Founders (of America) knew so well, if their M-Divs were any indication. (That’s a “Masters in Divinity” for you talking heads).

I don’t know if you can call it progress, because digital threatens to be the next iron curtain coming down on faith and coming down on society as a whole; but basically, what millennials can see that the TV-bludgeoned generation, the TV-bludgeoned Supreme Court, with its anti-Biblical TV anti-values from the vast wasteland of hell that television is and has wreaked on America –

Is really an appropriation of life itself. So what does any of this have to do with cultural appropriation?

Well, it’s simple. And if you need help understanding this better, need clarification, shoot me a message; I’m trying to be brief and just cover the basics. But long story short, is that the myth of cultural appropriation is based on a series of euphemisms and fallacies, many of which are, due to media bludgeoning, highly “Politically incorrect” -at least among the boomers.

To put it in a more terse light, the very folks at CNN and all your vast-wasteland network news sources — including their comedy divisions –

The very do-good talking heads that fling accusations of this new mythic sin they’ve conjured up – in what moral basis nobody knows – this mythical sin of “cultural appropriation,” which, coincidentally is the engine of American progress and of our very Constitution itself (as noted re. bicameral representative gov’t) –

What these word-smiths who come up with these strange, mythical sins, like “fat shaming” and “cultural appropriation” are really doing, is they are appropriating, or attempting moral authority. And they use the media to do it. They don’t comment or deliver our “News” on the basis that they are qualified to do so, but rather on the basis of their ability to read off a teleprompter and are skilled in the art of extracting the most advertising dollars from their audience.

In other words, those who accuse us innovators of “appropriating” culture are actually appropriating morality themselves. Appropriating integrity. Why? Because they don’t have integrity of their own. So they try to copy as best as possible those who have it. And their best attempts to far, these folks at the AP, has been to come up with false scapegoats, as all Pagan cultures have. What are their scapegoats, the media’s scapegoats? Well, non-coincidentally, you can be sure, the very things which are a competitive threat to their existence. Mainly, religion, church life, society, and family values. And especially patriotism. Why? Well, because a contented, Godly, patriotic American has no time for such nonsense as watching videos of car crashes and other random negativity dumped in their living rooms every day.

I do believe Journalism’s only hope- like the lot of most industries, therefore, really lies in accepting Christ. Because when you face the demons that allow you to live with integrity, report with integrity, based on a foundation of moral authority – then you might regain some of that credibility with your audience.

Or you’ll quit and become a pastor.

Either way, I just have to urge my colleagues in the good old Bible belt to stop ripping off the AP wire. Because it’s just so false. The AP, the Associated Press is so deceptive. So very deceptive. If you’re doing you job, you’ll read the AP Wire with extreme scrutiny, if at all. Especially if the stories originated in the North East, California, or other places where stockholder and market bias is going to skew things toward that media gospel of technological determinism and away from faith in God and in oneself.

And so I guess that would be my solution to all the journalists keeping up with my posts on how to really reconcile your desire to be honest as a journalist – and I know you’re out there, though you’re few and far between – and to survive in the industry. It’s easier down South, but not impossible in the top markets. You can do it!

I think that’s really your prescription for saving your hide in an anti-journalist age. Your integrity, your credibility is all you have as a journalist. And Journalists have proven ourselves liars time and time again.

So – just don’t lie. Be less of an entertainer and more of a truth-teller. And I think millennials and post-mil’s will appreciate that. It won’t be easy – you’re working agains the long entrenched dying cash cow of the Associated Press, which is going the way of Pelosi – but hang in there, and with the right entrepreneurial spirit you can still keep your journalism job in an industry which hates the truth – and tell the truth as you’ve always really wanted to.

Because the truth is – the market is showing that it doesn’t like the lies it’s been getting. If you tell the truth 50% of the time, heck, you’ve already got a competitive advantage over most of the legacy outlets out there today.

Oh, and nix the term “cultural appropriation” from your on-air stylebook.Report this

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"Fox News Is Not Christian News" During Homosexual Pride Propaganda Week In United States, 2017 (6/6/2017) — “Fox News Is Not Christian News” During Homosexual Pride Propaganda Week In United States, 2017 (6/6/2017)

US Media’s Partnership With Terror

Published on June 7, 2017
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Just revisited an old quote that was used by those connected with the illegal Orlando attacks.

ISIS has a highly divisive PR strategy which plays to secular, anti-Christian media’s propensity to demonize Christians.

Most notable in the Orlando attacks’ verbiage – masterfully deceptive PR, may I regretfully add, regards the dangers of a liberal, “secular” society.

Christians – real Christians, are, of course, opposed to the secularization of society, which is the root cause of all the violence that we see these days, which Christians, of course, find terrible and condemn.

Christians go about evangelism the way Jesus did – sacrificing self for the good of all else. Jesus condemned Peter for cutting off the enemy’s ear.

That said, the message of condemning secular culture, of condemning pornography, of condemning adultery, is primarily a Christian one.

Basically, Christians understand that evil means do not justify good ends. Christians go about things in a Christian nation – and America is only America to the extent that it is Christian; we have Christianity to thank for every last blessing and our stance as the world leader —

Christians obey the law except where the law compels Christians to betray the faith. But in Christianity, nobody can ever accuse Jesus of harming anyone (including himself) in order to spread the Gospel. He sacrifices himself for us, or rather allows Himself to be defiled by our sin that we may be better off for it. This example stands in stark contrast to Islam, whose book fundamentally allows a rather strong case for brute force ahead of Christlike strength, which is, I would suggest, a stronger, silent type – but never reckless unlawful violence as we’ve seen from terrorists.

While it does seem to put this Christian nation to shame that we indulge in the very things that God abhors – homosexuality; prostitution; theft, pornography; and a general lack of work ethic and extremely abhorrent moral standards leading children, lately, to shoot both each other and themselves — something new to this era (which many millennials forget, that it used to be better when we prayed in schools) —

In this case, of course the Christian of the Christian nation of the United States Of America condemns the illegal, extralawful (meaning outside the legal enforcement methods) violence, on the one hand because it’s a false gospel – which is of immense importance to the Christian. Heresy is a big deal indeed to those who are wise, idolatry. Christians condemn the terrorist attacks. Even if we, as Christians, understand that – perhaps these evil terrorists wouldn’t be attacking us if we got our moral house in order – if we ousted the homosexuality through lawful, just means. And let’s face it. The very things that ISIS is blaming us for – in ISIS’s highly divisive and manipulative methods – are things that we Christians also hate, because God hates them. I’m talking about the behaviors of, the vices of, homosexuality, adultery, etc. There was a time when this Christian nation understood the threat of divorce and dealt with it adequately; and we have fallen; we have sinned, and are sinning. And this Christian calls upon the rest of America to stop. This Christian is repulsed by these sins. However, this Christian understands that the Christian way to restore order, justice, and sexual morality in this Christian nation is within the law rather than outside of it.

The secular media’s gospel has always been, and continues to be that all religions are evil. Why? Because religion is a direct competitor to the media’s profit margins. Media sells salvation through advertised products; and God is a competitor to that salesmanship.

I call upon the media – including the pro-homosexual Fox News – to stop playing into the FALSE ISIS NARRATIVE, the FALSE TERRORIST NARRATIVE, that all religions are equal; that the god of ISIS is the same as the one true God who gave all of you here in America everything that you have.

I call on the media to recognize that; despite the rather smooth narrative tactics, that the name of Jesus is not to be dragged through the mud. Christians don’t blow up buildings, however Christians do stand firmly against homosexuality, secularization of culture, and the like. Christians believe in a RELIGIOUS, non-secular public school system where children are taught spelling by way of Bible lessons. That’s how all the great American minds came to be; and that’s how more will come to be. Christians condemn homosexuality, transsexuality, and the like as behaviors.

That said, Christians go about enforcing the American way, the Christian way, through lawful means, because it is good and true and right.

I ask the media to please stop partnering with ISIS by besmirching Christianity, by allowing ISIS propaganda to draw a very false comparison between Christianity and Islam. There is no comparison. Fox News did it today, repeating ISIS’s anti-secular propaganda language, related to the Orlando shooter.

Truth is, Fundamentalist Christians don’t go on killing rampages, because that’s not evangelization. The comparison to violent Islamist terrorists couldn’t be starker; violent Islamist terrorists who are fundamentalists – that is- Islamists who believe in the fundamentals of the Koran – find ample, fundamental support for their violence in the Koran. But as CS Lewis observed, Islam has always been a cult of Christianity, and it must be called out for what it is. A violent cult of the right and true, American religion of Christ-followers.

To sum: Christianity good. Islamist Terrorism evil. We both recognize certain evils – like a secular society without morals, like all of us recognize the evil of murder, because it’s obvious to anyone paying attention to religion at all, but the comparison – which ISIS is eager to use as a jumping off point – stops there. ISIS uses violence outside the law where Christians submit themselves to the law, except conflict of conscience within a very specific American tradition, like being a conscientious objector, or civilly disobedient, with the emphasis on civil.

Media, stop playing into terrorist’s divisive PR effort. Protect your nation. Do not play into their hands. Stop serving as the terrorists’ PR agency, by repeating their quotes which purport a false connection with innocent, fundamentalist, lawful Christians. Because it’s making this Christian sick; and of course I say that proverbially. It puts media on the level of terrorists; as if media is not doing enough to make terrorism famous. Thanks, by the way, for etching the image of two burning towers into the minds of all Americans, and making us all the more fearful on the evil Islamic/Islamist terrorists’ behalf for it.(sarcasm)

And if there’s any mistake in reading the intent of this note, it is to reveal the dangerous, subtle partnership in which media and Islamic/Islamist terrorists come together to scare the American people; the media with the motive of keeping the ratings high, and the terrorists with the goal of creating terror.

This is one Christians’s peaceful plea to the media to stop aiding and abetting terrorists by doing their dirty work – terrorizing all of us. It’s inexcusable, and proves our good president Donald Trump’s assertion that the media is indeed one of the most formidable enemies of the American people. Knock it off. We know what you’re doing, media, and it will not be tolerated much longer by those lawfully able to hold you accountable. When media poses a threat to national security, the president can shut you down. And I believe he may do just that, if you folks in the media continue aiding and abetting the terrorist’s mission of instilling fear in the American people.

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The Infotainment Media Should Be Intimidated

Published on March 8, 2017
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Well, perhaps intimidated is the wrong word. But then again, it came straight out of the liberal media’s mouth, and we all know that the liberal media has a tendency for truth-twisting.

“Guilty” is a more accurate word. You know, the very worst criminals all do have a conscience of one sort or another, and media truth-twisters are no different.

Andrew Lack’s protests against Donald Trump’s acknowledging the media-imposed culture war on America indicate that he is intimidated, as well he should be, as well all the entertainment news media ought to be.

Andrew Lack shouldn’t be intimidated by Donald Trump, though. Neither ought the media be intimidated by the death threats that daily plague any entertainment news man worth his salt. No, these are all the wrong reasons to feel “intimidated.”

Andrew Lack, and all the television entertainment news media – not to mention those folks at Google who likewise use technology to blot faith, the enemy of profits, from its record of daily events –

Yes, all electronic media truth-twisters ought not be intimidated by those that they have hurt, and are hurting, in the Greatest Nation on Earth.

Andrew Lack and the liberal media ought to be intimidated by their own lack of integrity; trading in negativity, of evil, of amplifying and imposing death, destruction, divorce, homosexuality, and terrorism where there wasn’t any. For making the name of “Allah” infamous from blessed sea to shining sea.

Andrew Lack, you, and NBC, and CBS, and ABC, and the Washington post need not fear those who acknowledge the liberal media’s history of seditious, dark, fear-mongering behavior which leads legions of Americans to lethargy, broken marriages, and utter self-destruction.

You ought to be “intimidated” by a lifetime of destroying your neighbor through hateful, divisive language, and making an ideological war on this blessed, Godly, exceptional nation whose virtues you clearly hate, as you are led to by your sick love affair with the dollars that flow from your evils.

Andrew Lack, and the rest of you infotainment media producers and advertisers, as well as you folks at Google, the only thing you have to fear is the gnawing cries of your own conscious, as you’ve made dirty dollar after dirty dollar at the expense of your American neighbor.

Don’t blame Donald Trump for your war on America. Blame yourself, and do something useful with your life; I’m not saying you have to mine coal, but repent, and use your talents for good, that you may one day be told by our Heavenly Father, “Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant.”

Repent, and let the truth set you free, or you do have rather real and pertinent cause to be intimidated, but only that kind of intimidation which comes from within, from knowing that you’ve lived a lie and have chosen day-in, day-out, to choose evil over good to the very end. And that is not a kind of intimidation I wish upon any American.Report this

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A Call For Responsible Reporting Of Violence In The News Industry

Published on September 18, 2016
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The process of electronically “reporting” – including making a deliberately prolonged, nationally accessible and continuous television program of – unjustified violence via electronic or electronically-sourced photo-journalistic media (like wire services) artificially and unnecessarily amplifies cowardice which warrants no attention beyond those with a material interest or physical presence in the local community affected. Unless it is the broadcast&cable news industry’s intention to help perpetuate the continued trend of violence in America for the sake of continued commercial gain, I strongly recommend that news outlets change their policies immediately away from the current standard industry practice of airing each local community’s smoldering laundry in vivid high definition for the nation and the world to gawk at; toward, instead, limiting coverage of said tragedies to 1)designated religious, governmental, and other capable responders, both locally and nationally; and 2) members of the affected community and those who may be at risk of entering the affected locale. The process of instantaneously reproducing and thereby idolizing/immortalizing macabre imagery with the implication of unnecessary, unactionable alarm is, in pictures, not all that different from yelling “fire” in a crowded theater and thus is, perhaps, an affront to the First Amendment rather than an exercise thereof. If news outlets are compelled to ignore this advice in order to share the very worst American misery with the entire nation, it is my alternative recommendation that such coverage of cowardly acts of violence be limited to print or electronic print (i.e. no pictures) beyond the publics designated above so as to avoid short-circuiting the conscious sensibilities and interpersonal discretion channels of the American citizenry via images intended to irresponsibly trigger knee-jerk reactions and prolong the journalism industry’s long legacy of potentially unjustifiable and largely unactionable fearmongering, which walks a delicate line in regard to potentially helping the cowardly, anti-American suspects accomplish what they set out to do.

I encourage all broadcast journalists and students to read Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death to better understand the nature of the electronic journalism industry.

Thanks for aspiring to responsibly use the very powerful electronic communication media tools at our disposal.Report this

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Add a comment…Images Stephen C. Murphy 1st degree connection1stSeminarian and religious 1st professed with Marian Fathers3y

I agree with you wholeheartedly Peter. I do think the media is to blame for much of the problems in our society including the perpetuation of violence most recently seen in the Black Lives Matter movement and these violent attacks against police across our nation. This is one of the reasons I simply don’t watch cable news too often anymore.LikeLike Stephen C. Murphy’s commentReply2 Replies2 Replies on Stephen C. Murphy’s comment Peter Vadala YouLibrettist-Composer3y

Thanks, brother. Keep those women safe at Target, Steve.LikeLike Peter Vadala’s commentReply1 Like1 Like on Peter Vadala’s comment Stephen C. Murphy 1st degree connection1stSeminarian and religious 1st professed with Marian Fathers3y

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Will Truth Solve Legacy News Media’s Existential Crisis?

Published on December 10, 2016
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I was surprised to find that a Fox News Anchor is now a guest columnist on World Net Daily.

That’s because Middle America; the South, the Beltway – basically everything besides Massachusetts, California, and New York– still believes in Jesus Christ.

This poses a kind of dilemma to news industry conventional wisdom, but the answer is common sense to the rest of us.

Most of the major news outlets create content with elitist bureaucrat types, and other news industry talking heads in mind. Implicit in this is a rejection of the faith that birthed America, which is, of course, Christianity.

Even some of the most well-meaning news anchors are running scared. I noticed a post on LinkedIn recently from a Texas NBC-Universal affiliate reporter – or was it Alabama or Nebraska? One of “those states” – is how they think at the networks. The flyovers. The Middle. And the reporter was complaining that even PR people weren’t returning her calls. And she couldn’t figure out why.

Millions of Americans do read stories of Facebook, but even more are regularly reading One News Now, and World Net Daily. One News Now, by the way, owned by American Family Association, which has, throughout much of broadcast’s history, been one of the top radio station owners in all those places the city-serving networks don’t care about. And up until now, the city-serving networks have been able to get by with the strategy of ignoring Christ; censoring Christianity out of all news and entertainment content, with rare exceptions. Essentially, the city-serving networks, in an effort to reach the widest audience, have thought they could get away with, thought they could survive by, creating content that ignores Christianity in order to win over a few marginal audiences in metro areas that provide enough technological, metropolitan distractions from life’s greater questions.

But the rouse is getting old; fear-mongering and, essentially, the great naturalistic technologically determined profitability media myth that replaces faith with the commercial value of – get this – faith in technology – be that existing in a shiny new car, a new computerized gizmo, or even more media – like so-called “social media.” You know, the kind of mentality and mythology that have strangely turned cities into dangerous places where neighbors don’t trust each other, in comparison with America past, where neighbors left their doors unlocked – a practice which is still alive and well in Farm Country. The Flyovers. The middle.

As we see more and more ruthless desperation on the part of news professionals with the same cynical kind of mentality toward life – the kind that sells advertising by removing faith from the equation — the kind that replaces faith with products, and push-button distractions from life’s real concerns —

So-called citizen media, long in development, and having thrived in the Obama era as a refuge from state-controlled media – even the leading Fox News included in that bunch – for committed truth-seekers.

While Christians, naturally, lead the pack of citizen journalists, you also have that other component of libertarians and tea party types which are critical to every Republican presidential win. And you have the Alex Joneses, and InfoWars types.

And since trust in media, long on a steady decline reflected in diminishing profitability from the legacy networks – is now taking a steep nose-dive –

I would expect to see more partnerships like the one I happened to observe from the Fox News anchor working as a guest columnist with One News Now.

Why? Well, simply, because the execs running the networks know they need to appeal to the greatest crowds possible, and they know that their audience is getting grayer and grayer, and that there won’t be an audience unless something changes.

It’s not that they’re interested in the truth; they’re interested in selling advertising. The Washington Post has already been attacking citizen journalism. I think we can expect to see more of this emerging as the kicking and streaming legacy media outlets start to feel the pinch like never before from audiences that have decided they’re just not going to put up with the lies anymore.

The legacy media outlets are going to start looking to the real truth-tellers in the Christian and Citizen Journalism world, which may not always be as polished, but like Trump, hit home with the majority of Americans like they’re not doing.

And the news execs might just realize in the process that telling the truth isn’t such a bad business bet, either. Networks are large companies. It will take a while for them to get there, but I think they will.

It’s not like they have many other options at this point – other than the cheap attacks on good old American Christian values, which – let’s face it – they really don’t have much good faith from their audiences in perpetuating.Report this

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Microsoft-LinkedIn Silences Insurance Agent

Published on October 2, 2016
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I know what you’re thinking. An insurance agent who cares about things. Gets passionate about things. A real world Mr. Incredible.

I’m just getting word that Microsoft’s LinkedIn has censored Insurance Agent and citizen advocate of values Mr. Ryan Messano.

Censorship of ideologies which challenge the interests of Microsoft’s new social network acquisition are suspected to be a factor.Report this

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Add a comment…Images Patrick P. Stafford 1st degree connection1stFilm/Book Writer, Marketing Guru, Journalist, Editor, Blogger, Copywriter and Poet3y

When do the book burnings begin? LikeLike Patrick P. Stafford’s commentReply1 Reply1 Comment on Patrick P. Stafford’s comment Peter Vadala YouLibrettist-Composer3y

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Maine Gov. LePage Calls Out Media Shenanigans

Published on September 1, 2016
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I don’t read the paper much any more; let’s face it. Whose time is it really worth?

Not the Governor of Maine’s. That’s for sure.

I don’t pretend to understand the issue, or how it’s been framed, but I want to just use this as that elusive “teachable moment.”

The governor said he doesn’t wish to talk to the media anymore, vows he won’t. And what does the media do? Well, just like that annoying five year old, they parrot what he’s saying. You know what I mean. You tell a five-year-old, “pick up the crayons.” And the five-year-old just stares blankly, and responds, “pick up the crayons.”

And somehow, we’ve allowed the media to get away with using this weird infantile tactic under the pretense of “reporting objectively.”

I’ve been saying ever since Brookstone that no good can really come from a wise person talking to the media. Media always has a way of co-opting the truth for its own divisive ends.

Governor LePage does have a spine. He’s not playing into the media’s dog and pony show. I don’t know who he is; I don’t follow Maine politics. But as a native New Englander, I think it’s fish-stick-tastic to see someone who understands what the media really is – an incessant, relentless five-year-old who sucks the life out of adults trying to do real things and live in the real world. And, up until recent history, got away with it because it had some really cool technological toys the rest of us didn’t.

Thanks for standing up to the media naggers, LePage. Makes me happy to be a native New Englander.

You’re not going to talk to reporters any more, Governor? You’d think wise people might have learned their lesson sooner rather than come back time and time again, when you know the photojournalism industry and its derivatives stand against wisdom and firmly for all things sensational and entertaining at the expense of value creation and quality of life.

I’m not even going to link to a story. Not worth it. And again- as a disclaimer, I haven’t been following any of this, just saw the headline. And it made me smile. I should hope wise people accomplishing things take note – the media is your enemy. If there’s no drama, there’s no story. And if there’s no evil, or perceived or real – there’s no story and no audience. Is how it works.Report this

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My Christian Storytelling Agenda: The Myth Of Unbiased Storytelling

Published on August 9, 2016
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Everybody who writes has a purpose in doing so. If we didn’t, our writing would be utterly boring.

In Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves To Death, he talks about how technology has shaped education. Instead of asking ourselves, how can we use technology to better educate students, the question, after all the bills are paid, and there needs to be an ROI, quickly becomes, if unintentionally, “Now that we’ve got all this technology, what kind of ‘education’ can we use it for?”

And the same can be said – must be said for all network and cable television programming. This is a danger that applies specifically to television, but in the case of a large brand name, it can also be applied to feature releases as well.

Aaron Sorkin, like many fiction writers, many of whose time can be purchased on eLance, claims that he does not approach his scripts like Newsroom with an ideological bent.

And if you’re a writer or producer, you may accuse me of stating the most blatantly obvious here.

I use Sorkin’s Newsroom as an example specifically because if it doesn’t ram you over the head with the fact that the people he writes about have a clear political ideology, a clear moral and philosophical thesis that he’s attempting to develop – which is probably why he understands the real-world newsroom so well –

Well, again, no use stating the obvious.

There’s a certain mystery, both in romance and writing – and I think that all fiction writing is essentially romantic. I don’t have any proof of that, but I’d say that the best is. And what we really desire when we approach a work of art is, as Bo Burnham gets at in his act, “Make Happy,” answers. That’s really at the heart of what drives us to keep watching the main character. We want to empathize with the character, and that’s, unfortunately, where we intentionally submit ourselves to the manipulation of the writer, of the director. And unfortunately, if we’re not careful, we can find ourselves empathizing with, desiring the vindication of, a most immoral, anti-moral, evil kind of character. This, exactly the adverse societal effect that the Hayes Code sought to limit.

I don’t want to spend lots of time here, but I guess the main takeaway – and perhaps the reason that art, that movies, that television are not what they used to be, is the same reason that the business world, that every other profession is warped in its own way. And that is, simply, that –

It’s dangerous, as men, to delude ourselves. I mean, it’s dangerous for women as well, but it’s particularly dangerous when we, as leaders of women in our lives, who look to us for direction, along with children –

It’s tremendously dangerous when we begin to fall for the highly commercially profitable lie that the stories that we allow into our living rooms, into our minds’ eyes, have no meaning.

The late, great Blake Snyder would tell you that all good stories hinge upon a great thesis. Again, it’s why we inexplicably walk away from a dramatic work with the feeling that we’ve accomplished something great just by sitting in a dark theater and eating popcorn. Really, what it is, is the feeling that a great movie has contributed something to our lives, given us some kind of useful intuition we didn’t have when we walked in.

Now, whether that’s actually true or not is different from how we may or may not have been manipulated to feel while watching the picture, or otherwise engaging in the news entertainment process.

I think the darkest truth of all cinema is that if we’re walking away from it feeling completely energized, completely entertained, there’s very little chance that it’s actually been useful to us. I think it really does take a skilled writer to put together a long-form piece that is as equally entertaining and useful practically. I suppose it’s possible, and I believe it’s what we all strive for.

Even Sorkin says that the personalities, the motivations of his characters really rely upon ideals. Ideals I would strongly suggest he doesn’t believe in, because he considers the characters in his stories to have ideals, and motivations, and drives – and he thinks all screenwriters aiming to be successful at the craft should aim to write characters who are unrealistically idealistic.

I have to take that thought a step further and say that he views his craft merely as a form of entertainment. And so the people he writes, by extension of his expressed point of view above, are intended to really shame us into thinking that we could never be as good, as idealistic, as they are. And that’s what keeps us returning again and again, kind of jumping for a brass ring that’s 20 feet over our heads.

Now. You know where this is going. God’s ways are higher than our ways. So infinitely higher, we could never achieve them. And I’m actually kind of changing the course here, in the way of writing honestly, from what I set out to do. This whole process of reflecting on Sorkin is really pushing me to consider what it means to kind of be a pastor-writer. Because Sorkin has a purpose, like us Christian writers.

It’s a lie, perhaps once a very white lie, a romantic lie, but a lie nonetheless, to suggest that someone devoting his craft, agonizing over dialogue and plot, to suggest that he doesn’t give a fudge about – essentially – the moral engine driving his characters forward. And maybe, it’s that very indecisiveness, which characterizes both the homosexual and the writer, by the way – which makes a good romantic writer. And that, by the way, is a fault of the author. Puritans were, in my understanding, anti-drama, probably for this reason. If we’re to look at good and evil starkly, being a writer, I’d have to say that it’s my faults, it’s the evils I’ve been exposed to in my own life – no, no- let me backtrack, because that simply isn’t true.

It’s the evils that I’ve been exposed to that allow me to create a relatable framework, a relatable premise, a real main character. A main character who is flawed. If the main character were entirely good, and were not worthy of suffering some adverse consequence – and I know what you’re thinking, if you’re a writer. You want to give that main character something completely beyond their control that they’re suffering for. Is at least Sorkin’s take.

Maybe this is where I’d part ways with him. Maybe. If it’s completely beyond their control – the reason they’re suffering – then they can’t do anything about it. And then you’d have no story. No, their suffering is their fault. Thank you, Calvanism. Their suffering is their fault, at least in part. And part of the trick in developing the main character in Act I is that you have to be duped, due to your own malevolent self-interest – into overestimating the character. Kind of like in Washington. If you can find someone else with the same vices, you become best friends, because you’re not holding each other accountable.

Which is why the reckoning at the end of Act I is so interesting to you, which is why you care so much about the characters, even though the first half of Act II is slow, and you’re being introduced to new people in a new way. You’re distracted by your own guilt – as, perhaps Sorkin is when he’s writing – these probably being the reasons that all of us do that writing that looks like wasting time to everybody else. Watching ESPN, etc. We haven’t come to terms with our own guilt. And there’s a kind of humbling process, the extent of which, I think, is what determines how honest and how practically useful the work of entertainment we set out to write actually is. In other words, it’s being able to access these feelings of guilt beyond the topical dialogue, which is really the outer shell of the inner person – to stir up the subtext of the psyche which, within us, is vomiting all this feeble evil that we writing work call “great dialogue”- and which our audience is blown away by as well – but that’s the illusion perpetuated by, none other than what keeps you going to Catholic Church. Or- maybe any church. It’s the guilt complex that all of us, as an audience bring to what we’re watching.

We all have a secret desire to – and I used to think this was merely the realm of cheap television sitcoms. Which, of course, are much less creative. Forget “reality tele-anything.” But this is really the heart of drama, and the first act, I suppose. Finding that character that your audience is really a sucker for for all the wrong reasons an audience might befriend someone in real life of feeble mind and soul.

Now, you might say, gee, that’s awful. I’m never going to watch television again. I sure would. But again, this is where we look at the difference between a work of art that is edifying and one that is merely amusing. And frankly, again, like when you watch Family Guy- most episodes, anyway. It’s so topically enjoyable, but you walk away from it feeling like you’ve left a piece of your soul, perhaps even worse than when you started. It’s like a band-aid on a gushing wound.

The difference between meeting a morally decrepit character on the screen and meeting one in real life is that – unlike the character in real life whom you like because you can control them with their guilt as they, unbeknownst to you, do the same thing, and you’re just kind of using each other for no greater purpose whatsoever, just surviving, and even then probably less so –

The morally flawed character on the screen – and I’m thinking about my own characters here – kind of like that man on the street you met, that average joe – isn’t necessarily a moral shark (in disguise- for the uninitiated). In other words, I guess, as I think about my own protagonist, he or she, that main plot driver, yes, you feel sorry for them. Because in the moment you meet him or her, he or she is only slightly more in need than you. And there will come a time, surely, when you’ll have your moment when you’re slightly more in need than they are, which is why perhaps you’re gravitating toward that person, because you have an intrinsic sense they’ll be useful later one. I know that sounds awful. But we as writers have to think in terms of subtext and, well, this isn’t for the faint of heart.

But here’s the light. I would suggest to you that these are not superhuman people on the screen. And the point here is not to make you feel guilty that you don’t have the same moral integrity that they do.

When you meet them, they can be a self-interested – well, they can be just as narcissistic as you still can’t admit that you are. And we all have that to some degree. It’s a survival instinct of sorts, which Christ warns us about. (Luke 17:33)

So here’s where one’s faith, I would suggest can really impact the overall value of a story, the practical value. And honestly, as a Christian, I make no distinction between practical value and entertainment value. Ultimately, when you seek to be entertained, you don’t just want a cheap laugh. That’s the low bar that’s been set for you by the tonnage of technologically-determined media vomit being forced through your cable by Time Warner, and NBC, ABC, CBS.

No. You want – like Bo Burnam says – kinda- to be made happy. You want answers. Because, well, there’s that nagging feeling that your life sucks, and you want so badly for whatever you’re watching to make it better.

A Christian writer, who doesn’t consider his protagonists to be unattainable saintly ideologues – yeah – get that. This is probably why Sorkin lies, along with every unbiased liberal media useful idiot.

A Christian writer doesn’t desire, at last, to condescend to his audience. At least – not in the way that the “Unbiased,” “no-agenda,” “ars gratia artis” artist does.

The ars gratia artis is drinking, trying to cope with all these feeling he doesn’t understand, and low and behold, out vomits the “great dialogue.” And we Christians go through the process too, believe me. Although, Sorkin doesn’t drink, and neither do I. But – there’s a real deep-seated soul-searching which, I think, personally, is what really drew me to the craft initially.

I’m here to tell you that just like the network anchor, Aaron Sorkin has an agenda, even if he’s bought his own PR, his own spin, that he really doesn’t. And believers, of course, are notorious for being able to tell these things.

We all have agendas. It’s what makes a great story. The point of view. For Sorkin to deny that and write a piece like The Network – well, and for a liberal newspaper writer to not question him regarding this apparent – this blatant lie – I suppose it’s just that starstruck syndrome, whatnot.

The difference between a Christian author and a liberal, “unbiased” one, is simply that the Christian can admit that he’s approaching the subject matter he’s writing about from an objectively good point of view.

Ah, yes, I almost forgot, our characters. The Christian poses an example who, perhaps ideally, is just slightly more flawed than you are. Slightly more helpless, so you want to reach out and help them. Which is why you keep watching.

Obstacles reveal character, inner mettle. And unconsciously, whether the atheistic Sorkins realize they’re doing it or not –

And I much suspect that they understand that this whole guilt-idol complex maneuvering is profitable- and it is. Much like the way pop music has favored feminism because it sets up female idols for men to worship, which is easier than leading. Which is why millennials, after two generations of this, s*ck. And millennial men are total wusses.

But I digress. When it comes down to it, the continued profitability of a work is at odds with its useful practicality as a pedagogical tool to guide the audience.

You have two options as a writer, the first, being to create an unattainable idol. And usually, because writers are pretty f*cked up people – we tend to unwittingly idolize ourselves. Especially us men.

This is what I meant before by “moral shark.” You think they’re more helpless than you are, but when the obstacles hit, they do things you would never think of, because, well, they’re better.

And again, this all kind of off the cuff, so feel free to join in the discussion if you disagree,

But I suspect the Christian of the real, caring, unpharisaical type would seek to represent what I think is much truer to reality. And here, perhaps, the suggestion of good or evil is none more prevalent. If you want to set up sequels better, you want to create an idol the audience could never hope to attain, so this is where as a writer you get to be the serpent or the hands of feet of Christ himself. And it’s a writer’s choice really, to suggest good, or to suggest evil, on top of your marvelous powers of observation which give you credibility in the mind of the audience.

The Christian is going to set up a character who doesn’t do the impossible in the face of adversity but makes that small choice. The small choice that we make day in and day out, over and over again, that brings us baby steps closer to evil or good.

What’s different about your new fictional friend on the screen, (or book, if you read, God bless you) is that unlike your conspirator in real life, your protagonist and you, vicariously, are going to be presented with just the right set of circumstances for you to either make that little decision to settle for the insanity of mundanity – (you’ve heard it before, doing the same thing over and over again) – and the stress of your job is generally set up to keep you doing just that. The stresses of real life, the people you meet in real life who profit from you have a vested interest in your continued “insanity of mundanity.”

What does a good drama do between the end of Act 1 and the beginning of Act 2, movie-wise – it’s almost like – unlike your boss, who pays you to , well, be insane – you go to the theater ideally expecting to find something that will help you escape the “insanity of mundanity.” You’re paying the author, the director, the co-conspirators of filmmaking, like a psychiatrist – to – hopefully help you become less insane by showing you, by presenting you with a perfect storm in which –

Again, unlike the voice of the serpent in the garden, you’re paying, just like you pay tithes at church, for the privilege of hearing a voice that, rather than glorifying what will lead to your soul’s continued corruption through indifference, through mortality, through death –

You’re paying to witness a perfect storm in which a strong case is made, albeit allegorically – to get out there and do precisely what you really want to do, and would, if the stresses of your perceived reality weren’t standing in your way.

There is, of course, the danger of idolizing the characters on the screen, in which case the gods have indeed moved from Olympus to Hollywood. (not an original though, author unknown.) That, of course, would leave you feeling more empty than ever before. But sadly, that’s the way that most moviemakers perhaps abuse the technology, the very craft of storytelling. Unless Jesus is the star, and even, perhaps if he is, such actor-idolatry is blatantly damaging to the human person. And yet, how many from around the world have come to worship at the altar of the Walk of Fame? How very sad to the truthteller.

No, the aim of the Christian storyteller, as we need not further visit the ambivalent lie or the ambivalent alleged indifference of the secular storyteller – is to edify the human person. To set him or her free from the chains that bind him or her, and in doing so, to create a work of entertainment that is truly remarkable; that has no bitter aftertaste except the very best kind – which is the perhaps insatiable, but unmistakable longing for something better, and something the secular parable-teller is further powerless to deliver – a very clear, if humbly-delivered, if non-didactic – prescription for achieving the happiness that you set out to find when you decided to spend hard-earned money on a movie that the theater isn’t going to give you back, even if they haven’t delivered on their implicit side of the promise. At the end of the day, the secular writer can’t, with a straight face, make any such prescription. Their most honest explanation for the art is that their intention is to titillate you for a little while and then drop you like a rat back into the jar of your insanity of mundanity, where you may be reliably kept until they are again ready to extract more money from you for the cheap miserable thrills they offer.

I love the Social Network, by the way. Sorkin seems to have quite a hold on the evils of technology, if he won’t admit such.

My aim, my agenda, as a Christian writer, is to suggest, ever so slightly, that when you have the opportunity to make that critical decision, which C.S. Lewis says our lives are filled with, each and every day, every second, maybe, to take one baby step closer to heaven or hell, my aim as a Christian is to suggest to you when you’re low or tired that you wouldn’t make the easy decision to submit to the prevailing evils which you allow to dictate the flow of your life, because you don’t understand that you have a choice to pick the better or the worse. My agenda as a Christian writer is to illustrate to you, quite clearly that you do have a choice to do good, or to do evil. To make a decision that will lead to your ultimate happiness, your feeling of no regrets with the life you’ve lived, or another kind of decision, and in doing so, perhaps, really merely represent life as every Christian knows it really is, as opposed to the otherwise which the serpents of mundanity would have you believe.Report this

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Tune In Or Else: Severe Media Overload

Published on July 18, 2016
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America mentally ingests much too much television. And it’s turning us into an anti-social people.

Yes, it’s our choice on the one hand to read as many Internet stories, watch as many stills and videos. But – the media is kind of forcing us to.

How? Well, there’s always kind of a veiled threat in news content. The invitation to tune in tomorrow carrying with it, in light of the onslaught of horrific violence presented when we happened to tune in –

The invitation is really a really thinly-veiled threat that if we don’t tune in, we’ll miss unforetold dangers in our neck of the woods. And so we tune in again, and again, as the media’s self-fulfilling prophecies of gratuitous violence idolatry take hold within the subconscious we unwittingly lend to its clever soothsayers, with their dramatic introduction and bumper music.

Yes, it’s ultimately our decision whether we choose to subject our eyes, minds, ears, hearts to the dirty river of human evil of which our dazzling portable entertainment devices are a window.

But, in the name of effective marketing – really effective marketing – news media, broadcast journalism – photojournalism – all of these have become really effective daily threats to the sanity of the individual American, along with complicit government bureaucrats more than happy to capitalize upon generalized American tragedy for the gain of a rather un-select few.

And often times, the media’s empty threats of “tune in – or else” have absolutely no direct connection to our local communities, or the productive lives that we and those around us are striving to live, as we ought, as is the tradition of this exceptional nation we’re privileged to inhabit.

If people in real life threatened us the way the news media does, we’d call those people stalkers. We would stop them from doing what they’re doing, because we’d realize that they’re really just self-obsessed, self-idolaters repeating the same negativity over and over again because it’s their best skill-set at remaining relevant in a positive, good nation that doesn’t have much use for such destructive liberal blither, and, at better times in our history -when people didn’t shoot each other – we wouldn’t have tolerated.

I think it’s time we develop a zero tolerance policy for the veiled threats of media daily haunting us with threats to our existence through albeit cleverly-woven marketing campaigns, and endless “teasers” which might more accurately be called vague threats.

How much longer will we tolerate the ignorance of sensational violence-mongering in the – dare I say the echo chamber – more accurately perhaps the fun-house mirrors of electronic entertainment wizardry, reflecting some grotesque mockery of humanity that, at our worst moments, we love to gawk at. Moments when we’re tired after a long day of hard work. Moments when we feel lonely. Moments when we’re at our worst and will set our minds upon anything.

That’s how media is done; let’s not all be done by it.Report this

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Entertainment Tragedy: As you watch the “latest” “horrific tragedy” “unfold”

Published on July 17, 2016
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Remember, it’s just a mechanical reproduction of a horrific tragedy.

And a part of a sane television audience naturally asks – well, why are we mechanically reproducing the image of evil millions of times over? Does this really help us? Or is it poisoning the well of national sanity, despite the soothe-saying narrators?

What is it about visual reproduction that idolizes the subject, making it famous everywhere? Even if it’s an unknown perpetrator, and the fruits of senseless violence?

And is this really a healthy process, to make evil the focus of our days? Evil that most of us can’t do anything about?

Does it help us to prevent similar tragedies in our local communities to scare us with never-ending fixation on every single evil in the world today?

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Pastor Tim Wildmon, Historical Christian Anti-Telvision Activist

How Television Kills Cops

Published on July 15, 2016
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I was going to open up with a joke about it being – a final solution. But of course, the media has programmed you to react violently to such a suggestion. So we’ll play it straight.

And maybe it ought to be played straight, for once. It’s not how media people typically roll.

From the beginning, media has been an industry that, far from the civility of actual legal or – civil proceedings, which in contrast have been treated with an intentional decorum of trust, of grace, and due weight –

Behind the scenes, the real power players behind the images that have become so familiar to us, of talking heads wearing suits – the real power players are the ones who own and operate the technology which creates the idols. And it’s an industry that again, far from being one with the chief concern of fixing real problems, is one in which the power players themselves are inspired chiefly by vanity. There’s not much in the way of altruism that inspires one to even become a television personality. Peggy Wehmeyer, a former ABC Religion reporter, said there are few more selfish things one can do in the world than aspire to be a television anchor. It’s a job that really leaves practically no room for anyone else. It’s difficult to find such honestly in a TV showman/showwoman. Which- I don’t think even she can go so far to admit that even she was.

Broadcasting has always been, will always be, an industry of gimmicks – and not just to the end-user audience. It’s been riddled with cut-throat, reckless anchors and announcers who, in some of the worst situations, would literally light one another’s scripts on fire live on the air. That’s just another day in broadcasting. Be sure to check out my article on working with convicted felons in the field.

The personality you see on the screen isn’t a person. It’s an image that has been created, and, generally, can be just as soon destroyed by the technological wizards who made the idol for us, from the model in the studio, the talking head. All at light speed, with the help of ever more sophisticated equipment designed to do just that – to create dazzling idols faster than we ourselves can build them in our own homes.

I don’t ever find it unworthy to note that the highest grossing films generally aren’t the ones with gratuitous violence.

And yet, all of us, particularly us men, seem irrationally drawn to the image of a head being lobbed off; someone getting shot. And then, of course, there’s that other kind of sensationalism that accounts for the majority of Internet data traffic.

What’s the simple solution? Well, don’t watch it. But that’s not as simple as it sounds. Because media content, as I’ve discussed before here, is so effective because it has the power to short-circuit the conscious brain and skip directly to the subconscious – in precisely the way that so-called “subliminal” messaging does – the argument of the media industry that people who don’t like it simply shouldn’t watch is, from a natural order perspective, from a logical perspective, moot. Why not wave a bare male member in front of a woman’s face all day and just tell her to ignore it?

So Christians dream of a world where all this is outlawed. And the American public is much too stupefied to vote for a thing like that. Or, these days, to vote at all, generally. We’re not going to make television broadcasting illegal in the next five years. It’s not going to happen.

Self-regulation also can be crossed off the list. It’s become like the list of accounting don’ts at Enron. Networks don’t care, and cable far less. Who knows what’s lurking on the Internet. It’s a Wild West indeed, in the mind. Which – really means nothing at all.

I want to focus on violence, because so often it’s the dirty words and images that get the attention. And promiscuous women seem to love dirty imagery, because it “enables” other women to fall into the same traps of promiscuity those promiscuous women have fallen into, so that they have more miserable females to make life more ugly for good and bad men alike, and it generally just drags everybody down. And they call this feminism, or female empowerment. But I digress.

We’re going to leave the s*#$&$tty words, and the pornography for now, and just address violence. Because it’s overlooked in the wake of other sensational smut.

Why is gratuitous violence perceived as less of a threat than pornography or dirty language? Well, its effects are not only subconscious, like pornography, but it also fails to produce an observable reaction in men or women. Well, it produces a less observable reaction.

Ironically, the same part of the brain that “reacts” to pornography is the same part that “reacts” to violence.

Over the long-term, exposure to odd sexual situations on television has tanked marriage (who gets married any more? And if it’s you, God bless you.) Stands to reason that long-term exposure to violence would cause what- more violence.

And that’s exactly what’s happening. From the Oklahoma City bombing to the World Trade Center and back to Columbine, and now to Orlando – we see life duped by the idols on television.

Television entertainment – including the news, is dominated by violence. It doesn’t matter if you’re watching the latest sensationalized, sexed-up Law and Order SVU or the nightly news. All of it is designed to provoke a subtle reaction in you to keep you scared, to keep you fearful, and to keep you buying from the sponsors.

I can’t stress enough that this isn’t the fault of the news personality, or the actor. The News Personality is part of a machine. A senseless lemming that has, like the Enron exec, conditioned himself, out of his or her own need to survive, to believe that there’s nothing wrong with what he or she is doing. That playing neighborhood-bloopers host – except with blood (or the suggestion of blood) exploding all over the bloopers – is somehow a sane way to treat anyone – even a television audience – is somehow a good thing, a public service – it’s lunacy. And we are experiencing, first-hand, the fruits of that lunacy. Right now.

People preoccupied with knives and blood have always been more than welcome in America’s psychiatric care facilities. Personally, I believe Jesus would have done them better. But fact is, we recognized the threat of that kind of way of thinking. Which – I know, you don’t want to hear this, but it also exhibits itself in the form of promiscuity, and – get this – male effeminacy. The craziest psychotics – even in movies made by homosexual Hollywood – are always the guys who walk with that indescribable kind of extra shimmy. That eye, the homosexual lisp –

And, granted, they’re learning more and more to control themselves. To curb the outward signs of male effeminacy.

Television today, no longer allowed to represent this accurately on the screen. In fact, television does overtime to prolong this extremely un-funny gag that somehow, effeminate men are some oppressed class of people. Young people, brought up in the androgynous wake of the feminist rebellion of the 60s watched television where they couldn’t watch actively involved passive fathers, and so the “wasteland” of television psychosis has emigrated into the livingroom, into the subconscious of America, so now we have a very real wandering wasteland of effeminate children and teenagers. It’s mind over matter at it’s very best. From the mopheads’ long hair to the idea of a woman leading a man, we have, faithfully, adopted every ideal of our sick television writers’ imaginations. From the screen, into reality. Reliably and without fail. Why? Because we become like what we idolize.

And part of that idolatry is violence. What, in the world, would television, as we know it today, be, without violence?

Now, for most of us, our childhoods weren’t riddled with violence. People didn’t get shot every day. That’s a fact. Maybe you grew up in a bad neighborhood. But I guarantee you, even if you grew up in Detroit, or Dorchester, or the California ghettos, whatever you experienced in real life does not hold a pistol to the bloodshed or implied bloodshed on television. And when I say “implied,” I mean, everybody on television is constantly talking about murder, as they constantly talk about divorce. All of this “content,” you must remember, is made by unhappy people who don’t have families, don’t have lives of their own. And wishes violence upon you merely that your life might be as miserable as theirs so you may commiserate with them. It’s sick. Utterly sick.

So, again, I know this sounds outrageous to you (scandalous!). But here’s what I would propose. First off, get rid of violent television. Don’t consume it; and pass laws against it. I’m not going to spend too much time on this, but to kind of delve into it a little – if you’re about to kill me over this –

Think about why you like to watch violence. Here’s my theory- and by theory I mean, of course what I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, the way evolutionists think evolution is real. Men watch violence because the mere image of it tricks our subconscious brains into believing there is a perceived threat. Particularly if everybody else is watching it. And somehow, we think that by watching it, we’ll somehow be better prepared when the Spartans come to destroy our wife and children.

I know, you’d never say that. But if John Eldredge’s Wild At Heart means anything to you, you know the stories that we tell aren’t merely stories. They’re real. And that’s why the Bible is so important to those of us who know it’s the Word of God.

Otherwise, honestly, why would we bother watching it? Yes, it looks on the surface as if we’re just casually sitting down to watch hundreds of men’s heads getting lobbed off, hearts speared while riding horses – with the ease that we might play a game of bloody cricket.

But what feels so good about watching a doll come to life and kill innocent children, or a dude with a hockey mask off a bunch of camp counselor hunks and hotties? Or an attractive babysitter? How about that dude who dresses up as a rabbit?

You think it makes you more of a man to expose yourself to this, somehow. But that’s the trickery of the imagery, of the technological idolatry, of the killer, of the war that’s been conjured up on your screen, again by technological wizardry, which at best never actually happened or at worst is thousands of miles away. Perhaps in your country, yes, but it poses no immediate threat to you, and watching it is only going to divert your attention from your wife, and your kids. And it will, if you’re not careful, turn you into those effeminate men with the wandering eye, like John Ritter or Marty McFly before his journey. In other words, overexposure to not just sex on television but violence can put you at risk of – yes, becoming homosexual. I don’t like to call it “gay” because – I know, again it’s crazy, but I still think we can bring back the joy and awesomeness of that word’s true pre-90’s meaning. Who doesn’t want to be gay, right? (ha – okay, too far for you millennial hotpants-idiots) If it weren’t so sad.

You know that you forget about 90% of what you see on television anyway, right? So it’s not like you’re learning from what you watch. Yes, visual imagery is the best way to get people to remember something. But there’s just a never-ending flood of it – on the computer, on television – and the quantity destroys your appreciation for any kind of quality. So soon, your eyes just start to drink it in, until you have no idea- really, consciously, or unconsciously – what’s going into your head and what’s coming out. Somebody gets murdered. There’s an axe on the floor. A news anchor talking about a terrorist shooting. What’s real? What isn’t?

Let me tell you something, and there is nothing more true on the internet than this, perhaps. None of it is real. Even this text you’re reading right now – one can make an argument that this is – well, reading this has put you into a kind of trance, as all effective writing does. Which makes me as guilty as television. Except for this one thing:

When you’re reading something – and granted, there are awfully tricky, smutty writers with awful intentions –

But when you’re reading you actively have to concentrate on whatever it is you’re reading, at least to a much greater degree than you do when watching television.

Why is this important? And here’s where we start to get to the meat of the matter.

You’re infinitely less likely to be deceived by something that you read than something you watch on television.

Again, writing is less deceptive than television. And by television, I also mean still images, photos with captions, that sort of thing.

Why? When you read something you have to question everything. I can’t short-circuit the parts of your brain with my writing the way this photo does.

Sure. It’s just a picture, right? Except even in looking at this image, I’ve already warped my own mind, in ways that I won’t be able to forget. Think about it. You may forget everything I’ve written here, but the image of one man sticking a revolver to another man’s forehead, for whatever reason, sticks.

God designed us that way. Why? Well, to keep us from getting killed in real life. We want to remember the guy pointing the gun so that we stay away from him in real life.

Except – again, he doesn’t exist. Our subconscious has been tricked.

Oh, wait a minute- we can’t see his face, can we?

And so, with all these television shows, vying to capture our attention, each of them trying to make us pay attention by manipulating our most basic survival instincts as natural beings, through artificial, electronic idolatrous means –

Each of them has to outdo the last. Maybe, instead of the image you just saw, the geniuses at the competing network say, “I know how we can get an even higher rating! Instead of showing a guy pointing a gun at someone else, why don’t we point a gun directly at our audience – like this!”

But eventually, this kind of gimmick, or gag (which is, I think we can define safely, as a television ploy to grab your attention for commercial purposes at the expense of your natural and normal cognitive functioning) gets old. So next time, the television execs say, “I know. Instead of a man, let’s make the character the person that men are biologically wired to protect! Let’s see how they respond to that.”

I can’t undo the damage of posting that photo above. And I am doing it to prove a point here. In an age of better people I would feel guilty about posting this kind of thing, but you’ve already been desensitized, likely if your’e reading this. Anyway, the network says, ah, this creative writer deserves a raise for the ploy of a woman with a gun.

And then, the very next hour, in the unbiased “news” broadcast, the news anchor is condemning violence against women.

Doesn’t that just make your head spin a little bit?

On a conscious level, on a verbal level, the networks and their “standards and practices” are all about gabbing, and gabbing ad nauseum about protecting the weak and vulnerable in society.

But then you have all these headless shooters – people who don’t exist in real life. But somehow – not somehow, I’ve explained it to you how they’re doing it – are you getting all this? — They’re planting images in our head, in the nightly news, and in their sick, twisted homoerotic violence – And isn’t it funny that they never show the news violence, they just talk about it — but then they go and dramatize blood and guts so well the very next hour that they might as well be showing the actual news actuality of the person getting shot in the head?

“Actuality” again being another news industry self-deception misnomer. So many things wrong with the phenomenon of news.

To sum so far – television simultaneously talks down all kinds of things about gun control, and then plants images in our heads to suspect that everyone around us – people that, by all natural signs we have every reason to trust – because most people want for our good and their own. But the television imagery plants images in our minds that suggests in a most potent way that we cannot trust anybody. That everybody is our enemy. By parading hundreds of faceless killers in a make-believe world – well, it was once a make-believe world, but due to our own stupidity, we are letting television make it our new American reality, and we’re exporting this hell to the rest of the world daily, who, by the way, are watching this hypnotic crack we produce intently –

We are choosing, by watching that violent program, to presuppose the worst in the people around us, to hate humanity, by presupposing that everybody around us could be that violent killer, that homosexual, that marriage-hater, that Christian hater. And worst of all, we are being taught to hate ourselves, amid all this hypertension, this neuroticism.

What’s the solution? Far be it from me to endorse the liberal New York Times or the likes of most newspapers out there. I read OneNewsNow, but even they get the craziest suggestions from the dreaded Associated Press release company.

This isn’t an original idea, by the way. I mean, I came up with a good deal of this on my own, but I’m sure it’s all been said before. Neil Postman, in particular, has illuminated many of the underlying truths contained herein, in his book Amusing Ourselves To Death, the product of a better era.

I suppose that, largely per his suggestion, relying upon text news, though it wouldn’t solve all our problems of mass media deception – because society’s misanthropes have a funny way of ending up in journalism – the God-haters, the America haters, the homosexuals. Not busy enough leading a happy life on their own that they – we, if I’m honest – spend too much time writing about it. And some of us, trying to get better with that. And trying to liquidate our creative talents for the betterment of others, per the Great Commission.

I would say that the most obvious solution is – nix all gratuitous entertainment violence, including the news. No photos of violence. No photos of rioting.

But then, you say, Peter, we wouldn’t know what’s going on.

Well, here’s the deal. We can still talk about it. It can still be reported in writing. And again – I would suggest avoiding this whole phenomenon of a broadcast anchorman. We all know he’s reading off a teleprompter and is reading with all the necessity of a really poorly-trained actor. Those who can’t make it in acting seem to go into journalism. But they mean to weave clever fantasies. They just don’t have the talent for it. So they apply their wild imaginations to the news.

Nix the news, as we know it. I mean broadcast news, recited news. A little extreme-sounding, I know. But America is literate today- in the dumbest sense of the word.

And if someone isn’t literate, he has no business watching people having their heads lobbed off at the theater or on television. Crying out loud, he’s likely to go out and poison his wife and become one of those stars of Forensic Files. Life imitating technology imitating life.

Photojournalism has a way of getting Americans riled up. I mean, heck, that’s how it got started with all the business with the Cubans. Prime Americans with a picture of some kind of human disaster and you can give them any old story to explain it, and generally, in our state of artificially-provoked pictorial subconscious consternation, we’ll believe anything. We’ll believe that if we’re not careful, our neighbors will kill us. That the police will kill us.

Let’s put the pressure on television legally to – end this 60-year-experiment of awfulness. But then there’s the Internet and movies to contend with. I know, all highly unrealistic, you may say. But we’ve got to start somewhere.

As for the news, again – is looking at pictures and hearing immediate veiled threats of violence from the untalented actor you call the “reporter” or “anchor” going to help you respond any better to what’s happening? Well, if you call fanning the flames of police attacks across this country a productive and healthy response, sure.

Everybody’s on edge. And I want the police reading this to understand that when it comes down to those seconds, when that jumpy would-be criminal is about to shoot you –

You know, those moments when it’s impossible to consciously register anything, because you have two jumpy guys with their lives on the line against each other –

You wanna know what matters? Black lives, all lives, sure –

But nobody can think about that. Why? Because in those few seconds of brandished guns, all those images in the mind’s eye of the soon-to-be criminal – all the jumpiness of a life consuming pictures of fantastical evil, racist cops dreamed up by Hollywood scriptwriters trying to make a quick buck and outdo the competition –

BANG! BANG! BANG!

The frames have already flipped through the soon-to-be-cop-killers mind’s eye. The policeman is already dead. A man has already become a criminal, bringing disgrace upon his city, his family, his race.

God bless you.Report this

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How Television Destroys Manhood, Womanhood, and Marriage

Published on July 12, 2016
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You hear many of the criticisms, many quaint-sounding echoes of the things an entire generation once said. Kind of like that anguished cry of the wiser saying to the directionless, “You kids, with your rock and roll!” It’s an increasingly tired punchline at this point. But what was the meaning behind it? What was the intent? It’s just a guitar, Old Man. It’s just a transistor radio.

Fact is, it came from an age in which the biggest problem in most schools was gum-chewing. It came from a time when men, recognizing that women are the bearers of children, would naturally hold the door open for the fairer sex.

Well, kind of like the lone-wolf shooters of today, the societal misfits, those who didn’t come from happy homes, found themselves being given a megaphone to air their frustrations to the rest of society. They had odd ideas about what a family ought to look like, mainly because their own homes were broken. Nobody would listen to them, and so they wrote, and wrote, and eventually came on the air to comment on other people’s lives in the way they learned worked best – in the form of what came to be known as “the news.”

The news as we know it is really a reaction to the anti-authoritarian attitudes of the 1960s. The whole notion of “unbiased” news content, as we know it today, started as (and really hasn’t changed much since) a way to meet the entertainment demands of a baby boomer population that immediately was skeptical to all forms of authority.

There was a time in our nation’s history dominated by homes led by marriages (the real kind, of course). These homes, and the children they produced, were happy, compared to what we know today. Sure, you can say that correlation doesn’t always imply causality. But in the days of real marriages – not the kind where two men are shagging up together – again, the biggest problem in schools was gum-chewing, as opposed to shootings.

There wasn’t a church, in that day, that did not preach against the evils of contraception. Conventional, Biblical, social wisdom holds that homosexuality cannot occur – would never have the inkling to occur – without the shattered natural, that is, the authentic masculine father, and the authentic feminine in the mother.

As historian Dave Barton has spoken at length about, and as Mel Gibson’s The Patriot brilliantly portrayed, the Colonial pastors who founded this country, and the M-Divs who wrote our constitution, and the election sermons which were a mainstay of colonial life – they were a men of tremendous backbone. They weren’t all frilly, like the bell-bottom-dragging Disco types that like to prance around in the pirate shirts. I know, it sounds funny to you, but that’s only because you’re missing a kind of requisite degree of reality the media has stolen from you.

In Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves To Death, you’ll find a lengthy explanation of how church has become one of many examples of “life imitating technology.” I write “life imitating technology” rather than “life imitating art” because there’s very little, to no, artistic value in television. The best sitcom performers will tell you that there’s very little semblance to acting on television.

You might say that the news anchor on the nightly news is acting. Acting concerned in one story, comically amused in the next; I’ve said that before. But it’s very often poor acting.

If you’re going to live life, and this principle is as Biblical as it is transcendental – you might as well live it fully. And what you inevitably have due to the production pressures of the television model, is a never-ending process of the same people pulling the same punches over and over again; attempting, through the bare minimum of effort, to keep you watching the commercials.

A thin veneer of impartiality in matters of good and evil is only palatable to those of evil intent. Why? Those on the side of good are, though not immune to sin, much less prone to the fallacy of certain cognitive dissonances resulting from the obsessive need to please everybody all the time, at the certain expense of certain moral compromises which the satisfaction of the evil extant among the audience as a whole implies.

We don’t like evil. We don’t like truth-twisting. We despise when others lie, when they make sooth-saying pretense of peace, but are really for war.

But television – and all forms of amusement are, by nature, manifestation of the audience dramatic phenomenon of suspensions of belief. Self-deception that we willingly enter into for the same reason we drink. It’s to shut off certain brain cells that normally warn us of danger to our more rational thought, our better judgement. Because we’re tired, and we don’t want to think that hard. We’d like to relax a bit, and somehow, it’s easier to fixate on a few simple humorous ideas that the television or an untalented entertainer might set before us than the real issues that we’ll eventually need to get around to dealing with.

But what if we never have to get around to dealing with the real issues, the ones bothering us?

Enter Television. Yes, all amusement poses the risk of infecting us with ideologies from society’s chronic baton-twirlers; society’s strippers; those who laugh with such evangelistic zeal because if they stop laughing – well, they’re going to end up hurting somebody.

All of this existed long before television. But with television – and its derivatives; your whatever-tube, or your favorite subscription streaming service — it’s getting so that I’m going to have to start using brand names because if you’re like most today, you think in terms of brand names for lack of better knowledge. It’s very sad. But that’s how much our vocabularies have shrunken since the pre-television days. (Approximately 60%, I’ve read)

Whereas once upon a time, the young female’s exposure to the likes of the Mopheads’ or Elvis’s unnatural bodily contortions (and accompanying lack of musical talent) was confined to the hour or so she might spend subjected to such stage shenanigans.

But thanks to the advent of rapid artificial mechanical reproduction of the human voice, of the human image, by camera and phonograph, now digital video recordings – idolatry at the speed of light – (American Idol, anyone?) – even live television –

We have the opportunity to subject ourselves to this willing suspension of belief – this willing self-deception – twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

And it’s only gotten worse with digital television, with the ability to stream whatever we’d like, whenever we want, online. We run the risk of getting bored with network television programming. But with hundreds of channels, and still many more on-demand options on the other end of the fingertips – coupled with our quickly declining IQ’s and vocabularies (i.e. our getting dumber for lack of family time and media consumption) –

We stand a very legitimate risk of an age in which we never, ever, are faced with the very necessary need to “wake up” from a lifestyle of media consumption. I know what you’re thinking. You don’t merely consume media – you’re a content creator, too.

This, too, is part of the gag, I’m sorry to say. You have lost track of the fact that you’re doing it, suspending your disbelief, every time you click “play,” or power on your television. And for every moment you watch, the “stupid” part of your brain grows to take over what’s left of all the useful facts, the working knowledge. And yes, that’s a technical way of putting it. A whole lot of retarded, flooding in from the screen, and washing your brain.

Not so much watching as wearing down certain neural pathways. The neural pathways that help you recognize the words you’re reading now, the face of a friend. The neural pathways whose plasticity helps distinguish you from, say, a stick of celery, or a tub of lard.

What does any of this have to do with bias in the media, and how the media has destroyed, and is destroying, marriage and the family?

Well, lots of things. And it’s easier for us to look back upon our parents’ generation, and take a look at the kinds of weird media that they consumed – the kind you’ll find on the likes of “Me TV” or “CBS” – to help understand just how a bunch of vaudeville circus freaks ever managed to pass themselves off as the “Fourth Estate” of government, or worse, anything but entertainers at best, and illegitimate atheistic communists at worst.

But a note of caution. While it’s fun sometimes to look back at the running gags which television has insinuated beyond the television into the reality of life itself – the so-called women’s liberation movement its grandchild of androgynous parenting – homosexuality as we know it today (i.e. “the gay community” – which, of course, we have to thank for AIDS)-

It’s very easy for us today to look back upon those silly television shows of the seventies, even of the sixties, and laugh at how unrealistic they were.

Mary Tyler Moore, the story of a happily divorced woman (excuse me – never married, on the show – with all kinds of crooked qualifications) who, through some insane miracle of God, somehow can “take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile.” And, like the homosexual of recent Hollywood fantasy – and that’s what it is, a fantasy – she somehow is sought after for her apparent wisdom in the realm of relationships. I mean, give me a break. But, as our great grandparents knew – it’s only television. It’s a running gag. Like homosexuality. Right? Decent, normal people would never put up with this kind of thing.

Now – there’s a dramatic logic behind this kind of thing. I know what you’re thinking; sitcoms aren’t drama. That’s why it’s called a sitcom. It’s a situation. A “happening.”

I know news anchors. Some fairly bright. And none of them – none of them act remotely like Mary. They mostly hate themselves, without knowing why. Generally, it’s because they value their careers over their husbands. Which is something that is difficult, even for husbands, let alone women.

The Mary Tyler Moore show theme – and I guess she changes her last name in the series – even though it’s called the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” – is, in and of itself, a jingle for the happy, peppy attractive single divorcee – excuse me, never-married boyfriend-jilted happy television anchorette. Entirely false on all counts, and as irrelevant to anyone as the seventies theme music it was set to.

The Golden Girls. Many forget that the original Golden Girls’ pilot had a homosexual chef – which it ditched quickly, because, well, they had to. And yet, the Golden Girls, like many American sitcoms, products of the rejects who wrote them, heavily influenced by communist unions which continue to dominate Hollywood and Television media too this very day –

The Golden Girls, like many American sitcoms, always had that one homosexual episode, which made an illogical, emotional appeal to the audience for the legitimacy of homosexuality. One of the most obscene things in the world. And yet, again, entertainment is not reality. Television is not real life. The people who make television – damaged goods. Many of their stories will openly admit this, if you listen, and watch them actively rather than passively.

Everybody Loves Raymond – The “Deborah” character bears no explanation.

But there was that one homosexual episode, as I mentioned before. It’s a sitcom paradigm that kept on for years.

And then there were moore…

At some point you’ve got to stop caring about these weird, anti-family gags. I mean, whose time is really worth it? Just to name a few featuring an effeminate man failing to lead a dominant wife character, generally with children obsessed with obscene things I’d prefer not to write, let’s just include a list and call it a day. Not worth taking the time to “analyze.” It’s all, generally, awful and subversive, and above all, family-destroying. Masculinity-destroying. Femininity-destroying. Human-destroying. Is what all television, at the end of the day, inherently is.

Family Guy (just because it’s really good trash doesn’t negate its being trash); All In The Family; Andy Griffith (correct me if I’m wrong, but there was an episode in either this or Dick Van Dyke in which all the wives of the town were encouraged to rebel against their husbands. I mean, really awful stuff); Murphy Brown; pretty much anything on television.

But where were we? Ah, yes, the fair, objective news reel. Completely unbiased in every way.

Now. Again – I know what you’re thinking. This article is getting a little long, even for me, so let’s cut to the chase, shall we?

Do you want to be a winner, or a loser on the world stage?

Again. I know what you’re thinking. Weren’t all those old news reels just propaganda to get people to do stuff that we didn’t want to do?

Let me ask you something. For the past fifty years, we’ve been consuming media that’s convinced us to destroy the very bedrock of civilization itself and spend tons of cash on things we don’t need.

There are things that we do need. Like marriage. Like safety. Like healthy social relationships. And all of these things – each and every one of them – are targets of the television and paratelevision media that we currently (fail to) enjoy.

The entire false premise of the “unbiased newscast,” of the television comedy that pleases everybody and offends nobody, is a premise we need to tweak just a bit.

I’m okay with offending those whose intentions are categorically evil. People who want to destroy marriage because they aren’t enjoying a healthy marriage themselves. And if that sounds awful, I’m fine with that. The fact is, if healthy people in this country can’t take care of ourselves – we’re not going to be able to take care of you.

So maybe it’s time to stop dragging the name of Christ through the mud, along with his institution of marriage, and all the other forms of love that can really only be communicated through the Gospel.

Let’s lift the two-decade freeze on all mention of God in the media except for right after terrorist attacks and at Christmas (if we’re lucky).

No, better yet, let’s all just turn off the television and engage in social and intellectual and physical and civic activities more. Which is to say – life.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s time to hold the television a little more accountable. I am entirely about free trade, and the free market. But it would seem to me, at this point, bless Reagan’s heart (no wonder the media loves him so much) his deregulation of this one particular industry –

Well, who knows. Maybe it’s taking its natural course; perhaps, for all our millennial retardation we’re more “media literate,” (whatever that means) and we’ll have the good judgement to throw the darned things of a cliff.

And maybe, in doing so, we’ll discover real authorities. Real God. If not real God, a real leadership. Made up of real people, instead of nonsensical plot-lines that, given the opportunity to play out in real life, end up destroying lives.

It’s one thing to develop a tragic character flaw to make your audience feel sorry for someone. It’s another thing when the person you feel sorry for runs for president. Or helps usher in a reign of homosexuality, or a baby holocaust.

Whatever kind of propaganda our grandparents and great grandparents, the Greatest Generation, consumed, I definitely prefer their kool-aid over ours. And of course, it wasn’t kook-aid at all.Report this

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Are The Clouds Lifting?

Published on July 12, 2016
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Please don’t forget to correctly attribute your favorite Peter Vadala quotes and original theses. Thanks so much.

The picture above is a dude, by the way.

Are the clouds of homosexuality over America finally lifting to reveal an actual rainbow, as it was intended by its Maker? Are we repenting of our sin and turning back to God and nature? Are we men turning from our evil effeminate ways, and are women repenting of their unjust usurpation? Or shall America continue to implode, one familial pillar, one school cafeteria, one rancid nightclub, one skyscraper, one policeman at a time? I think the clouds are lifting. And there’s nothingGoogle ABC NBC CBS can do about it. Except impose martial law by inciting another national catastrophe. Are they consciously aware they’re doing it?

Also check out the article that for whatever reason, ardent homosexual activists love to hate:

I think the English teachers were right. Sanity, sometimes – never mind intelligence – can merely be as simple as turning off your television, or digital equivalent.

We will not be frightened. We’re real humans; and we’re going to be what we are.Report this

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On “Homophobia”

Published on July 8, 2016
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Homophobia. It’s one of those sling-words nobody wants to be called, but really, nobody understands.

It’s been kind of thrust upon us by the media in the last decade or so. And it’s one of those vague, political words that can mean anything you want it to, and unfortunately, when you’re being called a name, the first instinct is to retaliate out of – well, fear.

Should homosexuality be feared, I suppose, is the underlying question regarding rather whether “homophobia” is a positive. Or – whether it even exists, in the sense the media would seem to have us believe to further its own commercial interests, sometimes, perhaps, at the expense of healthy living.

If you believe, as we who believe in the Bible do, that homosexuality is a legitimate threat to society; if you believe that your child’s worldview and developing sense of morality regarding sex and personhood can be scarred by his or her exposure to homosexuality, or its metaphorical presence as a theme within increasingly inappropriate storybooks read at school – then perhaps we do have a legitimate reason to fear the phenomenon of the virtue-ization, as it were, of homosexuality. Which, by the way, is mainly an imposition on our subconscious by media imagery. (I can develop that much further, but not the point here)

I do not believe homosexuality is anything to be feared. Those who are deprived of a feminine mother figure and a masculine father figure who loves them, in and of itself, is an evil, and one that homosexuals, generally made so by this unfortunate circumstance, wish for your children to commiserate with them in. This is how the homosexual becomes a homosexual (females, often, by sexual abuse or abandonment by a male).

Of course, fear is never productive. Mudslinging at those suffering, albeit unwittingly, from this social disease of sorts – also, perhaps most unproductive, especially in this age where the media reinforces a kind of oversensitivity and falsely justified anger in those afflicted with homosexual inclinations, and wishing to have the rest of us commiserate, including your children. It’s the same story of all the weak-of-heart who suffer- they simply want to drag others down to their level. And if we’re not careful to guard our own hearts against impropriety, they may succeed, and nobody will be better off for it.

So, I suppose, in conclusion, much more to be feared than the phenomenon of the others who have been deprived of strong fathers, are perhaps – like all matters of sin – the logs in our own eyes, the defects within ourselves that we tend to ignore while looking to sling mud at others. And at the same time, maintaining a healthy fear of the very real detrimental effects of actual homosexuality in our lives – in our social circles, in our schools, in our workplaces and elsewhere – must be dealt with as a remedy to what could turn into fear if left undiscussed, un-dealt with.

Implicit in the Christian assertion that homosexuality is indeed a choice is the fact that if we’re not careful, our repeated exposure to media, as well as the troubled homes that increasingly define each new generation of Americans, duly influenced by said destructive technological determinism and media – may lead us against our better and conscious judgement to inadvertently choose the evil way of the effeminate male, or the homosexual. Which makes it all the more difficult for us to protect others in our own life from this awful thing.

A very effective propaganda technique from the very earliest days in film history, of the Russian propaganda efforts, was to place a woman in distress. We saw this in Birth of a Nation to promote slavery; and we also saw this in – Ellen, to promote homosexuality.

So, I say, fear not the homosexual. Because he is among the most miserable of all, and he is only looking to destroy your family, at least, on a subconscious level. And I do believe it’s his inability to face this fact consciously – as well as the fact that it’s one of the most self-destructive things a body can do, to treat another man as if he were a woman, physically – that leads to suicides which the media is so fond of promoting, where media generally averts the subject for fear of copycats. (They like to make martyrs of homosexuals, for whatever reason. It helps them defend their commercially-fueled, overly pluralistic narrative and chaos-theory worldview.)

Once upon a time, the homosexual – before he was a homosexual – started out with a healthy desire for woman, too, but something upset that natural and good yearning within him, and so now, life circumstances have, unfortunately, tainted him, same as a to-be-murderer is likely traumatized by – well, who knows what. And the media and, increasingly, morally disillusioned lawmen and judges, for whatever reason, are being trained to help him fight you, and even to help him impose his perversion upon you and your family. We don’t live in the purest of times here in America.

Rather than fear him who has already hardened his heart toward any improvement, having bought hook-line-sinker into the mistaken notion that somehow he is unable to escape the hell he chooses every day to continue walling himself further and further into – which is to say, the proud and unrepentant homosexual with no interest in exploring the fact that there might very well be a better way for him to live –

Instead, if you are a Christian, you will understand it best to fear the God who made us, and who knows what is best for us, who clearly has a zero-tolerance policy toward that kind of behavior. I’m not saying to use illegal violence.

But realize that there is an inherently subversive and predatory nature to all those committed unwaveringly to a lifestyle of sexual sin. And the homosexual is not alone in this, however what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah does seem to suggest that God does have a special hatred for that kind of sin. Anyone who destroys a family in any way – not just homosexuality – is doing something truly awful. And we all do have the potential to commit evil. Once we start overlooking that, and get too proud ourselves – well, we may be well on our way to being no better off than the committed homosexual. I stand that danger, and so do you. Hubris, always something to watch out for. And if you’re a Christian, you know pride itself is evil. At least, if you’ve read “Mere Christianity.” Those who have never had homosexual inclinations are not exempt, of course.

Children are a blessing from the Lord. And we, as Christians are tasked with taking care of the women and children in our lives. While the fact that the homosexual is the natural enemy of women (read the homosexual manifesto) is often lost on women of today, whom the media does overtime to convince that homosexuals are simply pleasant effeminate companions who like shoes and are sensitive in all the right ways (that better men, in reality, are not) –

We ought to fear most, I think, passing on our inherited millennial legacy of confusion, of weakness, within this generation’s own children, a legacy that would groom them, that would predispose them to such abuse and self-abuse, in all the ways the media denies twenty ways to Sunday, to homosexuality.

How do we groom children to be victims of homosexual behavior, and the gender identity crisis that haunts the nation? (which, of course, in case this be taken out of context, is to be avoided)

Well, simply, by androgynous parenting. In your household, does the woman act like a woman? Do you, as a man, lead her? Do you make active decisions, as a man, to move into her life in a productive and loving way, or do you refrain from doing so out of fear? Nevermind where the fear may or may not come from; that’s a subject in and of itself. But are you afraid to lead her? Do you “empower” her to make decisions when really, you’re too afraid to do so yourself? Even psychologists used to call this kind of behavior in husbands “Passive-aggressive.”

If you refrain from leading your wife; that is, protecting her welfare actively; particularly so out of fear, you are at risk of raising weak, androgynous, or even homosexually-inclined children.

Feel free to reach out to me personally for discussion regarding this. I do not believe much positive can be gained from comment mudslinging, as I’ve seen on LinkedIn quite a bit of late. No doubt, pent-up summer frustrations from lack of projects during this slow season for many.

So, no, I suppose if you believe in society’s ability to recover from this sad black mark in American history, in which we celebrate pride where we most definitely ought not (all pride being destructive, in some senses, and homosexuality most definitely being destructive, as the demon behind the world AIDS epidemic; all kinds of intestinal shenanigans which, I’m told are most uncomfortable –

Despite all the media rah-rah about homosexuality, and the silly images of two women kissing – a kind of cheap trick which… in real life never pans out quite like television, in ways I can go into further but don’t need to for most of you –

There’s nothing positive about homosexuality, and there’s a whole lot of negative. It is a societal, moral ill.

As Christians, it’s best to pray first. Because it’s a demon – actual or psychological, doesn’t matter – that, like all demons within and without – only God can truly destroy for your benefit. Nobody desires to be a homosexual. All that bit about “pride,” naturally, being a rather shallow veneer that wouldn’t have been put past a wiser generation.

And we need to be rather clear that, despite our hatred of the sin, that we pray for those struggling from homosexuality, and all death-giving lifestyles and choices.

There’s really nothing to fear when we decide to truly submit to God’s will, to pray. Worry – really does accomplish nothing, although our justifiable concerns ought to move us to action in speaking out against homosexuality in our own communities, in our circles, as it does pose a threat to those around us. And, God-willing, we shall continue to manage that threat accordingly.

Best, generally, not to use the word, I think, “homophobia.” Because it’s kind of a rhetorical trick wrought by both the media, which has a commercial interest in legitimizing all mutually exclusive things (like homosexuality and happiness); and those knee-deep in the poisonous way of life themselves. For the uninitiated, in other words, “homophobia” can become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, which again would have been seen through in a wiser time. It doesn’t help that these subversives have the aid of the entertainment that most of us mistake for “news” every day. And if the news, like all entertainment, likes anything, it’s a good complex character with lots of contradictions and irony.

You know the phrase, “drama.” We all think we like it on television, but when it starts to creep into our lives, suddenly it’s not so glamorous.

And God forbid we ever see something as disgusting as this behavior as glamorous. But again, like any kind of entertainment, it’s interesting subject that gets ratings. Woman kisses woman. It’s like the doctor with a crack addiction, or the detective who always trips over himself but solves the case anyway. It’s the stuff of great, alluring TV fantasy, with tons of delicious plot points with heart-rending twists and turns that reliably ends well – on television, anyway. Not so much in real life.Report this

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Add a comment…Images Les Baron 2nd degree connection2ndSenior SaaS/ UC/ Wireless/ Sales Person Looking for an Incredible Opportunity – Are we worthy of each other?3y

Peter, Do you find the irony here? “It’s the same story of all the weak-of-heart who suffer- they simply want to drag others down to their level.” Watch out for the lightening. The problem with the internet is every Tom, Dick, or Peter has the chance to publish their beliefs, and with it, the thought, that they somehow are right. “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” Maybe that is the lesson on why this is on Linked IN? …see moreLikeLike Les Baron’s commentReply Leonard Suskin, CTS-D 2nd degree connection2ndSenior Consultant at Syska Hennessy Group3y

yeah, this is pure ignorance and bigotry. You’re wrong about a great many things (including a hilariously outdated concept of what makes people gay). You owe an apology not only to those in the LGBT community, but also to the majority of Christians who are far smarter and more tolerant than you.LikeLike Leonard Suskin, CTS-D’S commentReply2 Likes2 Likes on Leonard Suskin, CTS-D’S comment · 3 Replies3 Replies on Leonard Suskin, CTS-D’S commentLoad previous repliesLoad previous replies on Leonard Suskin, CTS-D’S comment Leonard Suskin, CTS-D 2nd degree connection2ndSenior Consultant at Syska Hennessy Group3y

Peter Vadala most believers take their holy books more as allegory than as literal instruction manuals, and most also see them as documents of a different time which are interpreted in light of the current world. I find literalism to be not all that interesting or sophisticated a theological view.LikeLike Leonard Suskin, CTS-D’S commentReply Ronnie Anne Spang 1st degree connection1stAudio/Visual Team Lead. Inventor, innovator, strategist, analyst. NACLC Clearance until 2023.3y

Peter Vadala Do you eat shellfish? Wear clothes of mixed fabrics? Keep the Sabbath? If not: those are the same passages that condemn those action as the rare instances of condemning gay men. And by the way? Eunuchs were never once condemned. So how can you condemn transpeople who are the modern day eunuchs? You cannot. Peter: you do not know your own buybull, you do not follow your buybull and you would try to shove that filth down the throats of others? Seriously, mind your own damn business and quit lying about others. Of the 7 abominations TWO of them are about lying (false witness and lying tongue). NONE of the 7 abominations are about being gay or eunuch. Like I said: you do not read or follow your bible, you are a self-righteous pompous fool who is sexually repressed and has a persistent homosexual fascination that clearly belies homosexual interest and fantasies. I bet that you are a fan of gay porn. Because you doth protest too much. …see moreLikeLike Ronnie Anne Spang’s commentReplyLoad more commentsload_more_comment Peter Vadala

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Fast Company Notes Technological Determinism’s Bent On Election Coverage

Published on July 6, 2016
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I’m hesitant to post this article, because the author, focusing on a narrow psychological element, has missed the broader picture of how media really does hijack public discourse and short-circuit the process of public deliberation critical to voting.

I’m going to go ahead and post it anyway, because I simply couldn’t help but observe that someone else arrived at the same conclusion as the late great Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves To Death (In the chapter, “Reach Out And Elect Someone”).

Namely, that the media is prone to using all sorts of metaphors with the singular goal of keeping you reading the papers, glued to the television set in perpetuity. I think the author of this article even went so far as to observe what Postman did, in the way that the media is prone to fixate on who “T.K.O.’d whom” in a debate, rather than on the issues. Because focusing on issues isn’t profitable for the media. You report where a candidate stands, and bam, the voter has made up their mind with good reason. And there is nothing newscasters hate, that networks hate, than voters with clear heads.

As a WSB commentator once observed, the media loves “close” elections. The candidates will always be neck-in-neck. Not really, but that’s the way they report it.

I’m just going to go ahead and say very plainly once again that in no way – in no way do I intend, by the link to this FastCompany article, to encourage you to vote for Hillary Clinton. And – if the author were true to his principles – I don’t think he would be, either. But he’s not a media expert; he writes to please socially liberal human resource personnel.

Here it is, from Fast Company, without realizing it making a case for technological determinism.

As much as this author is clearly of the tree-hugger variety – no offense to trees – I’m posting this because it excites me that people from outside the media world are starting to get it. How much they’re being brainwashed on a regular basis.Report this

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The Phenomenon Of Media Death Threats (A Commentary On)

Published on June 30, 2016
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Another one of those inconvenient realities of the broadcast journalism industry you don’t typically learn in school, or even in the internship, is that if one works in broadcasting long enough, somebody is going to threaten one’s life.

And, by the way, it goes without saying, before we continue that this is not intended to be any kind of implicit or direct threat in any way whatsoever, and this statement shall, for any legal purposes, supersede any and all statements which may or may not appear to the contrary throughout the balance of this commentary. And this document is just that, a commentary.

As a guy who has, myself, been subject to some malicious criticism from people I don’t know, I’ve found some of the most honest nuggets of truth in that. After all, when someone is saying or writing anything malicious, they may very well be lying, but usually not very well. And so, sometimes, despite the sting of receiving such strongly-worded kinds of pieces, if you look hard enough through the frustration, the pain of a multitude of factors in the authors’ lives that obviously can’t possibly be my fault as a reporter, anchor, or commentator, you start to see a story of people who are in pain. And if you enough resolve, you can even see legitimate concerns.

Now, generally, the networks and local television stations will never tell you about the piles of these death-threat letters that accumulate over the years. I myself had some reservations about writing this post.

I guess I want to look at a common concern, that, as has been noted before in network fiction (and I mean the sitcom variety, as opposed to the news kind of network fiction) seems to dominate the majority of these death threats.

One thing that the vast majority of letters threatening the lives of on-air personalities or network leaders, again, as noted by a television fantasy writer whom I’m hesitant to cite given the sensitive nature of this subject matter –

In the program, now available on Netflix, and still running in syndication on broadcast television, the new television executive tells a police detective, “You’ll notice that the network gets blamed for everything that’s going, be it communism, fascism, atheism, abortion, sex, violence. You name it, up down or in the middle, it’s all the same thing. Support decency or we’ll kill you; signed in blood.” And I know it’s just a television fantasy, but like all fantasies, this small detail in a seemingly inconsequential story is based in a reality of the job.

If you received malicious, threatening communication, as I have as a public figure, you wouldn’t want to talk about it, would you?

Why in the world would you want to affirm, or validate, the legitimacy of any content that threatens your life, the very validity of your profession? Why would one possibly acknowledge a concern coupled with the career equivalent of a referendum on one’s very livelihood- even in television “fiction?”

I can’t answer that question for you. But I will make another observation about the way networks treat various subject matters.

Well, a couple. I heard a sermon on the radio long ago citing Hollywood PR’s defending its content of responsible. I wish I could remember the movie name, but it was an action-genre piece, and a studio ran to the fact that for a few moments of screen time, before its heroes got in a vehicle to take part in a chase or whatnot, the camera made a point to show both of them snapping on their seatbelts. The pastor’s point – and if anyone can help me out with the name of this case, or the pastor astute enough to observe it – please let me know and I will include the citations accordingly. But the point was, if showing stars for mere seconds putting their seat-belts on is intended to influence children, and people, in a positive way – how can they at the same time argue that all the pornography and violence shown on screen is not culpable in the terrorism culture of contemporary America?

And now, the negative example. News stations, news networks, have a policy, typically, of not reporting suicides. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great policy. Why? The reason is that they don’t want to inspire copycats.

Now. Let me ask you a question. Do you think that the violent anti-police riots that broke out in the wake of Chicago – all across the country-

Do you think they would have happened if it weren’t for national coverage given the violence in Chicago?

You think all those anti-police riots just happened – spontaneously? Fortuitously?

****************
It’s human nature to visualize things that we are going to do first. It’s very difficult to take part in a behavior we can’t first visualize, to rehearse in our heads, first. I would suggest as a Christian who believes in the Bible that images – like the idols of old – have the power to insinuate behaviors, mindsets, even evil itself into the hearts and minds of its viewers. And there is something about a people, a human species, which possess minds which have not changed much in the course of all the technological “advancement” of the last century – there is something about our minds this remains susceptible to believing what we see. Because that’s how we were designed. The job of the television is to entertain us, ostensibly. To amuse us. But it does so by tricking our natural minds, into seeing things that don’t exist, into feeling their presence in our very living room. To the point where we can salivate at the image of a juicy burger – or even the text describing a thick, juicy, healthy burger with a side of your favorite fries.

Television, images, have the power to shortcut our conscious brains and evoke a physical reaction. What’s the majority of internet traffic?

And so I suppose my thesis is this – if the phenomenon of a television can make a human being salivate – or otherwise physically react in ways that have been known to destroy families – because we all know that pornography (“soft” or otherwise) creates sociopaths, murderers, rapists, who first must visualize their crimes before they can do them – And, we can only assume that pornography doesn’t usually take the form of a news program. It’s usually Law and Order SVU, or other pleasant-sounding names for the trash.

If media can evoke physical reactions like that, unthinking physical reactions which short-circuit logic – if media stakes its very profit center on the ability to incite money-spending habits –

What else can television do? How else has it altered our sense of right and wrong?

And how, legally, with an emphasis on legally, can it be held accountable?Report this

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New Disney Channel Show To Kids: Don’t Play Outside. Be The Exhibitionist With Electronic Media Instead.

Published on June 23, 2016
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Promo for a new Disney Channel show premiering tomorrow features a “reality-style”(cheap, effortless) jumping-around-to-music in which young female anti-performers ask the audience in a driving-rock jingle why they would want to engage in an outdoor activity when they could perform exhibitionist computer activities instead. Throwing subtlety to the wind, this is Disney’s most overt assault on life-giving, healthy activities for young people, ironically the very activities that foster the national imagination it once alleged to champion. The message: publish everything without considering whether it is actually useful to other people.

The increasingly less-subtle underlying message of the media itself might as well be a slogan for the technologically deterministic nature of all media and marketing content which pitches things that nobody needs, and that message to youngsters is this:

Throw consideration of your fellow humans to the wind and make media content without any regard to your own level of expertise, qualifications, or moral standing. In this way, instead of striving for marriage and natural reproduction, in the way ages of humans did, you must instead settle for a lifestyle of exhibitionism which bids you act in such a way that suggests the ultimate ends of marriage and family, but repeatedly stops short of such, offering a false promise instead.

Help fill the Internet with even more useless junk that most people will never watch, never care about, and engage in social media, such that if you’re “hot” enough, your ideas will stick based on your pop-culture assets (what you look like), and you’ll be able to take advantage of those whose said assets are significantly lesser.

God said go forth and multiply. Disney, apparently, saying, go forth and populate the earth with poorly-conceived, quickly-rushed content which offers no edification of the audience, only, as it were, self-edification, and seldom even that.

Activity, evidently – and not even physical or mental activity, is ultimately what Disney is advocating here. And of course, as one of the larger media companies, Disney stands to gain quite a bit from mindless masses of young people engaging mindlessly in point-and-click skinner-box-level Brave-New-World feelies.

The problem with all of this, in the end, is that ultimately, Disney loses. Because ultimately, the victims of this senseless ADD-wreaking Sesame Street on steroids are Disney’s next generation of creative hacks. Not to mention those who would otherwise be reading, and becoming doctors. Which is why, increasingly, we have to import ours from places like India and Asia, where they haven’t been completely stupefied by marketing and television.

If there’s anything good to be said of any of this is that Disney has found its real core in this new ADD-fomenting, brain-rotting drivel for an audience too young to know any better.

Disney’s creating the best and most alluring junk of everything on television. It’s discovered a new way to systematically train the most vulnerable viewers to be less considerate, more self-centered, and, ironically for an institution fancying itself artful – it’s luring young viewers to be uglier than they’ve ever been, both on the inside and on the outside. To merely look into a camera and press “record,” without regard to the responsibility, or the implications – which are legion – of doing so. Any time of day, any time of night, to ignore all inhibitions and air, as it were, the dirty laundry of the soul, of the body, for all the world to see.

It’s technological determinism at its finest, point-and-shoot artistic and moral irresponsibility at its finest.

If it sounds like I’m being hard on Disney, though, let’s be honest. This is the dirty heart and soul of the medium itself. One can only make idols of pop culture so long – the kind you read about in the gossip columns – before after a while, one gets sick of idolizing others and starts to idolize oneself. As, at its heart, television has always done, provided characters that represent a psychographic reflection of its viewers (Postman, AOTD 1985).

So what are you waiting for? No, I’m not saying you should go outside and enjoy these finest gifts from God which are summer days.

No, grab that electronic device within arm’s reach – even before it dings such that you’d grab it anyway to stare and press buttons like a trained monkey.

And turn on the camera, so that you can stare at yourself more. And, let’s face it, once you start looking at yourself, you’ll naturally want to share more of yourself with others, right? Because you’re amazing. Never mind that if you keep this up long enough, you’ll look like a generic holiday turkey.

Don’t worry about that. What’s important is that you share your nicely-filling-in quintuple chins with the whole world to gawk at.

Is- really, the emerging message of Disney Channel’s new anti-art, perhaps lower than reality Television itself.

I’m purposefully not mentioning the name of the show, because – like the Orlando terrorist – it doesn’t deserve recognition.Report this

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Yeah, I’m going to have to get some clarification from LinkedIn here about what’s going on- with apologies again to Ron Pomerantz for this, and the old logo bit while calling Disney programming terrorism for the national imagination.LikeLike Peter Vadala’s commentReply1 Like1 Like on Peter Vadala’s comment Peter Vadala YouLibrettist-Composer3y

One Thomas Hallgren, by the way, apparently deleting his criticisms of this article too, for whatever reason. To the best of my recollection, it was something like, “How can you compare Disney to a Terrorist? Has everybody gone mad?” And I replied, pretty much, yes, yes America has.LikeLike Peter Vadala’s commentReply1 Like1 Like on Peter Vadala’s commentLoad more commentsload_more_comment Peter Vadala

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Media’s Ending Of America?

Published on May 11, 2016
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Well, friends,

It certainly has been a good experiment in democratic Republicanism.

I’m not writing you to sell you canned food, or to beg you to repent – but –

I am afraid that all signs would seem to be pointing to our immanent collapse.

The very best business schools are having a harder and harder time implying to dumber and dumber hoards of students a false dichotomy between morality and success. The current presidential race presents another uncomfortable “this or that,” this being a man who, with a makeover and platform shoes, might easily be the King of Siam of The King and I; the other, well, it doesn’t really matter. Both of them are expert “politicians” as the term has come to be known today, a far cry from the “public servant” of ages past.

But it’s not Donald Trump’s fault. It’s not Hillary Clinton’s fault. It’s not Barack Hussein Obama’s fault.

And, in some manners of speaking, I don’t think we can completely blame television; we can’t blame television’s parents – photojournalism – and we can’t blame television’s grandkids – the emerging Internet of Things.

We can blame America’s pastors – except, like blaming the media, which is highly culpable – I’m afraid it won’t do us much good.

Blaming the media, in particular, is particularly futile. So-called “social media,” or other media, television, anything. Why? Well, because by “holding the media accountable,” history has shown, particularly recent history, that criticizing the media only serves to validate the media’s false projection of an alternate reality, which is about as much of a window into the actual world as the latest Marvel fairy tale. And, by the way, this is coming from someone who writes fairy tales. Writes the news. Has anchored and reported the news. Television is a toy offering cheap entertainment for people who don’t know any better. Who don’t have the wherewithal to trade, socially, in actionable information. It always has been. Inasmuch as Newspapers have always been opinion pieces with a healthy sense of self-esteem- much moreso than the likes of trump – Television is, unfortunately, a glimmering spectacle of electronic wizardry that has captivated – no, hijacked – the national imagination.

And let me be clear. Imagination is a tool, given to us by our Creator to solve problems. When you think of Imagination, you might think of it as the realm of mere fairy tales. But as someone who writes fairy tales and “the news” alike, I must caution you not to underestimate the power of imagination.

It is what drove Columbus to what he thought was India. And it’s what allows some of us to understand that there is a bigger and brighter America behind us – and perhaps, just perhaps, in front of us.

Now. You know that I believe in God, something greater than ourselves. And I know this sounds cliche, at least in seculardom, but my best understanding of the person of God – as non-believers will likely agree – is that God is inside us. To Christian friends, I back this up simply by reminding you that we’re made in His image. There is something profound and amazing inside each and every one of us – I believe, the very person of Christ himself. And it’s infinitely more exciting than anything you’ll find on television, or your portable device. I can prove it, too.

That’s right. I can mathematically prove to you that you, personally, are, and always will be, infinitely more interesting, more exciting, than television, than your iPhone. And so are other people.

The thing about digital technology is that – as any mildly technology-inclined person, certainly every engineer knows – and you may challenge me on this if I, in my lack of tech expertise, am wrong –

The digital world – the building blocks of the Internet of Things – whose name, by the way, goes a long way to remind us that its priorities and essence are “things” as opposed to people — “social media” lied to us by telling us that an inherently anti-social tool imagined as a means of comparing girls to barnyard animals by social misfit Mark Zuckerberg – is actually social. Which is why I call it the “anti-social media.”

But, as we’ve gotten dumber, tech experts have gotten lazier in their efforts to deceive us with clever marketing sleight-of-mouths. They don’t make pretense of it being an “Internet of People.” They’re counting on us being too stupid, too conditioned to respond to the latest synthesized flashes and dings from the latest shiny grouping of computer chips – which are microscopic switches, nothing more – to understand the implications of what, they hope, our undying devotion to, driven by dependence on – the “internet of things” really is. A reliance on things. As opposed to a reliance upon people. A reliance upon ourselves.

No man is an island, of course. But if you’re thinking that you miss my point – I mean we’re getting completely out of touch with people, out of touch with ourselves, in a way that serves no one, the least of which others. I’m not advocating a ruthless “rugged individualism” here. What I am advocating is, in fact, quite the opposite, in that I know that the “magical” devices we’ve come to believe, under the suggestion of clever marketing gimmicks facilitated by the same technological wizardry that continues to distract us once we’ve bought and subscribed to it – and it never stops; each new piece of shiny technological gimmickry is merely a gateway to acclimate us to ever growing levels of knee-jerk technological dependence, from television, to pagers, to cell phones, to smart-phones, to soon-to-be talking chairs, talking refrigerators –

When Television first came out, its marketers promised that it would bring families together. Never mind that today, everyone has their own television in their own room, and, well, really, honestly, how much Netflix viewing is done with other people? No, it was and is an empty promise.

The technology today offers the same empty promise. And it’s easier than ever to believe. Actually, the empty promise has gotten even more grandiose, with the “evolution” of its medium.

Whereas television promised merely to bring the whole family together, the anti-social media (which you know as “social media”) promises to connect not only the family – and really, who has a family any more?

No – anti-social media doesn’t promise you merely a family. To connect you to a family.

Anti-social media promises to fulfill a myth that, no doubt, rightfully seemed a little odd to you at first when you first heard it.

It’s promise – to connect you not to just three people, or twenty, but- the entire world.

That’s right, with the “social media,” you are constantly connected to the entire world.

And I’m here to dispel this highly imaginative notion, this implication of educators and technology forgers alike.

I’m here to suggest to you that electronic communication of all manner – of television, of palm-held, desktop whatevers – all of it – it’s not bringing us closer together. It’s tearing the world apart at the seams.

And by the seams, I mean the very family fabric that it once promised to edify. What a load of garbage.

You know, when desktop PCs were first marketed to consumers, we were so skeptical- thinking back to the 70s, before my time, by the way, so I use “we” in the collective human sense-

We were so scared of them, and, history has proven, rightfully so – that marketers literally put smiley faces on computer monitors, drew cartoons featuring smiling computers, in order to make the shiny objects appear less scary.

Steve Jobs was a little more subtle. Smiley faces on computers – no, people were indeed too smart for that. So he took a device called a “phone,” which – really, is kind of like the “telephone” of ages past but functions using technology which is so foreign to it- I mean if you think about it, cell phones are more like pagers. But pagers, well, “pagers” were never fun. Thus, the consumer walkie-talkie industry was birthed by comparing these walkie-talkies with pager range to something more familiar which our grandparents had been conditioned to accept as the same thing as social contact, even though a telephone conversation really isn’t. We didn’t call them, merely, walkie-talkies, or walkie-talkie pagers. We just call them phones. It’s an easy idea for a technologically-averse person to wrap his mind around. You know about phones used to call people, don’t you? Sure, I do it every other day. Well, see, this is a phone too, only you can do alot more with it. Thus the birth of the so-called “smart phone.”

A “smart phone.” So now, all of a sudden, our phone is intelligent. Not really, but that’s part of the lie that we buy when we buy into the Internet of things. The more we can be trained to think of the device in our hands as a person – even though it’s a series of switches, always was, always will be – a person within our complete control, a person in the palm of our hand –

Hence, again, the name, “smart phone”- the lie of literal intelligence in our hands, literal brain power –

The more we can be trained to believe that when we use it, we’re not some anti-social Zuckerberg comparing girls to farm animals and snorting in the privacy of our own lunacy.

No, the more we think of that little gadget as a person, with human qualities —

The more we can justify (falsely, of course) our own anti-social way of life. The more we can allow ourselves to be lured into the lie – out of our own television and technology-enabled delusion in the anti-life, anti-productive, anti-American dream myth and fatal hubris of “Instant Gratification.” It’s what television promised us as it lulled us into stupidity, our IQ and vocabulary so much smaller than just a few short generations ago, when families spent actual time in the same room holding actual conversations about books, with much more intelligent, more syllabic words to describe much keener subject matter.

I, unlike technology, cannot promise to solve the problem for you in thirty minutes or less of passive engagement.

However, as the secular cliche goes, the answers really do lie within.

I’m not saying you oughtn’t look within the fellowship of trusted relations and friends that you know (and of course by that I mean friends that you actually know, not ones that you “text” or “call” or “email” or “friend” or “poke” more than you actually speak to face-to-face. And by face to face, I mean face time. And by face time, if you think I mean something involving an iPhone then you might as well give up right now, because I can’t help you.

No. When I say the answers lie within, I know that your “within” would naturally draw you to the same conclusions I’ve reached, because it is a universal human longing that we have for real fellowship.

Precisely, in other words, may I suggest – it’s the very thing that constant conditioning by your smart phone, or smart refrigerator, or smart toilet, or smart NOTHING –

Your anti-smart, your anti-social technological shiny hunk of nanotubes and microprocessors – the thing that if Alphabet has its way will be directly linked to the very ends of your nerves —

The most basic human answers that we’re all searching for are most easily accessible to all of us within ourselves, except for the very things which, highly shrewd, anti-social marketers promise us for their own commercial gain possess said answers –

When, like all marketing, their purpose is merely to use said devices to keep us distracted, that we may patronize them more, and in doing so, be out of touch with the vital processes regarding our own sanity and self-actualization which keep ourselves and our nation alive.

That, friends, is how our nation has unraveled to a point where our presidential options are a carnival barker playing the role of a real estate tycoon on the one side; and a communist soothsayer on the other. It matters not very much which wins – because, can’t you see that –

Just like the technology we’ve come to rely on – or think we rely on – because, at the end of the day, the technology of so-called “social media” – which really isn’t technology at all but a means of entertainment, like television, that offers rather convincing false pretense of real-world application to a stupid and dazzled populous that can’t think any more – and Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, like that technology – are no more deviant than you or I are.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are objects of entertainment to us, because technology has trained us to engage in an anti-social game of believing that inanimate characters on television, on twitter pictures, on whatever digital poison drip you happen to be on –

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, like the glimmering digital mirrors we see ourselves in when we turn on the palm-held device, or yes, even the television –

Are, at best, reflections only of our own stupidity.

And, if we only took some time to turn off the devices once in a while – before Google would have it be more complicated than that- before Google would have us, just like in the Matrix, needing to yank some kind of tube out of our necks to the point where we risk physical death from disconnecting to the system – programmed by devious people- which is so eager to make us that dependent upon it, like the latest psychotropic drug promising to end real problems with pills –

We never do learn, do we?

We might discover that making Trump and Clinton go away – turning off their endless barking and soothsaying, respectively –

Is, I kid you not, and I promise you from the depths of my being –

The button to turning off the Trumps and Clintons is as easy as turning off the device, be it a television, or even, in some respects, a toaster – doesn’t matter –

which you use the most.

Why not start with –

the device you’re using right now?

And while you’re unplugged, why not read a book. I know, quaint things. But since you’re here (not really), may I recommend Amusing Ourselves To Death, by Neil Postman. You may find in it – if you have an attention span long enough to read anything – something most fulfilling.

Moreso than if you merely click on the links below, as you’ve been conditioned to do. I hate to state the obvious, but clicking on more links will likely only serve to exacerbate the issue bothering you as you finish reading this post.Report this

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Justin Long as Matthew Farrell in Live Free or Die Hard/Die Hard 4, 2007

News Theory: Why Journalists Lie

Published on April 21, 2016
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Sure, we all like to relax and watch “The News” after a long day. But what is “the news,” and why do millennials not trust it?

In my last post, I mused a little about why the profitability of the media – not unlike many other industries – lends itself to taking advantage of people, although here I want to further develop how the very nature of the “television personality’s” construction of “the news” (and that of its parent, photojournalism) lends itself to a downward spiral of destroying, rather than edifying or affirming, value in society. And when I say “value,” I mean both value in the business sense of the word, but I also mean value in the sense of right versus wrong, yes, good versus evil. Because where people have no sense of right and wrong, we end up inevitably killing each other, which, as you can imagine, isn’t great for long-term productivity. In the short term, after all, it’s almost always easier for a businessman or common crook alike to steal money from someone, than it is to create something useful enough to create genuine value in their lives. And as much as we like to call attention to politicians, the principal equally applies to the “fourth estate” – which is really not as much as all that we members of it would like you to believe.

I touched briefly upon the personality type that seeks news reporting work, which, of course, I regrettably have inside knowledge of. And therein lies, perhaps, one large hurdle to accomplishing greater recognition of truth about what “The News” is, and how somehow we understand it to be naturally most useless as a child , but venerating it rather strangely and habitually as an adult. You value your job, don’t you? Well, all the people on that thin electronic screen hanging on your wall whom you trust to tell you what – allegedly – is happening in the alleged world outside your door – depend on your continued ignorance to make their keep. Which is why we news guys are particularly fond of others’ inadequacies; I mean — calling attention to others’ inadequacies. Is what I meant to say. Suspension of disbelief is what makes Peter Pan fly, and in many ways, television signals fly through the air, as a CBS radio salesman, perhaps inadvertently confessed to a group of fledgling lie tellers. “Magic,” is what he called the phenomenon of radio from the get-go. Voices. Pictures! Flying through the air!

And yet, as any decent screenwriter can tell you, if not a television newsie, all magic is not without a dark side. We forget that generations of electronic magicians labored years to come up with series of – legions of – electronic and theoretical advancements, to get us to a point where we push a button, and magically, all things relevant – happiness itself, perhaps – flashes on the wall. Kind of like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, it is all so pretty to look at. Until you’re driving along, and a bloody leg crashes into your window. All of which is to say, technology can cripple us if we don’t respect its power enough to treat it with appropriate caution. We’re like children playing with a fork near an unprotected electrical socket.

When you allow for a little suspension of belief, that is, which is key to the effectiveness of all drama – and we all do it when we watch television- “The News” can seem real enough. I mean, let’s face it. We’re staring at a screen, on the wall or in our palm, and letting our eyes be mesmerized by patterned pixelations with accompanying synchronized sound. And somehow, we think it’s making us smarter, as we munch on popcorn or something less cliche. How about a scotch? Fixate on any point long enough, and perhaps even the most intelligent among us, under the right circumstances, may be told that they are monkeys, and they should nod their heads and agree that it is certainly true, and won’t you stop bothering them from whatever it is they are looking at?

Let me guess. You can turn it off whenever you want to. Okay. I reflected on the hypnotic, plastic essence of television, and why your English teacher was right about it, here, with some help from the late, great Neil Postman.

But I guess I wanted to kind of develop what drives the psychology of a News Writer. There are people who spend more than a normal workday, and for much less pay, constructing these stories for you to watch, or read about with photos. No doubt, they derive a great perception of self-worth from their craft. Who works on something as long as they do and doesn’t?

Are they trying to lie to us? Are they trying to pull the LED display over our eyes? Well, does the bank robber think he’s doing any wrong in feeding his family? Even the faithful Muslim is only trying to please Allah. They have the best of intentions.

It’s just that, without requisite wisdom, the best intentions, well- who among us doesn’t have good intentions?

The conciliatory (credit Postman), feminizing nature of television lends itself to not saying anything offensive. It’s both a part of its charm and, unfortunately, part of its harm. What do we call people who always agree with everything everybody else says out of fear of rejection? Well, we almost certainly don’t respect them very much. But a television is not a person. It gets away with sycophantic blither because it, unlike a person, artificially or electronically reproduces itself in such a way that it is able to suggest itself, insinuate itself everywhere, like that jingle you just can’t get out of your head. Like any good advertiser can tell you, familiarity is the first step toward establishing credibility.

In the real world, God gave us this ability to recognize and trust the people who regularly appear in our lives day after day. When somebody lies on television, and it happens quite frequently, the news entity controlling them simply replaces them with another person, another marketing image, a slightly tweaked “brand.” In this way, the news industry may constantly outrun any responsibility for any overt lies.

But how does the news media misappropriate real life in such a way as to make it appear so immediately inviting, with the latest sensational scam, and yet somehow, over the long term, so depressing? It’s like honey in your mouth that turns to a rock in your stomach, and leaves you wanting more, like artificially-flavored strawberry candies that you later learn were made from the anal gland of a beaver.

Why would they do it? Why would the media lie to you? Forget “the media,” because we’ve already established that profitability depends upon finding newscasters willing to lie, day in and day out. I reflected on that in the previous post. Question here is, where do they find these people? And what effect do these inadvertent pathological liars have on the creation of the news?

Here’s what my intuition tells me, based on education and insider knowledge, that of a journalist seeing the workings of real newsrooms, and playing a leading role in some of them.

What’s “the news?” It’s a collection of generally irrelevant, “facts” removed from real-world context and strung together by, essentially, creative dramatists so as to forge an existential fantasy starring the anchor protagonist in which he omnipotently, omnisciently, transcends his fantastical world, with visuals to prove it, the “facts” tied together by the fabricated common theme that none of it has any meaning- except the vanity which, nonetheless, drives them. (confessing any meaning of life, of course, would be unprofitable, as it would drive some viewers away, perhaps the very viewers most otherwise susceptible to the hypnosis inherent in the medium by virtue of their ignorance.)

It is the imaginative newscaster’s lack of values conducive to effective advertising, a figment of the dramatist-newswriter’s imagination, rather than real-world context, which provides the setting and underlying context for the loosely-strung-together series of unrelated, otherwise context-less stories, therefore, which serves as a television-profit-driven saccharine context for the real-world context and meaning that the vain news team has long given up on the prospect of finding in their own lives. It is the news team’s common commitment to chaos, to rebellion, and the lunacy of a universe which cares not for them, or anybody else – that unites the people who report your “news” to you. The corporations who hire and propagate this insanity really profit from the discontent, more than anything else, of its pathologically lying staff. It all looks – or looked – very good on paper. And yet, the lie of a chaotic universe, conveyed convincingly only by out-of-context pictures with pretense of relevance, and a team of lying conspirators reading off teleprompters, who, as adherents to any thieves’ code, think they’re doing all of us a favor – is taking a toll.

Let’s revisit the idea of television as a pathological sycophant. Which, of course, the best liars are. Their number one goal is to protect number one, and by that I don’t mean God.

I was watching a Berenstein Bears Easter Special from the eighties. It was based on a great book about Easter. Except in the television version, of course, all references to the Christ Who is the reason it’s a federal holiday, were stripped.

In fact, the television drama turned Easter from a story about Christ into one of the earliest nature-worship parables of sorts. The ancient Roman authorities and lack of faith in Christ were no longer the villain – winter was. It was kind of like the global warming myth, except the opposite – winter just wouldn’t go away on time. I’m sure the producers meant no ill-will. In fact, to most Christ-believers of today, it probably appears rather saccharine. But don’t all evils taste that way before they go down the hatch?

See, the less-intelligent consumers of the television version of the story needed the conciliatory, dumbed-down, sycophantic trick of a television narrative, which makes up for its lack of integrity with pure visual stimulation, reproduced a million times at your own expense by your very own television set. Thus, a story about Christ became a story about the importance about summer. And why not? I like summer. You like summer. None of us would ever want summer to go anywhere. No problem, right?

Except by its omission of a much more consistent and pure narrative – The Easter Story – the television special, in its haste to squeeze pennies from an unintelligent minority, deprived all of a great truth. No, worse, it misrepresented Easter itself.

The idea was a good one- make Easter work for everybody, even atheists. But in the process, it simply gutted itself of authentic meaning.

One could argue that this is the temptation of any business – to do the popular rather than the right thing. But I am afraid that television executives, if not moral, are very crafty, and they understand that the Christian folk who would have benefited from a more authentic Easter story are much less dependent upon the hypnosis and fleeting satisfaction of a saccharine cartoon drama; Christian children ever much more filled with the real love of an authentic family to be concerned with bears running around. If you’ve ever seen a healthy child burst into tears when confronted for the first time with an oversized, plastic-grinning, gloved amusement park mouse, one must wonder how the national imagination was ever so hijacked. But that’s another topic.

Fact is, vain television anchors prey on the uneducated and exploit them for commercial profit, and rather than teach them anything of value for their plight, serve only to offer them the candy news that will further rot their intellectual teeth. Why? Because, well, they’re uneducated, likely poor, and have no better use of their time. Which is why television loves to pander to the uneducated. Broadcast journalists are taught: never use more than a fifth-grade vocabulary, generally, to talk to an audience of presumed adults. (Because what fifth grader can tolerate that garbage?) Highly profitable. It’s all very well to talk like an NPR radio host, but, as we all know, only about eight people watch NPR. I’d use public television as an example but I don’t think it still exists?

What do the Berenstein Bears have to do with the News? Well. Very little – the Berenstein Bears learned that the Truth of is utmost importance if we are to communicate anything.

But of course, it’s the principle- the book, the written form, for educated people, contained a critical truth about life, and faith in things which aren’t seen.

That didn’t play well on a medium for which what is seen – moving images – are the central rouse for convincing us of the validity of the story being told.

So what’s the truth about the team chiefly responsible for constructing “The News,” that out-of-context misrepresentation of the world that we work and sometimes get to play in, loosely based on a number of fairly recent pieces of gossip that otherwise carry no inherent meaning for us?

It is only out of a fantastical delusion of anti-theistic, chaos and vanity of the anchors, reporters, producers, and writer-dramatists’ collective rebellion against real-world truth that, the “news” team strives daily to forge a chaos narrative, a reflection of their own unfortunate rebellion against truth and primacy itself. Neal Boortz once said he believed that he went into broadcasting, in a sense, to find in his audience a sense of approval he never could in his own father. And may I suggest to you that, if we’re honest, that’s the delusion many of us find ourselves in as we work hard in any field. Problem is, in broadcasting, the people you’re trying to earn the approval of are necessarily not very bright. And so you find yourself pandering to them, most unconstructively, people without the gumption or commitment to take a legitimate class or venture beyond the walls of their living room for truth or life purpose whatsoever. So all you can do, really, is flatter them, write sitcoms that make the audience’s silly lives look successful by comparison, and justify their unfulfilled existence by confirming the myth that their lives have zero meaning, that the universe hates us, and that all is bunk. Which, by the way, is what homosexual advocates believe. I think it’s the finale of Avenue Q. This is all there is, so live it up until you get AIDS. Highly depressing. Show business types! Christians have better things to do than watch TV.

You could say that as a screenwriter, I live in my own fantasy world. And you’d be right. I have to admit that I’d be a very bad screenwriter if I didn’t. And I confess that a movie shall always come in a far distant second to a good book. The written word is superior, because movies cannot exist without the written word as its source. Furthermore, movies are intended as a once-in-a-while novelty, a special event, as opposed to a daily form of willful suspension of disbelief regarding life itself. Which- is perhaps a weak case for the legitimacy of the screenplay, but I stand by it. Books are always better. If people read them, make no mistake, I would have written a book instead. In fact, my screenplay is based on a novel that I wrote!

As a coward meets more and more people who disagree among themselves, he is forced to compromise his own values more and more in order to agree with all of them. Because he values security above liberty, and rather than trying to help people, he aims to secure his own existence.

And that’s the paycheck slave behind “the news” television star of the nightly drama that we call the “evening news.”

With each generation, the media narrative grows ever darker and darker, as, just like Signor Ugarte/Peter Lorre, instead of submitting to something larger than themselves, they keep trying to forge a new story, with a new morality, but in vain inevitably end up compromising their own misfired moral inventions, which collapse into the vain, internally fabricated, context for the disaster that has shaped their lives, like Boortz.

And herein lies the “news judgment” responsible for the “world” of your favorite “world news” program.

On a good day, the “facts” verbally uttered might be right, according to the most credible sources within the thieves’ code of the news world. But, of course, you will forget the “facts” almost as quickly as they are corrected for accuracy, that endless string of murders, and presidential visits, and kidnappings. It’s not that you don’t care about such things- it’s that you, in your productive life, are so much about the business of good, that you know it is best to focus on the right, the beautiful, the wonderous and lovely. The things that lead to life, and accomplishment and productivity.

All the things that, in due time, your five o’clock news anchor will get around to censoring, if for no other reason because, in the decay of culture which is his or her bread and butter, inevitably, factions with nothing better to do will find comfort in his uncanny desire to stimulate undue sensitivity and provoke offense in him, offense at the very values, the very productivity, the very goodness, that makes you get up every morning.

So, if you think the world news on the television is something quite different from the world you see when you step outside – you are quite right. Unfortunately, just like the jingles you hear at your favorite department store or other venue, it is not there in order to make your life better; it is there to profit from whatever vanity is in you, and to foster that vanity, but not too quickly, for fear that if you become too vain, too consumed with yourself that you find yourself getting to the point where you desire to write your own conceited, nonsensical narrative misappropriating the world – that you too, might desire to become – a television journalist.

************

As I mentioned earlier in the article, just like the financial industry – which always seemed like an odd term to me, because finance is part and parcel of industry, not an entity unto itself, any more than healthcare is a worthy and sustainable economic enterprise —

There is a right and a wrong way to go about a job. And I suppose I would be inadvertently doing the very thing I suggest ought to be condemned if I did what every other journalist does, which is to deconstruct mercilessly, to take apart. It’s difficult being a journalist, like anything else, for our marshmallow world that despises work. And it doesn’t even matter that the journalism profession, and television, namely, has contributed to the lethargy and collective indifference of the American people with an implicit yet resounding theme that “life itself is bunk, so you might as well watch more television.” Hogwash.

Like anything else, it would seem to me that there is a right way to convey things of importance going on in our world. But, perhaps in the same sense that we have grown quite weary of professional pastors, in the industry that purports to be about “truth-telling,” it might be best to instead encourage people to be fully engaged in whatever it is they feel best befits their unique talents.

Smartphones and other quick-media-access devices threaten, most obviously to me, to only exacerbate the havoc television has wrought upon our natural world. I would go so far to suggest that while photojournalism uncovered the Catholic abuse scandal, which I must confess was largely responsible for my own adoption of the Bible as my moral authority, I would also suggest that the photojournalism world also created the “sexual revolution” which fomented marital discord in the name of profits, and essentially undermined reverence of God. In Ariel Levy’s “Female Chauvinist Pigs,” a prominent feminist was quoted as saying, “It was a slow news week,” as summers often are. The more you investigate liberalism, the more you discover that most of it is simply a construction of photojournalism. Context-less, strings of facts tied together by an empty, anti-authoritarian narrative which is the product of the dramatist-newsteller’s imagination.

News reporting, like anything else, requires a thick skin, now more than ever. Because like many other industries in this wayward nation of ours, and this valueless, media-induced generation of millennials, whose parents were also induced by television to regard “the news” as something other than follies loosely based on random tidbits of trivia –

It requires a thick skin, because telling the truth at most purported news outlets means you might be blacklisted. You certainly won’t be respected by your colleagues. And at times, it may seem like everyone else outside the industry is all too quick to go along with the hypnotic underlying industry premise, which really values “style,” rather than truth, above all else.

I think what we really need, more than anything else, is good people. Integrity. The void wrought by the continuous hacking away, and hacking away, at all the values that make America, and have ever since the Puritans arrived – is deafening, and something will rise in the void of those values, in the absolute valuelessness of the millennial generation. The media is all to quick to encourage anything besides Christianity, because the media understands that a contented, religious and moral people might be great for the constitution, but it’s horrible for business.

Media news-tellers and the profiteers controlling their jobs know that if you’re too happy with your life; if you have productive and fulfilling relationships, and if you build value in your community, and if you read books that help you better express yourself, you might find precious little time to sit down and watch television.

Their lies may be legion; their implications even worse. But if you know nothing better, you might just find them entertaining enough, scintillating enough, sensual enough, bloody enough, scandalous enough, odd enough, local enough, human life-destroying enough – to obsess over.

I suppose, that like everything else, being a responsible journalist – and really, just like politicians today, you can count them on one hand – means working hard. Putting oneself out there, venturing where you’d best guess nobody else is willing to go, to the edge of human experience, for the sake of a story that will enlighten, will inform. And, well, it must be that old sin of pure, old-fashioned laziness at work here, too. That’s the only reason I, if I were a news director, could imagine that journalists seem to be stuck like glue to the party line of hedonism and awfulness that makes up the dingy river of junk that they take pains to channel, with the help of electronics, into your home every evening, with every morning paper, even Sunday morning now, aye, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Good thing you know better than to let that stuff into your home.Report this

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Add a comment…Images Ronnie Anne Spang 1st degree connection1stAudio/Visual Team Lead. Inventor, innovator, strategist, analyst. NACLC Clearance until 2023.3y

This started out so coherent and so well written. And then the Easter about Christ malarkey. NO NO NO NO. Easter is a fertility holiday celebrating EOSTRE (aka Ishtar), the goddess that the fertility rite is named after. For a religion that complains about pagans: you sure steal a lot of our stuff. The very story of Jesus death lying 3 days in the earth and birth on the 25th of December are all taken DIRECTLY from ancient sun worship and the entire story is entirely astronomical in nature. To begin with: The birth on the 25th of December is pure sun worship and plagarizes sun gods Horus, Mithra and countless other variations who all had 12 apostles to represent the 12 months of the year. All were crucified, laid 3 days in the earth to be born on the 25th of December. Why the 25th of December? Axial tilt and the winter solstice. The length of days grows shorter from July 25 to December 21 (the winter solstice) and the length of night grows longer during the same time. On December 21 there is no perceptible difference in the length of day or night and these represent the 3 days that the sun lies in the earth to be reborn on the 25th of December which is the very first day that the length of days begins to increase and the length of night begins to decrease. Hence the annual “birth” of the sun after dying and lying 3 days in the earth. Hooray we are saved from Set (as in sunset or in Hebrew: Satan)…… This is why Christians celebrate Jesus birth on the 25th of December. It is pure sun worship So why the rebirth on Eostre? The pagan fertility holiday? Well Easter also happens to coincide with the Spring equinox: the first day that the length of the day and night are equal and the days begin to become longer than night. Again, sun worship, this is all astronomical and has nothing to do with reality or invisible sky faeries. This is actually common knowledge. Even many churches have a Celtic cross (a cross with a round disc on it) to symbolize that the entire religion is based on sun worship, Look, it makes sense to worship the sun. It gives us light, warmth and everything that we need to survive other than oxygen and water but praying to it and deifying it really does not make sense at all. The sun is a big ball of gas and molten matter that continues to do it’s thing regardless of what we think or pray about. This is why prayers dont actually do anything other than make us feel good. This knowledge is so common that a substantial percentage of Christian religious crosses bear that sun, disc or circle from the already mentioned Celtic cross to the German iron cross to the all-seeing eye above the pyramid on our money. Test this out: Draw a square box to represent an overhead view of a pyramid. Put a circle in the center and draw a line from each of the 4 corners to the circle at the center. What you have is an iron cross and an overhead view of the all seeing eye above the pyramid on the American dollar bill. Plus that is also the ARCO logo. And the Pacific Bell logo (a star is the same as a sun or a circle). The obvious answer has been there all along screaming out at you. Hey! This religion is sun worship. But like I said: worshiping the sun totally makes sense. It is the prayer stuff and the whole thinking of this god as a sentient being that I am saying does not.…see moreLikeLike Ronnie Anne Spang’s commentReply2 Likes2 Likes on Ronnie Anne Spang’s comment · 1 Reply1 Comment on Ronnie Anne Spang’s comment Peter Vadala YouLibrettist-Composer3y

Ronnie Anne Spang, I intended merely to indicate that television took a relatively innocent, Christian-themed children’s book, and remade its Christian-themed text into a non-Christian one. In a world of people made in the image of One Creator, with fingerprints upon our very DNA, and all over the galaxies, I’m sure we’re bound to come up with similar ideas from time to time. By the way, a friend shared this with me. It made me think of your interest in oscilloscopes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB835wkz1Tc…see moreLikeLike Peter Vadala’s commentReply Keefer C. Blakeslee 1st degree connection1stFilmmaker, Radio Host, Editor, MC, Comedian, HOBY Ambassador3y

I believe you written the water truth. I’ve learned the same rules on statistics. It appears that any kind of information can be manipulated to an outcome that is wanted. I would guess that one of the ways to overcome this situation is just spend a little time actually viewing the truth. Based on what you said, it might be a lot harder to discover the truth. Miscommunication can build huge Wars between individuals and sadly in some cases countries. Thank you for your insightful commentary.LikeLike Keefer C. Blakeslee’s commentReplyLoad more commentsload_more_comment Peter Vadala

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Media Meta-Theory: Why’s The Liberal Media Liberal?

Published on April 19, 2016
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Peter VadalaLibrettist-Composer193 articles

Also see the Leftist Washington Post’s Copycat Article Here.

If you like this, you may also appreciate “Why Journalists Lie.”

Surely the question has crossed your mind before. You have a sneaking suspicion that the liberal media isn’t quite reporting the facts straight, but they’re not quite lying to you straight out – are they?

While the techniques of deception are legion and can often be seen by the vast majority of the more trusting among us only in hindsight – you know, those of us who have lives and don’t make a career out of finding new ways to spin your attention to real life into something more interesting than your wife and kids –

I’m going to take just a moment from my current project to do my best to break it down a little.

I’ve written it before, but Neil Postman has done a great job of fleshing out how television, and the nature of photojournalism, has a great way of tricking our brains into thinking that what isn’t relevant or applicable to our lives really is. I’m going to expound on Postman’s theory a little. We humans are natural creatures. Blessed as we are more than any beast, we have a flesh nature which is easily deceived. How’s that diet going for you? After being banished from the Garden of Eden, God gave us these brains that keep us eating as much as possible whenever we see food. Don’t get me started on the lengths marketers go to make that juicy hamburger look even jucier, or that splash of milk even more inviting for cereal. (Often, hair tonic is used, because it stands up to the hot lights of a shoot better. And that big leaf of lettuce on the burger is sometimes propped up with little rolls of paper towel.)

Bottom line? The nightly news, your favorite sitcom idiots – all of it is dependent upon your natural body beginning to salivate when you see – not a juicy burger, not the latest low-calorie, rich and creamy dairy temptation – but you are, if you think about it, being tricked, on a primal level, into the beginning stages of digesting, what? Well, a vacuum tube, or an LED display. Thankfully, we know it’s just a television, so we don’t eat the electronics. But those electronics wouldn’t exist – that is, there wouldn’t be any market for them if – in a roundabout sort of way – you didn’t make a rather unconscious or subconscious decision to submit yourself to the trickery of the magic electronic box that shows you hamburgers, and get-rich-quick schemes, and jewelry you can buy over the phone, and game shows of other suburbanites just like you getting rich quick, all of it very effortless. Another way of putting it – this decision we make, or have been trained by repeated media exposure – which, by the way, America initially found quite an odd phenomenon- this decision to submit our natural brains and bodies to the unnatural, man-made, artificial stimuli of made-for-television meat patties and cash windfalls, and world events packaged perfectly, almost as if in a Christmas gift, a 1920×1080 box for us to open and close at will with the push of a button, unleashing an endless series of pixel flashes accompanied by meticulously synchronized noises of corresponding timbre, pitch, and velocity —

On a very primal level, if aliens were to study us humans watching television, I think they would conclude that, aside from the box triggering brain cycles which studies have shown resemble that of a drug addict – the box is, in its most essential use, a tool that we allow ourselves to be hypnotized by.

Think about it. One of the most common methods of hypnotic induction are shock and awe. A sentence, or series of sentences, which is entirely light on content, but which emphasizes structure while emphasizing primal sensory appeal. The purpose of the light content – be it Ronald McDonald’s fending off a Hamburgler, or the meaningless names of the latest murder victim on your block (let’s face it. Name all the murder victims you saw on television- exactly!) Hamburglers and real-life chain-gang names, ages, and address all simply there, in effect, to induce you into the hypnotic, patterned trance of the ever finer, ever more interesting, ever more softly glowing pixels. Because, after all, a story about real people getting murdered in your town is simply as good an excuse as any to fixate on the hunk or hottie – or more recently, the masculine-looking female with the pseudo-authoritative voice saying things before you.

And while you may not remember the locale of that restaurant the car crashed into, or the name of the superintendent who did that thing – the next time you pass a McDonalds, you think to yourself, ah, ha! McDonalds! I know that! Burgers. I’m salivating and I don’t know why. And oh, I sure hope that Hamburgler isn’t up to his old tricks, you sly dog, you!

Now granted, this is a rather dismal picture of news reporting. And mind you, this is not why anchors go into news reporting.

Particularly those who participate in the oxymoronic profession of “broadcast journalism” are sold on the art by appeals to their vanity.

Peggy Wehmeyer, I believe, is at WorldVision now. But she once told a college audience that getting up to report the news on television at a Texas station she used to work for was like dressing up for a cocktail party in the wee hours of each and every morning.

And she confessed that you can’t be a family-oriented person and do that kind of thing. You have to be selfish. Because you don’t have time to do anything else when you’re running out the door and making what a modern-day anchor or anchorette makes.

After seeing some of the most highly regarded in the field at work first-hand, I can confirm first-hand that this is really the case. It’s an industry that, at the lower levels- and by that I mean the on-the-ground anchors and reporters party to executing and facilitating this primarily electronic hypnosis, is comprised of divorcees, and family-disillusioned skeptics out to undermine the very values that, for one reason or another, they perceive failed them. I’m not without vanity, and I can see and feel the pressure to conform to the system both internally as well as I observe it externally in some of the colleagues whom I’ve been privileged with – or scarred by – working side-by-side with.

So what does any of this have to do with liberalism? And here’s where the anchor may not be able to connect with my explanation, because it does require a degree of wisdom that is only acquired by certain removal from the insanity of systematically, themselves hypnotically, absorbing and regurgitating content 24-7. And here, it helps me to withhold judgement from this process of mass electronic hypnosis that the news anchor or reporter is party to inducing by recalling that generally the ability to hypnotize is predicated upon, to a degree, one himself being hypnotized. As it has been said, those who are hurt, hurt. Those who are treated well by others, treat others well. Those who are bullied, bully. And let me … suggest …that those of us who have been hypnotized – well, you get the idea. Of course you do!

I’m going to try to wrap this up, as I need to get back to the writing. But bottom line here, conservatism is predicated upon delayed gratification. All value creation is predicated upon delayed gratification. Not eating everything in sight. Not buying that sparkling diamond just because you saw it on television and, though you’re just smart enough to not try to reach into the TV and grab it, unfortunately, you’re not smart enough – and neither am I – to realize that we’re being distracted from a very primal desire that our willful suspension of disbelief will not allow us to consciously realize. All of which is to say that admitting that your caveman brain really hasn’t evolved at all. Because you’re still dumb enough to salivate at the image of the burger, which has already stimulated a mild shot of the hormone into your bloodstream triggering your “go-get-it-and-eat-it” primal response.

How does this drive liberalism? It comes down to that idea of Neil Postman, regarding television’s false promise of instant gratification.

And I mean “liberalism” in the modern sense of the word, as we know it today. Liberal does have good connotations – I mean liberal in the sense of rebelling against God, of pride in homosexual behavior, of pride in aborting children, and other hedonism in general – which, by the way, Sanger stood for rather unapologetically. It was either she or one of the founders of the abortion movement who fought for the “right to be lazy.”

There is no instant gratification in real life. Life is hard, and you have to get up off the couch, out of the comfort of your home, or restaurant to accomplish great things. People fought and died (it’s a mere cliche to us, sadly) to assure us of our right to eat doughnuts in peace. The pilgrims risked death to sail here. And with no happy meals when they arrived! It took Abraham Lincoln’s contentious wife the better part of the day to make soup, before he suffered for his convictions.

Liberalism is the promise of removing all pain. It’s the promise of a playground where nobody gets hurt, and furthermore, no effort is required in order to maintain a culture of kindness and generosity – as if humans will naturally be good and decent and kind to each other in the absence of any guidance or leadership or authority whatsoever. Does that sound familiar to you? It should. Why? Because that’s the way the story always ends on television. The criminals are always caught, and if they’re not, well, darnit, they had a darn good reason for running that meth lab out of the public school where they taught. They had an imaginative but very good reason for doing things to an animal – or person they’re not married to – that no human should ever do. And yet, it felt good. It was their first reaction. And that primal impulse is what drives the deviated ethos of the liberal “value” system. If a man feels he should engage his seed of life in sexual stimulation with the waste orifice of another man, well, by golly, he ought to do it, without regard to logical, rather than impulsive thoughts like, is he causing himself more trouble down the line. Is he gratified in the moment? Yes? Well, then, very good. Is all that matters. Should he shag up with two women at the same time? Never mind that they’ll be at each other’s throats or perhaps hate themselves later. It feels good right now.

It feels good right now. Doesn’t it? Of course it does. Is the depth of thought of a hypnosis subject, incapable of knowing who he is or anything beyond what the constant, steady glow of his trance-inducing object of fixation suggests. Be it, eat at McDonalds, or, God wants you to sodomize another man. It feels good, doesn’t it?

Instant gratification. It’s as good a lie, as good a destructive dream to distract oneself from reality as any. And it’s the foundation, perhaps, of all hypnosis, none-the-least television programming. Programming. Think about that word for a second.

And you might just realize, that it isn’t the television – that’s being programmed.

Also check out the next post related to this one, about the “personalities” behind your news, “Why Journalists Lie.”

And for more cutting-edge media theory, click here, or cut-and-paste into your address bar: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bible-believers-guide-anti-christian-media-peter-vadalaReport this

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Add a comment…Images Leonard Suskin, CTS-D 2nd degree connection2ndSenior Consultant at Syska Hennessy Group3y

silly. it’s easy to make a atrawman and attack it. A liberal could as easily say that modern American conservativism is about protecting the worst aspects of racism and tribalism. they’d be no less right than you are.LikeLike Leonard Suskin, CTS-D’S commentReply1 Like1 Like on Leonard Suskin, CTS-D’S comment · 1 Reply1 Comment on Leonard Suskin, CTS-D’S comment Peter Vadala YouLibrettist-Composer3y

Well, in journalism and television logic, striving to be “no less right” than anybody is good enough, so I suppose I’d have to agree!LikeLike Peter Vadala’s commentReplyLoad more commentsload_more_comment Peter Vadala

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Wanted: Anchorman/Anchorette. An Honest Job Description

Published on April 12, 2016
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Peter VadalaLibrettist-Composer193 articles

As a news anchor, reporter, and Multimedia Journalist (which, of course is an oxymoron) you’ll be expected to use an authoritative tone of voice that subconsciously reminds the audience of their father, or perhaps a favorite childhood teacher lurking in the dark corners of the audience’s long-forsaken and forgotten childhood from an era and corresponding indomitable human spirit our industry has very craftily undermined, and whose continued resilience you shall, with our team, be responsible for continuing to slowly and steadily erode through your doubtless unresolved and longstanding vanity, rooted in your own desire for your father’s approval and consequent resentment of any and all authority which you therefore seek to usurp from those who dare to be the best at what they do as you seize on the most fleeting of their relatively minuscule personality flaws in order to demoralize and thus induct our audience into a habit-forming psychological dependency upon our content.

And by the way, when we say you’ll be “creating content” for us, that is actually part of the white lie that substantiates our industry. It’s the structure that sustains their dependency more than anything, is really the biggest part of the habit-forming rouse, the gag. Most of this thing we call “the news” shall be forgotten and replaced with more insidious stunts before any of us could ever be held accountable for it, both by the audience and you. The main thing is to keep talking at all costs, and avoid “dead air,” because the “air”- or in other words, the promise of never-ending “content”- distraction, in other words, is really the promise of our premise. Empty calories perhaps, but so long as they keep eating, sooner or later, they can’t tell the difference. Remember, they’re not as astute or as educated as you. They would tell you, if you asked them seriously, that television is just the illusion of human interaction, if anything. And so the thing really is to have them avoid at all costs being exposed to that question, or any thinking whatsoever, come to think of it. And in so doing so, we perpetuate the very necessary, and delusional suspension of belief, which sustains the magic trick that is television news content, and other television content.

You see, back when television first came out, there was such a tremendous danger of us being discovered. Many very educated and noble-minded schmucks who actually desired the betterment of America spoke out against the pseudo-intellectual mind-candy that we have since grown expert in cooking up.

And we, too, were concerned about television and its derivative forms (most recently, online videos) being a kind of passing fad. Even television’s advocates most adoringly called the “magic trick” of television Peter Pan. At least one television salesman at CBS Boston still calls it that very excitedly. Why? Because radio and television are words and pictures magically flying through the air. Not everybody could afford a television back in the day, but now that technology has become so cheap, we have managed to penetrate even the poorest and otherwise naturally productive Americans’ lives. You’d think that would be a good thing, but it isn’t.

You see, with such a high market penetration rate, the gimmick has gotten old. No longer are Americans fascinated by this trick of light and shadows, despite the latest smoke and mirrors in the form of eliminating the need for the old and rather cumbersome technology once needed to perpetuate the small-screen illusion of human connection as close as the nearest set-top receiver.

No, the truth is, because we’ve been around for so very long, the ever-precarious tightrope we once walked in order to grab the audience’s attention with a story they couldn’t ignore- while at the same time, as any good marketer knows, not scaring them so much that they wouldn’t return the next day – (Because again, from a marketing perspective, a little fear is good, but too much is a turn-off) – the truth is, the hardest part of your job, necessarily, is turning your audience into a commodity, necessarily without them knowing that they are so, in an age which is, unfortunately, through years of exposure which you think would be a good thing for us – more media savvy than ever.

We really can’t milk the medium any more, and the gimmickry of Peter Pan flying through the air has worn off for the most part. The joke has long spoiled; the strings have been revealed. And so, on the cusp of our main trick of creating the illusion of an authority figure being virtually entirely revealed, all that’s left to liquidate, if not the trickery inherent in the medium’s historic profitability – is the underlying remnants of human satisfaction, good will, and naturally-occurring pleasure our audience should otherwise experience.

Now, if that sounds like a daunting task, your news nose is functioning correctly, however, we believe very strongly that it will appeal to you nonetheless because of your own unresolved childhood desires of approval, which we trust you shall very naturally be motivated to exploit same in the audience whom you address.

The good-hearted folks, particularly in the flyover regions that we serve, tend to be gullible enough to play into your most prurient appeals to their good nature. Which, naturally, our completely independent sales department shall use to package your audience, like any other commodity or sub-prime loan, to be sold to our advertisers.

Even some of the most learned audience members are, of course too proud to admit the mere possibility that they could ever be a product, like a common antebellum slave, to be sold to advertisers. And this is among the greatest of our psychological tricks as sellers of unsuspecting audience members – I mean sellers of air time.

This is why it is imperative that you have the “gift of gab” as a journalist, and that dead air be avoided at all costs. Because if the audience fails to be entertained for one moment, fails to be lectured, fails to be provided with some shiny object they may fixate upon in the otherwise stillness of the night or day- they might get to thinking. And if they get to thinking, they might begin to suspect that it is not Advil, or Pepsodent, or the latest Intel doo-hickey that is the product- they might chance upon the epiphany that they themselves are the product. They might chance upon the realization that perhaps a trip to the nearest pharmacy, and trying Motrin, or shelling out a couple thousand to buy the latest in pillow or mattress technology developed by NASA may not cure that inescapable gnawing question that unceasingly haunts them, that thing they are so afraid to face in the stillness of solitude.

What’s that, you say? You desire to be an ambassador of truth? You desire to convey real help in the form of knowledge of world events in a constructive and informative manner.

Why, why yes, yes of course! You young, attractive, stupid model. It is, after all, your brain which we are after, your ability to cunningly understand how to do what you’re told, that you might land your big break in television. The fact that you just happen to be easy on the eyes is, well, of no concern to us as you rip and read what we tell you.

Frankly, what you say isn’t as important as that you keep talking at all costs. Just keep talking, and do so in such a way as to not distract the audience too much from your pretty face. And for heaven’s sake, to that end, no big words. Stick to a fifth-grade vocabulary. The last thing we want to do is to send them running for a dictionary. Or any book or internet source which interrupts the habit-forming brainwave cycles, scientifically proven to be like that of a psychotropic drug, that we induce through shameless and intentional habit-forming. Is what Arbitron and Nielsen call it. All of which is really of no consequence to you.

You know what, on second thought, forget everything I just said – because all of that would certainly drive you to eventually commit suicide on the air just like Christine whatshername in the 70’s. After all, you cannot distract the audience from its own longings of conscience if you’re preoccupied with yours.

So yes, just go ahead and report your truth if you wish- just remember- nothing that would trigger the audience’s active thinking or conscience.

You may play to their guilt. Survivor’s guilt in a catastrophe is a highly effective habit-forming tool. Shock, after all, is a highly effective trance induction technique. Which is why we gladly accept losses from commercial-free coverage of painstaking charities, and which is why we’re not bothered by a little lip-service to those religious fools’ “god” in such times of extreme duress. They’re so desperate for approval and validation that they shall surely ignore your – I mean our – relentless demoralization of their faith, which we only do because, well, please understand – it’s how we get our hands on money that they would otherwise offer to the poor or do whatever it is those churchgoing idiots do with their hard-earned cash.

No, I didn’t mean you, of course. I know you go to church, but you, well, you’re smarter than the average churchgoer. You have a brain. You would never go along with all of this. Which is why you were smart enough to apply for this position.

So, it’s pretty straightforward, really. Just do what we tell you to do. Don’t question the AP, or the prevailing ethos of our profession. It is, after all, what provides our job security, and in these economic times, that is what you desire most, isn’t it? Job security?

Yes, well, that’s what your audience desires most as well, and so that’s the coverage it’s probably safest to stick to, pandering ever so clandestinely to their fears of joblessness and destitution while avoiding those larger questions that the impotent street-dweller and those productive fools whom we might convince through sly jabs at their sickening industrious nature are on their way to despair and destruction. No need to invoke larger moral questions about the nature of life, and love – except of course those which underhandedly poke holes in the very faith that would distract them from the advertisers — err- friends — whose message I sternly remind you, it is your job to scare them into passively accepting and acting upon.

Don’t worry, you’ll do great. And if you’re not convinced, let us appeal to your pride once more.

If you think you have what it takes, please send your resume here. We know you just want to be worshiped and admired at any expense. Oh, you heard about that journalist who got killed last week – if you’re worried about the death threats that come with the job, you probably aren’t thick-skinned enough to be a journalist.

Just keep your news nose to the grindstone, and you’ll be just fine. With a paycheck and job conditions that have you, yourself constantly worried about survival, you’ll soon become as addicted to your paycheck as our audience is to you.

You have a bright future here, through which you’ll be able to feed all those mouths in your household. Which is odd, because most applicants are to vain to concern themselves with anybody but themselves. But we’ll deal with it if we have to. In fact, we welcome it. More motivation for you to do what you’re told. Like any job.

So go ahead and send your package to the following address, and if you’re extremely lucky, we might just hire you. Good luck.Report this

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How Television Makes Amerika Dumberer An Less Produktiv

Published on April 10, 2016
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Peter VadalaLibrettist-Composer193 articles

I know that you, personally, would never watch a favorite television show, because the hopelessly stupid (CBS sitcoms), criminal (the series with the cokehead chem teacher), or unhealthy people (Mike&Molly) on the show with their reliably unresolved character quirks make you artificially comfortable with your own lack of growth. While you can’t keep up with the Joneses, for a 30-second crack at selling you insurance or a miracle cure, or a hamburger ( https://miamitwpteaparty.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/list-of-sponsors1.pdf ) you may receive free help in perpetuating the illusion that somewhere out there is a family, or person, that you are, in some way, better than, in either your work ethic, in your general morality, or in some other measure of life success.

Far be it from me to suggest that keeping up with, or on top of, the proverbial Joneses (apologies to Joneses) is the purpose of your life or mine. But, in work, as in at play, it is competition that helps make us better individuals. Iron sharpens iron, right? And so a little non-terrorist friendly fire within our borders, be it in the form of an underhanded compliment or the “gameification”(so help me) of our workplace is not without merit.

I only have to assume that the wiser minds of previous generations, especially the ever-notorious “book parent” generation and radio hosts spurred by the likes of Dr. James Dobson has made this observation before. And you may accuse me of being wholly unoriginal. And indeed, I only intend to present a quite unoriginal message in a new and fresh light, because, well, previous generations did things so much infinitely better than we do.

And so let me state what was indubitably obvious to them. Television’s mind-rotting capabilities lie in its potential to present us with a situation that is easier than real life, as I stated in the opening.

Need further proof? Let’s look at CBS’s cancellation of Mike and Molly. Molly lost weight. I can’t find an admission by CBS that Molly’s weight loss is the reason for the show’s cancellation, nor do I expect to find one. However, a frequent viewer of the show who shall remain nameless described it to me as “a fat comedy.” May I suggest that the great illusion of the show, what makes it comforting, and the reason that we willingly put up with six minutes every hour of otherwise unwanted sales pitches – is because we want to be validated as human beings.

The reality is that life is difficult. It is difficult to do something meaningful, be it bearing and raising children or finding employment in this Brave New World that does not compromise one’s conscience, which is of particular interest to those of us of faith. Living successfully, living with a sense of purpose, and then venturing to fulfill that purpose, is harder than ever, in an America that, increasingly, seems to defy common goodness at every turn. And, unfortunately, the world has always been such, although America is at a particularly low point at the moment. I digress.

But uncritical or frequent television viewers are not the only self-victimizing losers of excessive television-watching. If we watch television frequently, we do a disservice to our neighbors as well. Why? Well, remember – the comfort in watching television, in developing a habit of spending time vicariously living through our “Friends” (as in the TV Show friends) or our favorite sitcom family – is knowing – based on false evidence – that we don’t need to improve at all to become as productive, as diligent, as bright, as capable, as faithful, as moral – as the television Joneses. We’re better than they are, and so by all counts – we’re super-awesome.

I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking it, too. You’re probably racking your brain for that instance in your favorite television show that taught you something about life which you did not know previously. Perhaps, you’re thinking, the show even contributes to your happiness and thus makes you a better person. And here, I’m afraid, if you’re not a person of faith, we may have a difficult time communicating with one another. Why? Because I know certain things to be objectively wrong which you may think are quite fine. (I present no examples, because that’s not productive. ) However, I suppose I would challenge you to think of your very favorite television show, and to furthermore make a list. On the one hand, make a list of all the things that you “love” about the show. Now, perhaps I’m underestimating you and your critical viewing skills. None of us is above the influence of passive television watching, of course. More on that later.

Let’s circle back to your objection that television makes you a happier person. I don’t doubt its ability to provide a certain catharsis, even a kind of affirmation that your more questionable assumptions and beliefs are somehow legitimized. After all, you’d never sell crack cocaine. So your reefer habit is, by comparison, quite innocent, even admirable.

Perhaps you think I’m merely talking about sitcoms. But if you have read anything of mine you are aware that television news is, at best, a monologue loosely based on decontextualized “events of the day”(I refer you to Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves To Death and the movie, Network). Take it from a former on-air journalist. There are broadcast journalism schools all over the map that drill you, and drill you, and drill you on how to deliver stories like an anchorman or anchorette, until you actually become one. Or a reporter. The best of us change our tones appropriately as we read each story, each little bit told omnisciently, and ultimately book-ended with a warm greeting and a salutation to “join us again next time.” Just like a sitcom – or usually – more like a television drama – the news has a distinctive theme that opens and closes it. Now, if you come to the television to really learn about what is happening, may I ask you, why is it necessary, apart from habit, to be informed with some kind of fanfare? Are you perhaps a dignitary, that a trumpet is needed to announce your royal herald? Are you too weary from a long workday that you simply need the music to condition your mind to receive whatever the character on screen is about to convey? In either case, you are, perhaps unwittingly, making a decision to abandon some element of reason in favor of an amusing hook.

All of which, I admit, would take quite a bit of time and energy on my part to explain, and on your part to receive, and, well, let’s face it, that would take effort. However, I think we can agree that the serial television show, as I have made the case above, is merely comfort food. It is reliable; it won’t kill you; although it certainly wouldn’t get your sitcom life canceled for being too much of a good example. And it’s easy to look at the CBS sitcom and its pathetic characters and say, ah-hah- I’m better than that. But may I suggest to you that your favorite television show draws you in repeatedly the same way. It is merely tailored to pander to your own weaknesses and unspeakable anxieties. I’d say what they are, but you would vehemently disagree with me. However, if you’d really like to understand what I mean, do a Web search on Johari Window, and that will get you started on your way. Or, if you’d like to make it simpler at first, may I encourage you to simply get a piece of paper, right now, and begin listing all of the qualities that – though of course you don’t know what they are — begin listing, in stream-of-consciousness form, what you think your own weaknesses and unspeakable anxieties might be. It is important that you don’t think, that you just write. Don’t worry- nobody’s looking, and you may shred the evidence when you are done. It’s what previous generations called “journaling” or “keeping a diary.” I know. Greek, right?

Speaking of lists – take a look at the list that you drew up of things you love about your favorite television show. Now. How many of the items on that list are items that are beneficial to you- in other words, how many of the things you like about that show challenge you to become a better person? Compare that to the number of things on the list that happen to confirm qualities about yourself that you would say are either neutral or negative?

Again, this is between you and the wall. So I’m not here to make any kind of judgement. But if you’re like most people, including myself, I would say that the television shows that you enjoy watching generally employ characters that we don’t look up to very much. We watch them because they’re amusingly stupid; they’re addicted to drugs we’re not addicted to; they’re stuck in a destructive paradigm we know better than to get ourselves into; in other words, their life mess is more tangled than ours. And not only that, unlike in a movie, we have the blessed if unspoken assurance and promise by the producer that they shall never find any resolution to their struggles. After all, we love the characters. And what is character but unresolved conflict and how the fictional people respond to those conflicts?

Not only does this help destroy American society by giving us a false high regard for our own life situation based on relative success compared to fantastical family and friends who are always a step behind ourselves (and who really don’t exist).

Remember, we “love” these characters. What are we learning about love? Sure, there might be an explicit lesson in the latest “Full House” episode. And here we might account for why your list contains such an unbalanced amount of positives about your favorite show about the chem teacher who sells meth. Breaking Bad, that’s it. (I knew I’d think of it)

The real reasons we come back to the same familiar television shows are the reasons we can’t admit. What can’t you admit about why you can’t watch your favorite TV show? Again, no judgement here- it’s your list.

Let me suggest a major one that I observe about myself. Do you “love” Rachel, or Chandler, or Joey? Raymond? Deborah? Lucy? Ethel?

Why do you love them? We’ve already said it, but let me say it a different way.

You love them because you love to see them get into the same old problems over and over again and know that your life isn’t nearly that bad.

Oh, but that’s just the sitcoms, you say. You’re above that. Fine. Pick your poison. Gossip Girl? Always Sunny in Wherever? That Mafia Show?

Yes, sitcoms are becoming a little more like soap operas. Let’s stop there. That’s not a positive. I mean, they’re called soap operas. Let that sink in.

For fear of dragging out the subject too far- bottom line, and if you’ve read this far, I thank you for having the good faith in this author to share my experience because I believe it’s the right thing to do.

Television, no matter how aesthetically polished, is always inexorably an anti-social force that can at best be used as a means to furnish learning but which ultimately trains the mind in such a way as to take advantage of it for zero-to-negative-sum purposes. I refer you to Amusing Ourselves to Death again for a fuller development of that thesis.

And, for the sake of not leaving any cliffhangers, which any reporter worth his salt ensures, I did want to include this previous assertion, just in case you’re safe from the detrimental effects of television because you limit your viewing to the merely educational or worse, the “news.” And I set up the following explanation with this premise — we have already gone over how sitcom and serial drama is effective at keeping you hooked and habit-forming- which is its design and purpose. The following statement is nearly intended to begin to illustrate (though contact me if you have questions) how not only is drama the very same animal as the silly sitcom, but newscasts are in fact the very same animal as the sitcom as well, despite their weakly constructed airs of sophistication (MSNBC election coverage synthesized orchestra stagers, anybody?)

From a former post:
The dramatic structure of a television newscast is that of a TV drama. Instead of an “A-story,” “B-story,” etc you have the most compelling story which climaxes at about the 90% mark in the newscast. Instead of “setup” for that a-story climax, you merely have teasers akin to the introduction of character tics, from the very beginning. Who’s the main character? The anchor. The resolution is the one slightly non-depressing story usually thrown in at the end (a lost puppy come home). And you vicariously live through a half-hour or hour hero’s journey of the anchor’s disconnected dramatic obstacles of increasing intensity.Report this

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Add a comment…Images Rafael Brom 2nd degree connection2ndCatholic Books, Videos, Music, Statues and Church Supplies – marianland.com3y

From Country of Geniuses To Country of Idiots https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRuJjfXZ7LoLikeLike Rafael Brom’s commentReply Chris Peschken 1st degree connection1stFreelance TV & Film Producer, U.N. Geneva Correspondent for EWTN Deutschland etc.3y

EXCELLENT Observations. .. and sadly.. true! Most of the TV content today is like a dangerous drug. Like all drugs, at first it makes you feel good, but soon you depend on it and it kills you slowly.LikeLike Chris Peschken’s commentReply Peter Vadala

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Nickelodeon’s Creepy Classrooms

Published on March 28, 2016
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Peter VadalaLibrettist-Composer193 articles

Disney is known to have some potentially creepy portrayals of kid-life, but somehow they manage to always keep it in check so it doesn’t teeter over the edge.

CBS, however, has ventured way too far into the world of the creepy to ignore. The really odd thing about CBS- and Viacom – is that on the one hand they have the super-old-targeted CBS. But then they’re also responsible for the likes of Nickelodeon. Which, again, has taken a turn for the super-creepy of late.

The series, “Teachers,” managed to attract the irk of a million moms across the nation. Now, in Teachers‘ defense, I’ve worked with the Public School system in Saugus, and I can attest that, well, public school today really isn’t a safe place for children. Granted.

But, Nickelodeon can cover for their *n*l-bleaching teachers, who engage in sexual behavior in front of their students, by saying, hey parents, it’s okay, we only show this kind of thing after 8p.m., when of course no child in the internet age has access to cable television. (hardy har har har) Okay, Nickelodeon, you sly television predator, sneaking your sex jokes into little Nickelodeon fans’ bedrooms. You get away with that.

But Nickelodeon/CBS/Viacom — seriously. I mean- how do you explain “School of Rock”?

Now, on its own, School of Rock might be construed as an innocent kind of foray into the very least substantive missteps in music history. Hey, the Beatles are music. Okay. You’ve made a semi-intelligent sounding case. And on its own, the cast of Teachers need to engage in sexual behavior in front of their really (really really) young students, like the episode of Teachers where the teacher is doing the unspeakable while teaching sex ed. This from the old people network conglomerate. (Not to mention there are real-life kid actors whose parents are agreeing for their kids to be subjected to this stuff.)

All of that is perfectly rational, right? But taken together, I’m beginning to think that Nickelodeon might just possibly be going a wee bit too far this time around, methinks possibly maybe. I don’t know.

This isn’t a case for One Million Moms. This is just plain weird. CBS-Viacom is looking less like an innocent “Touched By an Angel” old-people-targeting second-rate nostalgia factory, which, like its audience, emits an occasional fart joke. No, we’re crossing over into the very uncute, misanthropic old guy– like John Herbert on Family Guy. Sad that I am using Family Guy to illustrate a point about another television show’s envelope-pushing.

I was just introduced to the new Nick show as a google ad for an Owl City music vid I happened to be watching. I discovered “Teachers” the same way- or it might have been from OMM publicity.

Nickelodeon, unlike Disney, knows no subtlety. Like I said- Disney is getting more and more controversial, its Marvel even going head-to-head with the heartland it used to comfort with its bucolic Main-Street-USA and Songs of the South, the likes of which still live on in Splash Mountain. (And Black Americans love splash mountain, apparently.)

But the scatological humor is now classic, old-school Nick. Heck, in Frozen, even princess Ana mentioned being “gassy.” (What’s wrong with the world?) Fart jokes are no longer taboo even at Disney. (Excuse me, gas jokes. *shiver*) So Nick is blazing a new trail – not-so-subtle innuendo and suggestive dancing, carried by over-painted youngsters. Eight-year-olds dressed to look eighteen. That guy in Utah who kidnapped the Mormon girl- I guess – is Nick’s target audience. What was her name? You know the one, had that biography about the trial at WalMart? Anyway…

One has to wonder when normal people – if there are any left in this insane generation of mine – are going to stand up and say, this kind of thing cannot be had by decent, good people.

I feel sick right now. I really do.

Addendum:
Just to be clear, Disney isn’t any better, morally, than Nickelodeon. Disney’s just been doing this kind of thing longer. This is Nickelodeon’s first venture into the world of musicals, as it were, and so they don’t have as much experience navigating that line of what ticks people off as much. They care, naturally. the last thing they want is a bunch of angry parents turning off the television. Not that many parents care these days- maybe that’s what they’re betting on. So while this might be in keeping with Nick’s tradition of callously disregarding the sensitivities of the parent who cares – it would seem to me that this is a pretty big leap into the obscene, even for the network that really carved a niche for itself on kid-taboo, back when kid-taboo was fart jokes — as opposed to Disney, which made its niche in the pseudo-sincere, with pseudo being the highly operative word.Report this

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On “Christian Film” (And Showstopping Pastors)

Published on February 9, 2016
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Peter VadalaLibrettist-Composer193 articles

Here, I’m grappling with the likely self-contradictory nature of “Christian film” and “Entertainment Theology”(with zero apologies to the book by that name).

Here’s what I believe is the very best moral justification of the aesthetic inferiority of “Christian Film,” or “Christian Television,” that is, television for a “faith market.” But, as you might be able to guess from that introduction, it’s not a great one.

Television, specifically, is, as a medium, opposed to its audience engaging in any level of intentional, effortful thought – that is, making a conscience-compelled, conscious decision to direct the attention of the subconscious while our unbelieving peers ultimately unintentionally express a de facto belief in the sovereignty of the easy (why bother modulating what enters the mind’s eye if we really believe all is bunk?). Christian faith is predicated upon its subscribers committing to a lifetime of active, rather than passive decisions – in other words, devoting a good deal of serious thought to virtually every decision of every day.

Part of the underlying ethos of the modern media world includes a kind of mindless absorption of everything going on. This is what even media creators do. Why? Whether they are reporting or producing news or Saturday morning cartoons, their goal is basically like that of a pop artist. To produce something that is just familiar enough so that we tune in, but just with just enough hidden variations that we find it inventive, and creative, and novel. C.S. Lewis wrote about the phenomenon of both novelty and the recurring, integral parts of the human existence as manifested in nature. A beautiful sunset is a recurring event, and at the same time, its brilliance can possess a novel quality. We expect it, and at the same time, we are blown away by its beauty, under the right conditions.

Hard Work isn’t just an American Puritan invention. The Bible speaks legions about the dangers of sloth. The problem with the underlying assumptions of television, from a Christian standpoint, is that television teaches us that unless something is entertaining, it’s not worth learning. And unfortunately, that’s where our Bible A.D.D. develops. “I can’t concentrate while reading the Bible.” “It doesn’t make sense to me.” Of course it does. Most Bible translations are written at a fifth-grade reading level (whatever that means nowadays) just like your newspaper. The Bible tells us we are to meditate on the precepts of the word day and night. Meditation has the connotation of relaxation, but in a world where hundreds of electronic messages are vying aggressively for our attention in the form of cell phone dings and commercials – it takes a very real effort to say, “no, I’m going to make a conscious decision to ignore what it would be very easy to look at, what my eyes or ears naturally gravitate toward, and instead direct my eyes and attention to something life-giving, because I know that despite the seemingly urgent nature of the cell phone ding, or the infomercial sales pitch, or the ‘breaking news'(ha) — if I cannot control my sanity, I shall be of no use to act in any meaningful capacity upon any of the sensory input I am passively absorbing, or even choosing to absorb.”

In other words, if we’re overloaded with information by virtue of our inability to select the information we would like to admit into our minds as part of whatever we feel our life purpose is, we can’t do anything useful with any of it.

Enter “Christian Film,” and Christian Television. Pureflix has, it would seem, a novel mission of creating and making available legions of “Pure Flix” which serve as an alternative to the horrendous, morally and aesthetically cheap fare offered by Netflix, which is to say nothing of your conventional network sitcom.

Now. Most of us Christians balk at the horrid nature of the Christian film. We know that it’s poorly made, compared to what Hollywood puts out. Or do we? What’s the underlying assumption that causes us to condemn the aesthetics of Christian films? And I’m thinking of your “Flywheel,” or “Facing the Giants.” We love the values, and the fact that on most levels, we don’t have to feel guilty about watching them. And at the same time, we’re frustrated, because the film isn’t as well-made. It doesn’t have great “production values.” All of which is to say — It doesn’t succeed in doing what a seamlessly-created Hollywood blockbuster does, which is keep us so thoroughly engrossed in the film we forget we’re watching a film and our suspension of belief is duly sustained by the work of art unfolding before us.

And to some degree, I agree with you. Why shouldn’t a “Christian film” have the very best production values? Doesn’t Christ’s message deserve the very state-of-the-art budgets, and dazzling lights, and most expert celebrities in the craft?

Except that the very nature of Christian faith begs us to keep the spectacle of film at arm’s length, so that we may let it inspire us to greatness, but that it not be thought of as a surrogate Bible study. Why? Well, again, the reason we go to film is to be entertained. To let our mind relax. In fact, unless you’re choosing to analyze a film, and are trained in what to look for in your analysis, it’s very difficult to actively watch with any kind of purpose, and the characters on the screen are not very helpful in your endeavor to ask the right questions. In fact, the very things that make what you would consider a “good film” are, absent an ingenious artistic technique yet to be invented, intended to distract you from your own willful suspension of disbelief, your own willingness to be a willing participant in the manipulation of your own mind for the sake of “entertainment.”

Ironically, it is, albeit unintentionally, the unintentionally poor “production values” of the Christian film that are, to some degree, their greatest asset to a sincere believer. And not just because they speak to the humbled-to-near-embarrassment Christian producer’s inexperience and lack of skill. The awful Christian film, like any bad film or poorly crafted foreign propaganda, albeit unintentionally calls attention to its brush strokes. In failing to trick our minds as well as the superior-production-values Hollywood piece, it lends us some insights into the process of creating the spectacle of film by pulling back the curtain a little, as if we were slowing down the film frames just enough that our eyes could see each frame flickering.

So there’s one virtue of the act of watching Christian films – it helps improve our media literacy by demonstrating that the train on-screen isn’t really going to come into the station and run us over. And you could say, based on that, that you don’t need to watch a Christian film to improve your media literacy in this way. You can find any number of poorly produced film to laugh at, “Christian” or not, and begin to understand how the celluloid sausage is made through observation.

The other virtue of willfully choosing to watch a Christian film, when you know – because you don’t live under a rock – that it simply isn’t going to “wow” you – to trick you into an almost narcotic-like state of ecstasy as well as that rare movie that occasionally does- is that you are making an intentional choice in what you are choosing to spend your time watching. Now, that may not seem like a big deal. Most Americans have the perception that they are watching what they desire to watch, but then again making an informed choice assumes a certain degree of wisdom regarding how to choose. And so by choosing a Christian film, which is less likely to tempt you to sin than a more secular work, and moreover might direct your mind toward something good and worthwhile on occasion – you are exercising that most critical mind-muscle – the same one that has a big role in your choosing to do good in other life situations besides “what to watch.” Perhaps when your co-worker is being bullied, your decision now to choose better media content will help cement a habit that will lead you to stand up for the underprivileged co-worker rather than do what is easiest, what is suggested by less moral friends. In this way, again, choosing the awfully-made Christian film has its advantages over choosing the wonderfully-made film with theoretically lesser virtues.

So far, we have two reasons that choosing to watch a poorly-made Christian film is better than choosing to watch a well-made secular film. But in case you’re not seeing the pattern, those reasons are rather weak. The first reason was that by virtue of the Christian film’s awful production values, we might learn more about film, and the second reason is that we are exercising our inherently Christian ability to choose what to watch rather than follow the crowd. These reasons are weak because, though they demonstrate a viable use of the Christian film, neither of these reasons justify more production of more Christian films. Because even if awful films have use, aren’t there plenty of enough awful films out there, without Christians needing to add to the collective ugliness? Doesn’t that make the world despise us more if we crank out more half-hearted, ugly art? And yay, we have the right to choose awful art over good art because of the good intentions of the creator. And frankly, doesn’t that demean the goodness of Our Creator’s creation? Suddenly, the filmmaker, in the second example, becomes the charity. And I’m not against patronizing Christian filmmakers. I am saying that they aren’t the best witness to the world, no more than a newly recovering alcoholic might not be the best person to send into a bar alone to convert other drunkards.

So we have all these awful Christian films floating around out there that on the one hand have paved the way for pieces like “The Passion” but on the other hand offend the uninitiated for their lack of craft. Because remember, the thing to look for in a good film- or what we’re trained to seek in a good film, is its ability to trick us into thinking we’re watching a good film, or good production values. It’s all the same thing. So then you argue for the Christian film, well, they’re not really meant for the world; they’re meant for a “faith market.”

But then we came back to the problem we discussed before. The only two reasons the “faith market” wants to see “Christian movies” is to avoid the guilt associated with watching a production-superior secular film, or to make a kind of political statement, as it were, by purchasing tickets to a movie. Which again, makes the Christian film industry a kind of charity. And aren’t Christians’ dollars better spent on feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and the like, rather than responding to a call to action to “Make Woodlawn Number One This Weekend?” I don’t know. Maybe there is a kind of sense of community within the American Christian faith that is realized when we patronize inferior movies. And maybe it’s legit. We all have to learn somewhere; and how can we fly if we can’t crawl, as filmmakers?

But I’m not writing as a filmmaker, per se, except that I’m essentially posing a d-vil’s advocate hypothetical to justify, as it were, the existence of what has risen to become something of an institution, the inferior “Christian Film,” or Christian Television.

And here’s why I feel a need to justify it. Christian families, like all families in the United States, are stressed out by a government that essentially piddles away all our hard-earned cash, in comparison to the American government of earlier ages that required much less of us and gave us what we needed. And even if we weren’t under the stress of being robbed by the government, we have an obligation central to our faith to spend our talents wisely, and what greater talent have we been given by God than time itself? Each moment is so very precious that we have on this earth. We’re here to serve God and our neighbor, almost inextricably by the Good Book itself.

I don’t want to sound insensitive to my peers; and, alas, I’ve made others sit through my own less-than-stellar student efforts. But in a profession that is so motivated by vanity, wouldn’t it be the very best “witness,” if you secular folks forgive the scathingly evangelical-sounding phrase–

Wouldn’t it be the best representation of the God we say we serve if we did something different than Hollywood in Netflix?

What if we treated our audience as we wanted to be treated, for real?

What if, rather than inundate Christians and seekers alike with a million films we know are awful, but that we need to make bank on- we simply kill them (the films)? And oh, doesn’t that hurt? I don’t even know if I can live up to this. We’re so attached to our work- necessarily. How can we aspire to make a good work if we’re not intimately attached to it? And yet, how can we kill it if we’re attached to it?

I think, however, it comes down to respecting our audience. How do you feel when you pay ten dollars to go into a theater, and it is the worst thing ever? And isn’t the sad reality that 90% of the time, this turns out to be the case? When was the last time you went to a theater and said, “Wow. That was worth it.” I almost feel like an honest theater would offer the audience an opportunity to walk out on some kind of prorated basis – at least offer the chance to discover a new movie. Never mind that you’re paying ten dollars to stare at shadows on a wall. Even that shady carnie has a real python inside his trailer for you to gawk at and possibly fear for your life because of. There was that movie theater shooting, but of course that’s even less desirable, and another discussion entirely.

I guess what I’m getting at is, let’s forget our silly film ambitions for a moment. Even Singin’ in the Rain is just celluloid. Non-Christians are going to hate your awful Christian film, and so we’ve already established that our target audience is Christians.

Christians who think that by paying to see your awful Christian film, they are doing something good for the world. You’re a charity. Perhaps they hope that someday, you’ll make a truly great film. And I think that’s kind of humbling, for a number of reasons. But here is the most troubling, thing about awful Christian films in this regard, to me:

Christians like everybody else are bombarded with a million different media messages trying to distract their attention for just long enough to extract money from them in some form. And frankly, most “Christians” haven’t touched a Bible, or even a Bible app icon, in weeks.

Most Christians only paid attention to the last Sunday church message to the extent that it was entertaining – i.e. modeled after television, per the pastor’s understandable fear that if he doesn’t entertain you just like television, doesn’t “connect” with a “relevant” marketing message, like a reference to the Charger’s game, then you’re going to “tune him out.”

And now we get closer to the heart of not just what’s wrong with the underlying principles of “Christian film” today, but what’s wrong with evangelical evangelism. That’s right – evangelicals don’t know how to evangelize.

Evangelical preachers assume- perhaps rightfully, perhaps not – so little of their congregations. And the effect is so very self-defeating.

By trying to entertain their congregations – by assuming that unless they begin each service with a rock show led by a pretty model or a hunky lughead who also happens to sing – and oh, the dazzling rock shows I’ve seen within evangelicaldom, masquerading as Sunday Morning Church! We’ve come a long way from the obstinately plain, modest way of our founding Pilgrims who established our security and success and favor with God Almighty.

By putting such a premium on entertainment, the modern pastor is enabling a television-encouraged cultural habit of passive media absorption. Yes, the pastor might be talking about tithing on Sunday, or any number of worthy topics. But by entertaining the congregation, he is helping television cheat the congregation out of the most fundamental ability a Christian has to resist Satan, to resist evil – namely, the ability to choose what is better in the long run but what is more difficult at the moment. In other words, in his attempts to entertain the congregation, the pastor is, despite the conscious, exoteric content of his sermon, encouraging, even training the congregation to expect the kind of instant gratification that condemned the man who buried his talents. Worse, while his sermon, and the worship environment he creates is undermining his congregation’s logical, cognitive, abilities of conscience – which it ought to be exercising, preparing for the assault of passivity that begins long before the congregation leaves the church — the modern pastor most deviously (if unwittingly) manipulates the congregation into thinking that if they faithfully tithe, they are fulfilling the very duty of conscience he is in fact stripping away from them.

You might say, Peter, you’ve never been a pastor. You don’t know what pastors have to deal with. And you’re right. But I have met pastors who don’t entertain their congregations. They are practically pilgrims. Some call themselves Puritans. And they are. Those are the only pastors I really respect. Those are the pastors who will save the church. They know that entertainment is not a shortcut, and it cannot even exist alongside a legitimate church service, with one caveat I’ll get to in just a bit. But from my filmmaker perspective, I have to suggest that just because pastors commit this sin of undermining their congregations’ consciences and wasting their valuable time the same way America’s Funniest Stupidity television does — it doesn’t mean that we have to do it. Again. Forget our ambitions to make a great film. Can we respect our audience?

So why not just put away the camera and go home? Do we join One Million Moms in condemning the film industry?

Frankly, if I didn’t know the medium so well, I probably would have chosen a more fulfilling career path. I feel like I have a natural, intuitive sense about the art form, and so there is no greater purpose for me than to make a great film. That’s why I’m doing it. So why is my life passion and work, at least professionally, to make a really, really great film? And note that I didn’t say “Christian” film.

There are moments in the Gospel when God has people stand upon His mountain and commune with him. There are moments when God’s people dream. People like Jacob. There are things, like sunsets, that God put on this earth for us to marvel at, to be inspired by. There are things like romantic love, and first-borns, that fill us with such ecstasy, that remind us with emotional punch that no evil terrorist can ever approach in magnitude that yes, humanity, and life is worth it.

I know it sounds vain, but as a filmmaker, I believe I’ve been given a gift to help others access the other-worldly, the great. Now, I may be flattering myself. I hope I’m not. But if my current project didn’t aspire to that level of greatness, it would certainly fail in achieving it. And so I am shooting for the quintessential American film. And I believe that that is my responsibility as a filmmaker. I want you to see the very best film you have ever seen. Why? Because I respect your time, if nothing else, and I want you to feel, when you walk out of that theater, or turn off your computer, that it was the best X dollars you’ve ever spent, and that you would have gladly spent more.

That’s what good entertainment does – if such a thing as good entertainment exists, and I’m not sure it does. But if I’m making it – if I am morally daring to put something before you with the assumption you will spend two hours and forty minutes experiencing it – then darnit, I have a responsibility to do everything in my power to make sure that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’ve crossed or forded every river, climbed every mountain, avoided every cliche – to make darn sure that this is the very best use of your two hours and forty minutes. Which is why I hate sequels with a passion. Back to the future took seven years or so to write. Of course II and III are inferior. It’s a rush job. And if there’s anything I’ve learned from my own rush jobs, I have to be apologetic about them, but namely, I have to commit to never doing a rush job again. Especially in film.

It’s not okay when you buy a car and it doesn’t work properly; you demand your money back. Why should film be any different? Yes, you could lie and say you hated my film if you really loved it, but I don’t believe you would.

A lot of high-minded jibber-jabber above, but what’s the prescription, the solution for bad Christian films, as well as the entertainment-theology that dominates not only the justification of awful “Christian film” (and is it really Christian film if it wastes time you could better spend?) but the very sermons you hear on Sunday?

First off, if you think you’re a Christian and believe the answer to the country’s faith crisis means creating better Christian propaganda in the form of films, and Netflix competitors, to provide a steady stream of faith parables – you’re dead wrong. In fact, that kind of thinking is right there with the feminist usurpation of Church authority in its closeness to the heart of the evangelical church in America’s downfall. It strikes at the heart of God’s plan for leadership in the church, which is anti-effeminate man and pro-choice – and by pro-choice I mean pro-thinking congregant, pro-unamaused congregant.

Do I mean pro-unamused congregant in the sense that we never laugh, we never engage in sex (appropriately), we never seek inspiration, even in the form of great works of art like cinema might just approach once in a rare, rare while? Absolutely not! God had his people go up to the mountain of God to be inspired by Him. To not lose their sense of being mystified by the aura of magic-endowed properties of a God so much higher than we are that we could never understand how He works. And such a God, if we really believe in Him, is so high, so great, that never, ever, ever may we, if we really believe in him, make him the subject of Sunday morning amusement, as opposed to, by His very words to us, the Number One subject of our willful, purposeful, active study.

Who is “Number One”? Let’s try that again.

Who’s Number One? It’s not you. It’s not me. And yet, how is anybody in America to be seriously inclined to think about an Almighty God if the pastor presents Him only sandwiched between a musical warm-up act singing a familiar song not unlike the theme song to your favorite sitcom- and another closing theme? You might say, well, the preacher needs to make us more suggestible to suggestion in order to help us destress from the world’s craziness and better absorb the message.

And again, preacher, why do you assume so little of us as a congregation? Maybe you don’t intend to do so, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. It’s patronizing and it’s made millennials like me hate the church experience. And if you do assume so little of your congregation, how can you expect the ones who do adhere to you with the passion of a scorned cult member – how do you expect them to be of any use to others in the world the way God wants them to be?

The conclusion or takeaway here – if you think you might have the gift to make a really great Christian film, go after it and don’t quit. But realize that in your efforts to get on the map, or whatnot, you might be imposing upon unsuspecting Christians’ time in ways that really, it’s not ours to do. We can’t be all, “yay us.” When we do make film mistakes; it’s best to acknowledge them as such and move onto the next thing. That way, that truly great thing God wants us to do will be all the greater. And people will respect the God we serve more for it.

In the meantime, unless we’re a student of film or actively pursuing an understanding of film history, why don’t we put Christian films, and all films in their place. Perhaps that’s a very high place, in the case of the best films. But the reality is that those kinds of films are very few and far between. We all want to make them; few of us will. That’s part of the lottery we play when we become filmmakers. Unless you’re a dreamer like Joseph and you just know it’s what He wants you to do with your life. I know I’m a natural or I wouldn’t be doing it. I know I’ve wasted people’s time with inferior content, and I’m sorry I did. If I do put it out there in the future, as a work of entertainment, it will be with some kind of disclaimer perhaps. I don’t feel it’s a good idea to pull a routine like the one in Tom Sawyer, in which you captivate a crowd with promises of great entertainment and let them down. That betrays a kind of trust.

So let’s bury the inferior Christian film, or market them only in places where people will truly appreciate them- some foreign territories perhaps. I’m not sure. Let’s do it, like any proper burial, with respect to its maker, but bury it nonetheless. And let’s be honest with each other within the Christian community. Christian filmmakers are so darned sensitive. So criticism-averse. So discouragable. The church has no guts about anything these days, as a general rule, and filmmaking is no different. Maybe we’d make truly great films if we weren’t so darn preoccupied with effete, scared politeness, and every film release weren’t treated like a Christmas pageant of youngsters in that regard, who cannot take criticism (another topic entirely again). I mean, what’s less polite? The church not being able to give adequate constructive feedback out of fear of offending, or the filmmaker wasting thousands, millions of congregants’ time? I mean, don’t both the Christian filmmaker and the congregants owe it to ourselves, if not God Himself – to have a realistic and productive discussion, so we don’t keep seeing the same awful movies over and over again, which drag the Christ whose Father invented the Sunset through the mud?

And yet, again, all of the above implies a kind of mistaken underlying assumption that film is important. Remember, we are talking about a medium, as much as I hate to admit it as an aspiring filmmaker, that is largely responsible for the feminist lethargy of conscience, of will, of fatally unalienable compromise that undermines all masculine conviction- indeed all serious thought itself.

Such is the nature of film, such is the nature of television, at least in the ways that we expect it to function today. In the ways that we watch it and say, “that was a really great film!” Or “that was a really great television show!” Preachers could the technology of film and television to other uses- and do – such as using it to affirm or reinforce points in a sermon, restating Bible verses, that sort of thing. And that use of the medium does indeed help enrich the congregants’ understanding. Why? Because it is not a gimmick to grab the audience’s attention- it is an aid to the message which, unlike a compelling photo, poses itself as a conscious choice the congregants can make to look at it. In that regard, from a moral Christian perspective, it is the most pure, most Christian, most successful Christian film ever invented, in that it has no ambition of entertaining; only helping the earnest Christian in his earnest desire to earnestly exercise that most critical mind-muscle, that most critical conscience-muscle of all – the will to choose good over evil; the spirit nature over the flesh nature. God over Satan. And that most successful Christian film I just described would be what most of you in the church would condemn as the very worst film ever. Why? Because we demand that film entertain us first, and educate us second, above all, make us laugh, dupe us into suspended disbelief.

So from a Christian standpoint, yes, I’m afraid to say what most of you Christians fear. The most successful Christian film, objectively and morally, is the most boring thing that you’ve ever seen in your life by design, if you’re like most churchfolk today. And without a doubt, it is something the non-Christian world, with an insatiable desire for amusement, would hate with a passion.

The most successful “Christian film,” I suppose, is microfiche, 35mm, any kind of film that makes accessible the Word of God itself. I don’t mean “The Bible” television series’ dramatization of the Bible. I mean words one has to look at and ponder, and should- because they came from God Himself. And it would be the best Christian film of all because it has the best content, even though we are accustomed to seeing other things, but at the end of the day, of course, we’d say to ourselves, why go through the trouble of printing the word of God on film when we could simply read it in a book? That certainly would be easier, wouldn’t it? Unless we are projecting it to a large audience to read, in which case, by all means.

And I know that earlier I said that the best Christian film would be very boring indeed, since it would just be the Word of God, or even perhaps a sermon, printed on the film. There wouldn’t be any explosions or sword-fights or pretty models singing.

But, having exercised my own muscle of will and consciousness thoroughly, I have found that – and this is difficult for me to say as a filmmaker – the Word of God’s ability to amuse is far superior to that of “film” as we know it, in the entertainment sense. Why? Because rather than relying upon the phenomenon of dulling our senses, of pulling the curtain over our subconsciousness, the very act of reading the Word of God begs that we exercise that muscle of thinking. That we ask ourselves, that we be conscious of ourselves reading. That we understand the character of one who saw fit to write us a letter expressing His love, His wrath, His envy, His power. And the difficult-to-accept fact for us dreadfully amused that His Words cannot be improved upon through the magic trick of photojournalism or its descendants like television or film (thoughts borrowed here from Neil Postman).

God’s very Word calls Jesus the Word in John. Jesus doesn’t refer to himself as a television, though he tells parables (always explaining them to the initiated afterward). Jesus is the Word. And so if we want to know God, a truly worthy film- if such exists – might provide us with a passing glimpse of God’s glory once in a while, though I say God has provided plenty of natural novelties for that without the aid of celluloid.

No, if we want to know God, we must read! And any film I or anyone else makes shall always take an infinitely distant second place to not only the Word of God, but the spoken word, the written word used to praise and discuss and meditate upon Him.

If you are foolish enough, as I am, to aspire to make a great film, Christian or otherwise, you are best advised to acknowledge this fundamental reality. Why? Not to discourage you from being the very best that you can possibly be, which I do hope is worthy. I sure hope my efforts are worthy. I simply say this because, like all flaws and bumps in the road we run into working on things, it is best for us within the Christian community to, in SWOT-analysis or Johari-window-analysis fashion – acknowledge our weaknesses and threats, those things others say about us that even we would have ourselves ignore. Because if it is possible to make the best film ever, and you have those weaknesses, threats, negative gossip, personality flaws – and you’re not aware of them – you’re much more likely to fail than if you’re aware of them and can take corrective steps to ameliorate or better yet sand-blast them from hampering the success of your work.

And my purpose here really is to encourage, rather than discourage Christian filmmakers in a productive way. I feel it is to everybody’s detriment inside and outside the faith communities to make like so-called faith-market or “Christian films” are of good content. I just want to see all of us improve our game and get better for the sake of good film, if there be such a thing, but namely, worthy use of the few fleeting sunrises and sunsets that we have left this side paradise.

I guess to sum, the purpose of film is to entertain. And the purpose of Christianity is to encourage conscience, active thought, which is the opposite of entertainment. So “Christian film” is an oxymoron, probably. And if I weren’t an expert in the field, I wouldn’t be doing it. If I make the best film ever, it’s because of the unChristian influences in my life rather than the Christian ones, although my work will be significantly less damaging to your faith walk than the bulk of what’s out there. And, to be totally honest with you and myself, I think that that’s all any successful film that fully utilizes everything we consider a “good film” in pop culture, can ever hope to do.Report this

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Add a comment…Images Dennis Haley Writer 1st degree connection1stHouse Sitter, Pet Keeper at House Sitting Worldwide4y

We are all in the place of finding our way, deciding about God and what we are supposed to do to run our lives. The purpose of all things good and evil, intelligent and stupid and religious and secular tells us the difference and likeness, the use or uselessness of what we find. Having only the light of day and not the night, or the goodness of fire but the evil of water or visa versa. And how good will you have to be to enter heaven and bad enough to avoid hell? The thing is that the word and connects one end to the other, and we learn despite the thing. So crash capitalism and communism together. They are both ends of the same stick. The believer and non believer all rest in the ground. They aren’t arguing any more either.…see moreLikeLike Dennis Haley Writer’s commentReply Peter Vadala

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The Journalism Profession’s Marketing Problem

Published on November 30, 2015
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Can’t see the vid? Click this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wenv1l0whs

Why America thinks we’re nutty.Report this

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Add a comment…Images Brian Sullivan 1st degree connection1stNews Reporter/Producer/Videographer/Editor at WGBY4y

I see where you’re going with this, but it’s really just about writing style. It gives a writer an idea on how to better convey a message using her/his words more wisely. The AP Guide to News Writing is even better. Keep working on those stand ups!LikeLike Brian Sullivan’s commentReply1 Reply1 Comment on Brian Sullivan’s comment Peter Vadala YouLibrettist-Composer4y

Thanks, Brian Sullivan. You are my stand-up journalism inspiration.LikeLike Peter Vadala’s commentReply Peter Vadala

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Fair Use: News Commentary. Photo's usage is unauthorized by its source and used for the purpose of illustrating an opinion regarding its content. — Fair Use: News Commentary. Photo’s usage is unauthorized by its source and used for the purpose of illustrating an opinion regarding its content.

The Church’s Marketing Problem

Published on November 26, 2015
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The Motive Of The San Bernardino Attack

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"No Clear Motive" Story, Unauthorized Opinion Commentary Fair Use NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/us/san-bernardino-shooting.html?_r=0 Dec. 3, 2015 — “No Clear Motive” Story, Unauthorized Opinion Commentary Fair Use NY Times http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/us/san-bernardino-shooting.html?_r=0 Dec. 3, 2015

The Motive

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Also of interest (OUTSIDE SOURCE), re. Truth v. Media:

The Medium is the Messiah: McLuhan’s Religion and its Relationship to His Media Theory

“Christian Hollywood”

Apologetics: The PROSAIC Cult Infiltrating Today’s “Christian Hollywood”

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The PROSAIC Cult Infiltrating Today’s “Christian Hollywood”

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Fellow Authors And Content Producers: Please remember to correctly attribute your favorite Peter Vadala original quotes and original theses. Thanks.

Prosaic isn’t the cult on Hollywood Boulevard’s real name. And they couldn’t sue me if I did use their real name, because everything I’m writing here is true. I just don’t want to give them free publicity, like the Church of Scientology has thrived on.

If you spend any amount of time earnestly studying the American church – and organizations pretending to be the church – you inevitably come across a cult or two.

The cult never gave me a clear answer on whether they are still affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, however I do know of some Southern Baptist pastors who think the Prosaic cult on Hollywood Boulevard is just the bee’s knees. They see lots of young people flocking there, and, in general, Southern Baptists and many churches these days aren’t getting the attendance and tithes they once did, and are having a difficult time figuring out why. Cue the speaking in tongues, in churches that have sworn against it all along – at least in the way that it’s done these days.

It’s a member of what’s more frequently known as the emergent church. And I call “prosaic,” specifically, a cult for a combination of theological and sociological factors. On the one hand, it’s intentionally vague not only about its denominational affiliation, a card it pulls out when communicating with Bible-believing Christians when it wants to lend an air of legitimacy to itself. But its core doctrine is also rooted not in the Bible, but instead on a very old, pagan theology. Now, many earnest Christians incorporate initially pagan symbols in our celebration of Christmas within the church, however, the Christmas Tree is not – we hope, the reason that we celebrate Christmas. The immediate red flag to anyone who believes in the Bible regarding Prosaic cult on Hollywood Boulevard, just a block or two from the “Church” of Scientology, is that Mosaic is hiding its core theology from you, specifically, and I am addressing Bible-believers specifically here. They are so concerned you might learn what their theology is that they have long scrubbed that theology from their Web site. Not only that, they have very quietly told their affiliated “Prosaic” churches to do the same thing. I remember, because I saw the Web site of an affiliated “Prosaic” church not to far away, myself back in about 2015, by which point “Prosaic LA” had already removed its core cult “theology” from its site.

Thankfully, truth-seekers across the Web have maintained records of Prosaic‘s terrible, rebellious pagan core theology. And make no mistake; they’re very careful to go ahead and pepper in, very loosely, “artfully” connected Bible verses. Sitcom television has done as much over the years. However, the problem is that Prosaic, which should be immediately disassociated with the Southern Baptist Convention, makes the fatal flaw of starting with an unBiblical foundation. And of course, we know from Matthew 7:24-27 that we must build our house of God on Solid Rock.

Here are the five elements of Prosaic theology, thanks to theologians who have been careful to log what Prosaic is trying to hide both from truth-seekers in Hollywood and around the world. It starts sounding out fairly well-intentioned, but like all occult twistings of Christianity, it accelerates down the slippery slope very quickly. And as we know from the recent bouts of Islamic terrorism (C.S. Lewis identified Islam as a cult of Christianity) we know that when we dwell in gray areas rather than the good, the pure, the clean and the holy (Philippians 4:8), eventually, black results.

THE PROSAIC CULT’S CORE THEOLOGY

WIND: Commission: Mission is why the church exists: People matter most.

WATER: Community: Love is the context for all mission: Love permeates everything.

WOOD: Connection: Structure must always submit to spirit: Passion fuels action.

FIRE: Communion: Relevance to culture is not optional: Relevance communicates truth.

EARTH: Character: Creativity is a natural result of spirituality. Character creates change.

Moses didn’t tell the Israelites to burn their golden calf because they were being intentionally disobedient. God had Moses tell the Israelites to eat the fine powder of the Golden Calf because as far as the Israelites were concerned, they had simply been having a “contemporary worship service” of their day, like the kind of “contemporary worship service” that happens in the Prosaic cult on Hollywood Boulevard, and likely the so-called Church of Scientology. There is no cross to be found, and the audience dances to a thumping, repetitive trance beat that they can’t hear themselves sing over, as they gather around scantily-clad girls, and tight-jeaned boys on the altar. Now, to their credit, I did see a staff member of some clout within the cult throw out an attendee who had actually begun drinking a bottle of alcohol during the service. But that should just illustrate the kind of culture there. It’s built on a completely ineffective, self-shooting presumption common to all cults, which is that there’s a special knowledge only accessible to those who run the cult. They lure in new visitors with the promise of prolonged entertainment of the lowest sort – not unlike, unfortunately, many “Faith films.” And then when the church tries to get attendees to move beyond being entertained, they have to work against all that training they previously did, and it simply doesn’t work. And so what results is people who “graduate” from the Prosaic cult with their senses dulled, and a core takeaway of the five pagan elements. Nobody brings the Bible. Very few actually read it; including on the altar, though they’ve been trying to pepper more verses onto the cult’s extremely angry, anti-biblical pagan mission, mainly to appease people like you reading this who actually care. They don’t want you to get angry and tell the truth about what they’re really doing.

Continuing on the sociological side of the Prosaic cult, remember that upfront, it’s all things to all people. And this is where the Christian’s wisdom and judgement of character begins to recognize the shallow, unedifying nature of the cult. I’ve addressed the pagan theological core, and here I want to delve more into the ways in which, say, a secular psychologist might recognize the harm that exposure to the Prosaic cult can do. Granted, it doesn’t have Sea Orgs, like its competitors down the street, but again, because it claims the name of Christ, we must hold it to a higher standard, as it is corrupting earnest Faith-seekers with its teachings in Christ’s name.

The Christian Church does not, or should not, employ flattery and, to a lesser degree regarding Prosaic, quickly promote visitors to positions of leadership within itself. It’s an unwise practice which again, is more than a nod to contemporary media and tech culture, and runs contrary to what the Bible says regarding Elders.

I was chatting recently with a secretary working in “Christian Hollywood” who was quick to discount some of these kinds of evils of flattery of susceptible visitors and a core pagan theology peppered with Bible verses as “gray areas.” But all blacks start as gray. And the list concerning Prosaic goes on.

Prosaic LA is a cult with, as you’d expect of a cult, very little respect for older people, and again, a whole lot of flattery. When Prosaic was new in the neighborhood of its current spot on Hollywood Boulevard, it held a dinner event to try to win over its neighbors, but an older man who attended told me that the neighbors got the impression that Prosaic didn’t offer continued engagement. And anyone over thirty-three – perhaps thirty-seven is pushing it – gets a very sense in both worship services and small groups that older folks need not attend. It’s really an organization which loves the world and media-centric, Hollywood fakery for the sake of a weekly therapeutic release while allowing anything and everything, a kind of sin that starts like all sin, with an innocent-appearing lack of wisdom which is allowed to fester and grow within the ranks of leadership. You won’t find a cross inside; you’ll find a modern-looking logo, perhaps, and lots — and I mean lots — of skin, among hipster boys and the girls – far from the sincere, blushing type – who frequent the cult gatherings, which take place at a time designed to compete directly with edifying, Bible-based church services.

It’s bad enough that Prosaic seduces Hollywood Boulevard passer-bys with claims of purity and Christian orthodoxy. The worst part is that it’s convinced enough Hollywoodites – in its perpetual, and completely self-ignorant flattery system, which, again, is a core sociological practice-in-effect which it derives from the poisonous bubble of Hollywood culture, not scripture. And it successfully is making strides in capitalizing upon “the flattery system” to flatter its way into the film industry, where it makes Prosaic remakes of existing secular films. But in the process, of course, it’s mis-representing us Bible-believers, by claiming the name of Christ. And the Southern Baptist Convention, if it has not yet dissociated itself from the Prosaic cult, is shooting itself in the foot by allowing this appropriation of faith – which Hollywood has always done, but never so overtly or effectively as Prosaic – to continue under the Southern Baptist Banner. And it surprises me that SBC hasn’t done more about it. They are aware Prosaic has been using the SBC name, and again, the reason they haven’t dissasociated formally from Prosaic is that they appreciate the attendance, tithes, and are simply that desperate to recruit young people.

Act One

I have to be very clear that Act One’s spiritual foundations are multiple, but none of them are rooted in a Bible-centered, or even a presbytery-centered type of institution. And the latest and most prevalent spiritual influence within Act One is the cult based on pagan anti-Biblical theology as described before, and flattery – and of course I’m talking about the Prosaic cult.

Christian film producers and donors think they’ve found the holy grail of films they can actually morally justify. Not that such films don’t ever come out from time to time. But this prosaic culture of flattery and paganism, with a touch of love bombing, which Mosaic incubates, is what produces the majority of leadership at Act One, as of 7-21-17. Again, it never was a purely Biblical organization, though it claims to be “Christian.” And now, as I’ll let you discover for yourself on LinkedIn, you can see for yourself just how Act One has used the dual promise of being Christ-friendly and morally sound, and the ability to produce inspired content. However, at the end of the day, the mind-dulling, Biblical-wisdom-eroding content of Act One’s graduates and alumni is perhaps the driving force, or at least a major player, in developing “faith-films” of our day.

What generally results is – besides more blind Hollywood leading blind Hollywood – is a far-reaching, de-Christianizing influence. Why? Because that archetypal “Christian movie” that as people of faith we’re all compelled to love out of compulsion and hate out of artistic sensibility – is teaching audiences everywhere what even the folks who graduate from the Prosaic and Act One Hollywood systems don’t know. And that is, simply, an arrogant, blatant disrespect for the audience’s time, which undermines the dignity of the Christian and secular audiences alike. Why? Because real Christians care about real Christian fellowship. And if you’re going to take up our time, as an audience, for, I don’t know, a couple hours or so, you’d better have something profound and worthy of our time. Sure, from a topical perspective, knocking off every secular movie imaginable while turning down the drugs, sex and violence just enough is well-intentioned. However, what’s arrogant and insulting to the Christian movie consumer and real Christian artist alike is, perhaps, that you want to take the most educated, most intelligent, most homeschooled and un-brainwashed segment of America today; you want to take our fourteen-to-twenty dollars, and two hours of our time, and you want to completely trample our duty to Jesus Christ our savior, and Father God our good master, who compels us to make wise investments, both of time and money. And you take that time, you rob us of it as an audience with your less-than-profound knockoffs, time we could be in a real church listening to a real sermon congregating for real fellowship and worship – and good for you. You’re getting film experience, and someday, you’ll come up with that great Christian film that will have made it all worthwhile, at the expense of our time, money, and dignity.

You have to come up with a better way of financing, of training people to make these films. Because right now, America’s greatest need is the kind of peace of mind that can only come from disconnecting and listening to the still, soft voice. And perhaps, just perhaps, occasionally – very occasionally – sitting down to appreciate and respect a profound work of art that glorifies God.

And I’m sorry, but none of what “Christian Hollywood” is creating these days passes for anything that could possibly edify a Bible-believing Christian. It’s all simply prosaic, like all the other terabytes of endless video streams out there. And in the end, that’s the real sin of Christian Hollywood, and really America in general that we need to stop. And I know I’m sounding like a stiff-shirted critic here, and that’s a fair accusation. Who am I to judge your soul? And that’s not my intent, believe me. Remember, I believe in the Word of God.

But Hollywood, and Christian Hollywood, America is game to the fact that at the end of the day, you’re poisoning not only America’s once fine artistic sensibilities, our once superior technological and verbal acumen, our once very keen sense of right and wrong. And you’ve been doing this with the cheap aid of technological toys which have given you the ability to communicate far and wide your warped ideologies far beyond the natural boundaries your moral reputation would otherwise allow.

And I beg of you, not as a critic seeking out evil, but as both an earnest truth-seeking author, a genuine original creator, and a victim of the collective sludge of idle words and idol images that the electronic internet of things is dumping on us every day.

Please, stop. For the love of the God you claim, Prosaic, please stop.

Because like the boy crying wolf, if you ever should come up with something truly worth watching, even in the near future – we collectively as a culture won’t have the intelligence, the wisdom, or the attention to appreciate it. And our kids won’t either, because they’ll be dumber than we are for all your years of robbing us of the time we should have spent with them.

Anyway, that’s my take on the Prosaic cult, and the “Fake Christian” Media appropriating Jesus Christ and boring us through the kind of guilt-games only a cult-based system could incubate into a spiritual death faster than Hollywood could ever entertain us to death as much.

And like Mormonism, the Prosaic Cult has people on Wiki making sure you won’t find the truth out about Prosaic on there either.

I, the author, am a fallible communicator, and my purpose here is not to condemn people, but to call attention to the most terrible evils of our day in the realm of communications and technology, in which I am experienced and highly trained.

Let me know what you think, or if you’d like to find out other information about the “Prosaic” cult of Los Angeles and its associated namesake cults. If you are thinking of starting a Bible-based church, I ask you to please not use either the pagan theology or dysfunctional effective organizational/anti-social practices of Mosaic in your mission, as they will not lead you or your followers closer to Christ, but farther away, in my most honest, sincere, and Biblically and experientially well-founded estimation.

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Why “Faith-based” Movie Producers Won’t Touch My “Block-builder” Screenscore

Published on July 19, 2017
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Peter VadalaLibrettist-Composer

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I obviously can’t tell you too much about the script, but basically, Christian movie producers have this idea that they have to win the respect of Hollywood in order to produce a good film; this as Netflix and Americans are turning increasingly to the stuff that’s popular across “the pond.” Why? Because culture in America is dead. Adults listen to kids’ music, which isn’t music but rather a series of repetitive thumping roughly auto-tuned to a consistent pitch, and if you’re lucky, you get a chord now and again. American culture is deader than its ever before, and the reason is, simply, that we as a nation are the number one producer of media poison internationally. And we’ve committed the gravest but most inevitable marketing sin that anyone in marketing can commit. And let’s be honest – that’s what pop music and movies are now, jingles and brands, respectively. Back in the 70s, at least Americans still knew who the Secretary of State was, and bought boxed sets of Mozart and – help us – Puccini, but now? Thumping and yelling on the radios. It’s almost like you can’t tell the shock-jock from the singer; it all kind of blends together.

It’s not just Christian movie producers who hate my script; it’s Hollywood in general. And the reason is that it forces them to face some of the deepest, darkest realities not only about their quickly-popping bubble. Christian movie producers are, it seems, accustomed to kissing up to the traditional media – including Hollywood – and worshipping at the altar of the Walk of Fame. That’s why Hollywood doesn’t respect Christian movie producers, the same way millennials don’t respect the rock concert church. It panders, it sells out, and it has little of value to offer anyone. Which is why it panders, and sells out, and so-called Christian movies – if not ill-imagined but very well-lit sermons, are trite imitations of secular Hollywood. You want Christian Baywatch? Try, “Young Once.” You want a super-Christian of Nicholas Spark’s A Walk To Remember with Mandy Moore? Try Confessions of a Prodigal Son. The God’s Not Dead franchise isn’t quite A Few Good Men, but it’s got the climax and the Chinese food (in the sequel). And if The Blindside wasn’t Christian enough for you, you can look forward to “Same Kind of Different As Me.” And the list goes on. Meanwhile, big Christian film is churning out Amish romantic dramas like Weird Al churned butter in Amish Paradise. But they all watch like trite Hallmark Channel cards – and I do mean Hallmark Channel Cards, because that’s all they are. Why? Because it’s the Christian “writers,” coming up with these contrived things. You know who loses out in the Christian Amish genre? Well, the Amish for one (reasons are obvious, I think). But beyond that, you see this cutting-edge, honest-to-goodness reality show on Britain’s Channel Four about four Amish children going through this period which the Amish call “Rumspringa,” and let me tell you, no Christian movie comes close to representing the very real purity represented by the last vestiges of a faith which – I must admit, represents a kind of Christianity untainted by the graven imagery we all submit ourselves to when we sit down at the theater. And let me tell you why the Christian film industry hates such films. It’s because films as real as that Channel four documentary rightfully – even in its disrespect of the Amish – shows our promiscuous American lack of values for the media-imposed filth that it really is by comparison. Promiscuous Christian Hollywood gets a little uncomfortable when venturing there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m64X1hMCJoE Christians should have come up with Black Mirror. But no, that would require real contemplation, real soul searching, real humility. And it would require rejecting traditional Hollywood values.

What are traditional Hollywood values? First of all, all the script gurus say you’re supposed to churn out scripts basically as you might produce a car. Personal conviction is a big no-no. You’ve got to become a serial writer, in order to pay your dues by helping produce the infinite amount of trite, audience-time-wasting nonsense that already floods Netflix and the World Wide Web. And why? Because producers and actors and actresses (oh, don’t call them actresses) need another project; and apparently bored Americans need something dumb to stare at. And what’s Christian Hollywood doing? In hopes of funding a tent-pole, it’s actually encouraging writers to come up with more of this trite nonsense. The Christian producer wants a Christian scary movie. A Christian daytime soap, with the evil just toned down enough for the pastor’s okay. And lots and lots of sermons, just like you hear on the radio, except the message isn’t so important as to make sure the set is professionally produced. Because apparently, they think that’s what Christians, and America needs.

And you wonder why the whole darned Hollywood bubble is exploding, and why Sunset and Hollywood Boulevard look strangely like “Chicago with Palm Trees,” as the great fictional marketing guru once said.

News Corp/Fox has seldom had the luxury of affirming the traditional media-imposed American delusion. Well, actually they have, but much less so than the other, bigger, primacy networks. Why? Because Fox came last. And so by necessity, the Fox Television Network, rather than being loyal conspirators to the media-imposed truth-sellout facade of ABC, CBS,and NBC; went long, went edgy – went a little too far at times. But it faced the truths, in its writing, that some of the other networks were afraid to touch. And let’s face it; Fox has gone more sensational, and more shameless than other networks. But eventually, Fox and NewsCorp’s go-long strategy has succeeded, with media which – in addition to the sensational nonsense – has managed to serve the public interest by presenting material that questions the status quo. Fox News has all but destroyed the news delusions Americans used to cling to, but now has been enlightened regarding. Family Guy is about as self-effacing a parody about its own medium than Singin’ in the Rain was about the medium of film. And finally, though Black Mirror is a little too advanced for many pop-culture-stupefied Americans, Britain gets it. And 20th century is tied to it, somehow, to my understanding.

That’s the strategy of the script I’m authoring. And not only that, it has a hopeful ending. It’s a script which has no stock in, nor desire to kiss up to, the existing powers that be in Hollywood, “Christian” or otherwise, because all of that is crumbling anyway.

But I can tell you one thing. Whereas Hollywood has been obsessed with “blockbusters” and has finally managed to “blockbuster” itself, this block-builder, my latest and long-suffered work, at least has the aim of putting Hollywood – and possibly America – back together again.

Now accepting inquiries from major studios that truly understand the nature of their medium, and the state of their industry. Jump out of the boiling pot, frogs.Report this Peter Vadala

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Mr. Mel Gibson's cameo in his "Passion of the Christ"(2004) — Mr. Mel Gibson’s cameo in his “Passion of the Christ”(2004)

A Christian Movie Industry In Denial

Published on July 18, 2017
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Peter VadalaLibrettist-Composer193 articles

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I was one of those frogs in the proverbial boiling pot for the longest time. I couldn’t admit radio’s death. My managers, even as they got laid off – the people who hired me for jobs and internships – like at CBS’s WBZ – swore by the trade publications that proclaimed that radio was just fine and wasn’t going anywhere. And if you haven’t been living under a transmitter, of course, the dwindling demographics speak for themselves.

I’m writing primarily for Christians here, so please forgive my “religious” American dialect. All of us Americans used to talk that way, but not so much these days.

I’m writing to address what primarily is not a Christian movie industry problem, though the Christian movie industry is a microcosm which merely illustrates a larger point about not just the church, but America in general.

One of the wisest quotes I’ve ever read in my life are the echos that haunt every modern day pastor from the late American revival Reverend Charles Finney. Now, if you’re a secularite reading this, who probably has absorbed years of media denigration of the faith of our national founders, the word “reverend” probably conjures up elder preachers who tell Patrick Swayze that dancing is of the devil. Sadly, from what I’ve gathered from visiting cults like “MOSAIC,” which preaches a kind of pagan-Christian hybrid like that which aroused the holy wrath of Moses – you know, when he ground up their golden calf and told them to drink it. Perhaps you’re familiar with the famous scene immortalized by Charlton Heston or perhaps – just perhaps – you’re familiar with the best literary seller ever, immortalized by Our Lord And Savior Himself. In the Words of Scripture and the Person of Jesus Christ.

You’d think by now that Hollywood Christians, that the rock-concert Christians, the so-called “hipster Christian” (and let’s face it – a hipster Christian is really code for “homosexual,” right?)- I mean, hipster anything is code for homosexual. God warned us against this kind of thing in His holy Word. Pastors these days have no use for Deuteronomy 22:5. They do have use for it; they just don’t know it.

Here’s why Christian Hollywood is stuck, and always will be stuck, in second gear. They aspire to pull off blockbuster hits, for sure. But they can’t. The reason is quite simple, but difficult to admit if you have this idea in your head, a kind of impossible forced logic which requires trying to force two mutually exclusive ideas to exist simultaneously; and the Christian media keeps crashing and they have no idea why.

First of all, there’s the whole “medium is the message bit.” Basically, and I’m going to flesh this out in a separate article for you, there are a number of ways that the Bible “Christians” say they believe in is fundamentally opposed to the very act of consuming electronic media. Now, I know that sounds extremely technophobic, but I’m taking purely evangelical proof track on this, meaning I’m entirely New-Testament here, using logic I think ought to be generally-accepted and plain, and consistent with the very sugar-coated words coming out of even the rock-n’-roll church’s pulpit. Or techno, or whatever beat fetishism they’re playing these days. Go ahead and click on this link to see why, in the most simplistic terms a millennial can understand, faith and the gospel of television are fundamentally opposed. And by television, that includes film, film you watch on your i-television (iPhone), etc. Can’t see the link? Copy and paste this into your address bar: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/medium-message-heres-peter-vadala

One of the fundamental ironies of Christian film is that film is something Christians never wanted to get involved with. It was always seen as a danger from the outset, and it remains so. The only reason that Hollywood Christians aspire for film to be something that it isn’t – holy, in this perpetual state of denial is simply that we, as a church, have been so penetrated by the media’s technocratic influence. Just think about the kinds of things we allow within the walls of our church today, which never ought to be in there. Our churches, if nothing else, ought to be a sacred space where we can go and know that when we enter, we can expect to be edified, and purified by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And yet, our Pastors abuse the privilege and responsibility God has bestowed upon their title. Certainly God didn’t put a good number of them in there.

Like “Pastor” or “Papi” Erwin McManus of the MOSAIC cult in Hollywood. He starts with a pagan theology of “earth, water, wind, fire, and wood,” I sadly cannot confirm that because he has scrubbed his core theology – the Earth Wind Fire thing- from his Web site. Now – he uses Bible verses, and has stepped up his peppering of Bible verses into his theology. But the fact is, you cannot build a house on a foundation of sand. You cannot have a church which is divided against itself – not for very long, because then the demons enter and conquer it easily. And that’s what’s long-ago happened to Mosaic. I like to do dwell on positive things, but if you’re struggling to exit the MOSAIC cult, please reach out and I will help you to avoid becoming more damaged by MOSAIC or any number of its sister chapters than you already are.

That said, MOSAIC merely out-satans the rest of the ungodly mess of media-saturated theological “churches” populating America. There’s very little that’s edifying about such institutions. They don’t follow the Bible, that’s for sure. They very subtly pay lip-service with a verse here, a verse there, but twist the verses to do exactly what the spirit of the Word expressly forbids. They flatter their congregants, promising positions of power, and, as the blind, indiscriminately appoint the blind and prodigals to lead other blind and prodigals. It boggles my mind to think they’re still a member of the Southern Baptist Convention in good standing. It makes me extremely sad.

Christians – real Christians – are a people who respect strength. And it’s an entirely cowardly, entirely weak thing to do to make moral kinds of concessions; using an evil means to allegedly prove a good end. Jesus could be considered the epitome of a strong man; his character is perfect like His Father’s.

You’ve got to understand, I took my Christian bible club out to see Passion of the Christ when it came out. And here’s kind of the problem with Passion of the Christ approaches to evangelism. One of my Greek Orthodox teachers, at the time, asked me to consider whether a movie that causes the audience to feel sorry for Jesus is really a good idea; and I didn’t think about it much at the time, I was so impressed that we Christians finally had stumbled upon a real hit. And only now am I starting to wonder if such a feat – respectable in some ways as Mr. Gibson’s efforts are – could be self-defeating in a larger sense.

The truth about Passion of the Christ – and let’s face it; it’s perhaps the movie that you think of when you aspire to create a successful Christian film. It’s got good block-buster returns, great critical reception, and Jesus is the star. What’s the problem, pastor asks? It even makes you feel a little guilty for crucifying Christ in all the little sins we commit every day.

I guess one question is – where does The Passion take the art of so-called “Christian Film”? I mean, no doubt, it sent ripples through other “Christian media.” If you watched that (horrendous) The Bible series on History Channel, you can definitely tell that The Passion by Gibson had its influence on the style. The Bible naturally has to keep up – or it tried to keep up – with the vivid, graphic, sensational pounding of the nails into Christ’s hand. In this regard, violence and sex content have a lot in common.

There are some things, like war, perhaps, that it perhaps behooves a person not to experience until you’re actually there. Why? Because humans were designed to experience life as it comes, and not be scared to death of the unknown. And somehow, that’s what movies do to us. Scare us to death of the unknown, in a way that I posit is more harmful than even the worst non-video religions could come close to.

The Passion of the Christ set a new standard for what kinds of violence are “acceptable” in America for a film regarding one of the most sacred events in human history. So – what’s next? I mean, how do you top The Passion of the Christ theatrically? We all know what made it a commercial success. The blood was – well, there was lots of blood. And Christians couldn’t complain about it, because, well, it was for a good cause, right? Never mind that the blood of our Lord and Savior – or the shadow there of, appeared where just months before Bruce Willis died to save his daughter in Die Hard 4 (forgive the timeline if I’m off)… you get the idea.

And now, we can’t go back. The Bible series on History Channel, which I was not a fan of for its many Biblical compromises, had no choice but to be extra-graphic in its portrayal of The Passion sequence – and it didn’t nearly touch Gibson’s sensationalism. Why? Well, its target audience was so desensitized that it’s all but rendered the traditional passion play obsolete! Churches can’t even do passion plays any more. Why? Because, just like The Bible (history channel), when you watch it, you shrug your shoulders and say – well, that’s not as good as “The Passion.” And I can’t help but think that at that moment, when we’ve become so desensitized, when our attention is called, based on overexposure to the gruesome details as vividly as Mel Gibson was gifted enough to do — when the principal thing on the audience’s mind is, “that’s not quite violent enough for the real Jesus” – there is something significant that’s been lost from the point of the piece. Just like “the Gospel blimp,” the real savior, for the director, has been not Christ, but appropriating Christ in celluloid.

You can’t typically shoot for two audiences, because when you do that, you tend to miss both. The Passion succeeded in fooling Christians into thinking that it was some kind of sacramental endeavor; while capturing the guilt of secular audiences, coupled with men’s primal lust for blood.

And still, the Christian movie industry is in a real catch-twenty-two. All of us as artists, to some degree, stay on the movie track for so long that if we have any inkling that movies might be fundamentally opposed to the book we say we believe in – we’ve simply got too much skin in the game to turn around. Because movies are all we know; media is all we work with, though Jesus beckons us, and there’s a sense lingering in all of us that what we’re doing is somehow disingenuous.

The Christian Youtube Movie Critic “Say Goodnight Kevin,” who screams “hiiiiipppppssssttterrr!” if I ever did see it, claims to be a Christian, and yet for some reason feels compelled to disparage every Christian film that comes out. Again, denial. He’s like that dude from “The Middle” starring Patricia Heaton. Or Glee. You know the archetype.

And the world recognizes this about the Christian movie industry, the very world that the Christian movie, in its effeminate culture espoused and epitomized in the Cult of MOSAIC, seems so very desperate to win over.

Nobody respects Christian Moviemakers today for the same reason nobody respects the Church in America itself – and by the Church, I don’t really mean the entire American church– I mean the ones you’re probably familiar with, for all their media appearances. The holiest churches, I contend, are far more busy trying to be faithful and holy and good in ways you’d never recognize than trying to hog the spotlight. And I’ve seen those churches. They exist. You just have to kind of work to find them.

Pure Flix somehow got Sherwood Pictures to jump on the race-baiting Christian bandwagon, trying to kiss up to failing media liberals, trying to guilt us with the well-worn American media race-narrative. What if a white person actually were nice to a homeless black guy? As if that kind of narrative would blindside the critics.

Christian movies lack real profundity of any kind. Real art. Just like the Mosaic cult, which I call prosaic. Sadly, the mosaic cult has dipped its tentacles into lots of influential hollywood organizations, with the same guilt-tactics that made the passion a success. Thankfully, Hollywood is a slowly imploding bubble, so it won’t be poisoning America for much longer. Although the ghettification Hollywood has inspired will continue to haunt the rest of the nation for years to come.

Let’s just not fool ourselves into accepting any unintelligent, prosaic “holy” reiterations of the old Hollywood undermining of American values; because – and please read the article linked here if you haven’t already – the ultimate sin of Hollywood and news media in general has little to do with the perceived “content” of such films, and everything to do with the way it trains America into a slothful existence by its very existence, its beckoning us to sit down in front of a screen and watch shadows for two hours, when we would be better served to attend an actual sermon, or work, or provide for our family, or engage in real social engagement – or pretty much anything else.

Christianity – real Christianity – really has and always will be opposed to the idolatry and reckless amusement and time-wasting of shadows on a silver screen.

I hear you, movie people – because I was one, and admit I still am one to some degree — I do sometimes hold out hope that there might be that one film, now and again, which will do more good than it does bad. And Passion of the Christ, arguably, was that film, which reached the secular and – in its own, morbid kind of way turned our attention back to what really matters before Easter – snapped us out of our trance imposed by other media.

But that only goes to prove my point further. We Christians would have no need for such technological tricks as slick editing and cinematic lighting if the other proliferation of secular media hadn’t so damaged our sensibilities in the first place. That is, Christians, in the end, are ultimately playing an unwise game by creating films – from a historical, long-term perspective, in which we fight fire with fire; we’re fighting what started as a Russian propaganda trick with — essentially – more Russian-style propaganda. How much did God’s Not Dead and God’s Not Dead II rely on evoking sympathy by portraying a woman being abused, in the most liberal-pandering, secular media-pandering sense? Granted, the first installment did counter-balance that pandering quite a bit. But again, it’s a foundation made of sand. It’s – “movie logic,” not faith-based logic.

And again, it’s bad logic predicated, ultimately, upon a “Christian Hollywood” production system which is lacking in intelligence; which makes huge, huge underlying foundational concessions to the liberal, secular media – all of which serve the long-term game of opening up a gaping logic hole leaving the audiences more susceptible to the same tried and true tricks of movie manipulation that the secular movie-makers use.

No doubt, the producers of Mosaic-cult-influenced “Christian Hollywood” are waiting for that long-awaited Passion of the Christ or Ten Commandments project. But the fact is, they apparently lack the wisdom to recognize a truly edifying work when they see it. And, no offense to Mel or Charlton, but what is the number one criticism of American pastors today about the “faith” of Americans?

It’s this “ten commandments” kind of religion philosophy, in which Americans think they can be saved by following “The Ten Commandments.” Now, you tell me, where do you think Americans got that bad theological idea which is the bane of pastors everywhere?

And yes, I do have a solution, for you Christian film industry producers wondering what the solution is, because I do have one – feel free to message me if you’d like to know what it is. And finally, though it may seem I’m being hard on you here, please know that I do want you who follow Christ to become all the more closer to him. And to that end, for all the insanity that the “Christian Film” industry is encountering these days, of course, the Hollywood bubble is quickly popping for its own lack of wisdom in all things, and the failure of Christian film is just a microcosm of greater failing Hollywood, which is in turn a reflection of a failing American. So hopefully Trump was sent to help us out in all regards.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/05/09/faith-based-film-label-needs-to-go-experts-say.html

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/honest-musings-christian-films-peter-vadala

The Moves Tech Giants Just Made That Should Terrify Hollywood

Related: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/prediction-same-kind-different-me-flop-race-baiting-peter-vadalaReport this

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Prediction Of “Same Kind Of Different As Me” Flop – a race-baiting misfire for Christians and seculars alike

Published on July 16, 2017
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Full disclosure: I have interests tied to this commentary; and that’s as much detail as I can give.

I want Pure Flix to succeed. I want Christian film to succeed. But – and I can be wrong, God knows I’ve been wrong before, I don’t think Same Kind of Different will.

I’m guessing Pure Flix encountered a deal, since production here was at least partially leveraged by Paramount. And Paramount has tried in the past to get in on faith-related entertainment, to disastrous ends. It seems they’ve learned their lesson here, at least to some degree, cutting losses before they stepped too far in.

In accordance with news convention, I have to disclose that I have interests indirectly effected by principals involved in this article, though I can’t divulge details. To the effect of my personal involvement, I really would like to help Christian films be better, but they seem to be headed in a rather hapless, unintelligent direction. This article, as well as all my writings, are intended to help steer Christian films onto a more effective course. There’s no malice intended; although, naturally, these kinds of issues stir lots of strong feelings all around. And it doesn’t give me any joy to make a negative prediction about a group of people claiming Christ making a film. But unless I’m specific about my predictions, when it’s proven right, it bears no credibility. And that’s the reason I take the trouble to name the movie, “Same Kind of Different As Me,” here.

I’m not further belaboring the point about the fact that I expect it to fizzle. And perhaps Pure Flix expects as much, and only acquired it because it was a deal already partially financed. No doubt, this prediction will have an impact on release, but that can’t be helped. That’s not the intention of this post; the intention here is to illustrate at least one facet of the reason today’s “Christian” cinematic fare is failing.

Christians are some of the most intelligent folks in the country. Christians showed in “Woodlawn” (also associated with Pure Flix” that we really don’t like being bashed over the head with trite racial narratives.

It’s not that Christians are haters. Quite the opposite. The problem is that Christians are dwelling on a theme that is derived principally not from the Bible – despite the modern “hermeneutics” behind the well-worn theme – but rather, from the media.

We Bible-believing Christians believe in the virtues of being a “Good Samaritan.” What’s a Good Samaritan? Somebody who helps someone in need close by. Someone who helps widows, orphans, and aliens. I applaud that Biblical aspect of the faith message of “Same Kind Of Different As Me.”

So, what’s the problem? Why do I predict this will barely make bank, or eke by in the Box Office?

The same reason Woodlawn did. And you’d think we’d have learned from Woodlawn.

Christians who really believe in the Bible may find the idea of whites helping out a black man a curious and charitable endeavor. I kind of do. But it will have to be better than Sandra Bullock in The Blindside. And The Blindside did a pretty good job.

Now, I’m certain “Same Kind of Different” will be more overtly Biblical. I’m sure Pure Flix will score major points with the liberal media who’s pushing this kind of mildly veiled white-guilting thing that’s so popular among the liberal media, which, remember, is the world that I come from.

I have to be really clear, too, I think it’s great for anyone who’s privileged to help someone who’s not, regardless of race, including the situation portrayed in the movie.

But the fact is, from “Remember the Titans” to Django Unchained, the theme has been all but run into the ground over the past fifty years. There would have to be some major plot hook that sets this apart from all of the above, a radical spin that will appeal to guilty-leaning secular liberals to pull this off.

Real, Bible-believing Christians – we care about minorities, and for that matter, poor people who aren’t minorities. We care about those struggling with sin. What we don’t care for is – really as a result of guilty-conscience media personalities playing the race card for fifty years – having the media dump in our living rooms every evil and negative social and existential threat happening around the world every day of our lives.

We enjoy caring for the disenfranchised neighbor next door, but we don’t appreciate Barack Obama dumping violent illegals and terrorists in our backyard. We don’t appreciate again, those guilty-conscience do-gooding politicians who, likely, are guilty about something entirely unrelated, and try to compensate morally through their own sacramental obsession with dumping more social problems in our living room than we have the mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual wherewithal to handle. And really, that’s what I mean when I say that the producers of this overwrought white-guilting, black-victim kind of race narrative – which I’m certain shows the inevitable Christ figure in the minority character; I’m still kind of shaking my head at the thought of the wistful-sounding limping coach from Woodlawn.

I think it was the Christian movie critic Ted Baher who pointed out that Woodlawn failed principally because it tried to hit two targets at once – Christians and the mainstream, and thus solidly missed both.

And that’s kind of what’s happening here. Christianity has such a lucrative market potential. But once again, it seems that unlike in the advent of pop Christian music, Christian movies trying to be popular today are rooted in a Hollywood filled with behind-the-times ideas, and simply all-around lack of genuine inspiration.

It’s like Christian Hollywood has forgotten even its own roots, classics like the Gospel Blimp, which clearly call attention to the threat of technology (implicitly, movies themselves) to genuine, authentic faith.

And that’s the real hangup of Christian cinema today. It’s a kingdom divided against itself, in that it doesn’t understand its own identity. It’s clinging to this old kind of – again, not Biblical, but media values, and not only media values, but values which are quickly going out of favor with the American people. And again, by that, I mean the quickly dwindling American self-hatred narrative, which is really kind of what the race card narrative really is.

Nobody loves this blessed nation and the people who made it more than Christians. Christians have an indelibly clear “organizational memory” of how God delivered us from the wilderness of a world that did not allow freedom of Worship. That’s how this blessed land got founded. It was by taking those life-risks that the Puritans, that Columbus, discovered this blessed place. And while I’m sure Christian Hollywood means well, it’s not just adopting a narrative about adoption and kindness to foreigners.

Christian Hollywood is unwittingly buying into an outmoded – I would go so far as to call it a superstition. A media-imposed superstition that Baby Boomers have been trained into by old Broadcast Television and Radio, and its Hollywood culture. Like many false gospels, it’s a kind of salvation-through-works gospel, this media-imposed gospel of the mainstream media. And Christian movie-producers mean well by buying into it, and continuing this Hollywood trend of white-guilting, of black-guilting, of America-guilting. It’s a kind of confessional booth, except instead of performing ten “Hail Mary’s,” the media says our sacrificial goat instead is to forcibly integrate all incompatible American subcultures faster than they could ever hope to assimilate.

And real, Bible-believing Christians understand this is bogus.

Now, as I said, as this project originates from Paramount, which apparently knows better than to try to force the integration of Christian movies and secular culture – I’m assuming that this was a much sweetened deal financially to acquire by Pure Flix. But as a Bible-believing Christian, I guess I’m simply bewildered by the ignorance among Christian movie producers of their own audience. I don’t even think minorities particularly enjoy the patronization any more.

It’s just a case of a so-called “Christian” movie producer, rooted in really bad theology, race-bating as a means of attempting to guilt Christians in to buying a movie ticket. And as for the secular person – again, it’s a really, really old media trick that unless you’re an out-of-touch baby boomer, who likely doesn’t have the time or will to sit in a movie theater for fourteen dollars a pop – and even Baby Boomers never really liked being guilted into hating the best darned nation on earth –

Who is this movie for? It’s not intelligent enough for Christians. I can tell you right now, I’m not a homeschooler, but homeschooled people are some of the smartest in the nation, because they haven’t been brainwashed by the failing public school system. And they’re not going to stand for this kind of thing. Certainly won’t pay ten, fifteen, twenty dollars for a Woodlawn-Blindside- already-been-done with a predictable and well-trod theme.

Finally, I have to say that if you want to make a winning picture that the secular and Christian audience really will love, I have the script and score ready for you to check out. It’s not an easy read, as it’s intended first and foremost as a ground-breaking musical screenplay that makes full use of the screen and the audience’s attention. It really is a work of art.

And Pure Flix, if you’d like to check it out, I’d be more than happy to co-produce it with you. I am sincerely sorry it’s come to this. We did try, didn’t we?

See, God’s Not Dead, like War Room, knew its audience well. But Christians are a patriotic people. We’re the smartest people, because, simply, we still read stuff and talk to people in real life. And Christian Hollywood, you’re taking the very worst quality of the mediasphere, which is it’s entirely being out-of-touch with real people who have real lives. I respect the effort, but I don’t think anyone can really respect the methods. Not secular audiences, even in urban-educated cities most vulnerable to race-baiting, and certainly not those of us who strive to live that Word. I’m sorry for any errors in communication here. I wish there were another way to communicate this.

I care for the church, and my writing this in a rather public setting is something of a last resort. And I can’t help but feel that the evils that both those who call themselves the church are steeped in sink to a sub-Christian, even sub-human level. But if you’re a major studio, you’ve read the screenplay, and so you understand. Please do be in touch, so we can resolve this matter like Christians are supposed to. I don’t enjoy this any more than you.

As a Christian, I’d use the word “pride” with great caution. But I acknowledge the great blessing that being a part of the great American tradition is. Any kind of story that hints that somehow, the Bible belt is to blame for believing in the Bible; any suggestion that the American way, though faulty, is somehow something that needs to be overhauled by the kind of entertainer-type that ends up in TinselTown, “Christian” or not — and I can tell you, even the churches in Hollywood aren’t churches – it’s just not a Christian narrative. And while guilty feelings serve the purpose of helping correct us when we are wrong, millennials both religious and non-religious, both saved and unsaved, have an acute awareness and disdain for false guilt. And actually, nowhere is that disdain more pronounced than in the modern Evangelical church that you’re trying to reach.

That said, as with Woodlawn, I would suspect that “Same Kind of Different” will garner the same allies in the Mainstream Media, possibly including even Fox News – which will give it great opinion press – however, of course, nobody respects the mainstream media any more, so I do not believe it will help make bank on the project.

Again, I can’t be apologetic enough writing a post like this. It truly is kind of a last resort. We tried to connect, but failed; and if you do want a profitable, God-edifying script, all you have to do is ask.

You know who you are, the people I’m apologizing to for the means in which I feel is the last resort for communicating this message. I’m not naming you here out of profound respect for your spiritual journey. But you’re not being financially, morally, or pastorally, spiritually responsible. And if I don’t tell you, who will? I’m a servant of the Lord, and I sincerely believe it’s my purpose to tell you when you’re steering my brothers and sisters in the Lord wrong. And if you don’t understand the fundamental idolatry baked into the medium of film, or at least entertain that kind of question – and I’m sure you do to some degree – I guess I just think that the place you’re taking viewers is less than – well, pure. None of us are perfect communicators. But this is a discussion that needs to be had.

It’s bad enough that Mosaic is leading people astray in Hollywood, with cult-pagan theology. And I don’t want that theological cancer to spread throughout America just because you have some fancy technological toys the rest of us don’t. Thankfully, Hollywood has all but been dethroned as a producer of content, so we will be free from the way it’s poisoned America. I just feel so strongly as a man after God’s heart about sticking a “Christian” label on content I feel is leading people into the same dark place as that Mosaic cult on Hollywood Boulevard. And I can’t have it. I just- as I said, you have that call of conscience, a Christian thing, a manhood thing – that sense you just can’t sleep at night because you know something’s terribly wrong. And that’s the still soft voice of God haunting me, and telling me, Peter, do something about this.Report this

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Exceptional Story Doctor Opportunity

Published on June 27, 2017
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You have exceptional story-crafting talent; exceptional knowledge of the millennial- and post-millennial psyche. You understand that most Tech employees don’t understand the full implications of what they’re doing.

You’ve worked on a big- to medium-budget film I’ve heard of. And you might possibly, but not necessarily have experience in long-form musical dramas. You’ve at least dabbled in CG, and can communicate with a team of artists that pushes them past limits they didn’t know they had merely conjured up.

You know what to do.Report this

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What I’m Looking For In A Story Consultant

Published on August 13, 2016
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Consultants are a dime a dozen, and they charge twelve times as much as their opinions are generally worth.

It occurred to me that even the biggest musical-makers of today follow a kind of cookie-cutter approach to musical movies, including futile attempts to stay “true” to stage musicals that have no business of being painfully, usually hastily forced onto the screen.

I just wanted to share this excerpt from a letter I recently wrote to a consultant I was vetting who charged tons of cash and claims that the “Musical” isn’t a genre. I guess he’s kind of right in that it’s a broken genre that adults seem to hate these days. And I think I know the reason why.

From my note:

Hey, ******,

I understand that one usually writes a script with a kind of note describing the song, and then you hire a lyricist and composer.
The problem with the failing Hollywood model regarding musicals is that one cannot properly analyze the flow of a story – in the way that one can only do, after all the story metrics of plot, structure, pacing, have been put together –
Is that you haven’t properly analyzed a musical screenplay until you’ve conjured it up in your mind by both reading the screenplay and having the music running concurrently. Because, at least in the case of my very intentional score, the music is not merely incidental; it’s not merely an emotional cue. It’s part and parcel of the viewing experience, of the storytelling.
If you can’t hear the **************** voices of my cast of ************ or the operatic tension between my protagonist and the villainous ********* trying to ************** each other to death, or feel the nostalgia of a **************************** – You’re not in the visual mindscape of this blueprint for a film, which is, ultimately, inseparable script and song. It’s not a case of, let’s fix the plot, and drop the songs in later. And fortunately, there’s the flexibility here of not needing to adhere to a pre-fabricated broadway plot which had no business being forced onto the screen.
Adult-targeted musicals generally fail. Even the best Broadway hits. I have a rather strong theory on the nature of how it works, almost as strong as the controlling thesis of my work.

If you’re not the person for the job, I respect that. I really need to find someone, however, who’s willing and at least somewhat able to understand the fullness of the script and score as they work together as a whole, rather than the kind of drag-and-drop approach of peppering song-posts in after-the-fact. Because when you look at musicals as a series of here’s a “song-and-dance,” “and another song-and-dance here,” that’s exactly what you get. Now. At the other end, you have *********, with no commercial sensibilities at all. He’s all one extended irrelevant opera which takes itself too seriously because I suppose he has zero exposure to the world. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle.

I have a reference from a Grammy-nominated composer who said he “loves” my work. If you’re not the guy for the job, I sure would appreciate a pointer in the right direction. Everybody called Disney crazy for trying something new. So I suspect I’m blazing a kind of new trail here in my approach to writing this, though it seems most obvious to me.
Anyway, I hope all this doesn’t trouble you very much. I know I have a rather ambitious aim here, but I do aspire to be something more than a serial writer, which is why I hone the craft and make the sacrifices necessary.
Thanks,PeterReport this

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grabbed sloppily from the Web, and thrown up in the haste of other more important work. I don't claim this is mine. If you're the owner and desire it removed, please shoot a message to me and we'll get that taken care off quickly for you. Thanks for your understanding and compassion for an artist at work. — grabbed sloppily from the Web, and thrown up in the haste of other more important work. I don’t claim this is mine. If you’re the owner and desire it removed, please shoot a message to me and we’ll get that taken care off quickly for you. Thanks for your understanding and compassion for an artist at work.

What Makes This Script Great?

Published on April 16, 2016
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(unedited for the most part, forgive the forgivables)

Why’s it such a great script? Uncanny, “intuitive” insider perspective of the millennial psyche. Painstakingly developed into a thesis, and ground down like a smooth, dark, bold cup of coffee so tantalizingly fresh that you could sip it for hours without fear of it ever losing its delightful potency which only causes you to desire it more.

Written, and rewritten approximately ten times over – who’s counting? And being rewritten even now in tandem with the scoring. Resulting in unparalleled thematic and musical consistency which naturally correct each other, like an arrow closing in on the bull’s eye in order to split the other arrow shot by a wiser and more skillful archer.

Watch how the score and the script wrestle with each other as iron sharpens iron. It takes more time and effort than a collaboration. It requires of the composer that he be a whole person, that he may have a holistic and complete understanding of the fundamental drama, which most composers are too fanciful, too effeminate to carry.

It requires a level of skill and knowledge, yes, but it also requires the experience of one who was forced to teach himself by relentless study of both the masters of contemporary musical theater, and obsession with the very nature of film. A willingness to admit realities of the nature of media and drama, as well as the underlying fad psychology of our time that those beholden to the gods (and by gods, of course, I mean idols) of acceptance, of approval, of popularity, of paychecks, of despicable yes-man cowardice and effeminate masculinity, which is incongruence and self-loathing – are entranced so by their own vanity as to be unable, incapable of admitting that the answers cannot, will not ever, lie within themselves. At least – if they continue to be so vain as to believe that there is nothing greater than they. If they continue to fancy themselves as the idols that their electronically graven imprint so effectively dupes this modern foot of Mt. Sinai into its desperate cycle of deflowering the American woman and thus unrepentantly perpetuating the cycle of guilt which naturally condemns the semi-conscious perpetrator of said evils.

As I meditate on the writings of Narnia author C.S. Lewis, it is ever clear to me that logic itself is inherently good. Truth is good. Humanity is good insomuch as God made it; humanity is good insofar as it operates best when – as all of us operate best when we know our limitations – humanity thrives, humanity is, humanity functions, and of course I mean so much more than functions – when humanity carries with it an awareness of its limitations and thus dares only to act more humanly, fulfilling its essence. Men contribute to society best when we fully potentialize our masculine essence; and women when they act as women. This necessarily means knowing our potential and excelling within our niche, as a great sandwich shop doesn’t strive to fix your car.

I’ve called earlier iterations of my script, when the score was a more obscure swirl of fanciful notions in my mind’s ear, one of the most primal scripts of our time, and I say that because I think I have a most complete and most informed and well-researched as well as heart-felt – that is, a conscious and unconscious – and growing daily – knowledge of the greatest hell lurking within the soul of the average American, and, by diffusion, soon to be lurking within the souls of the world, as the world looks to us Americans, as it has since the second World War for guidance, for protection.

I’m too busy perfecting the script to proof the above, but if you would like to be a part of this continuously growing project that shall reward all involved quite richly, if my painstaking analysis, and reanalysis, and far beyond artistic obsession, and love, and desire to heal the darkness I see, feel, touch, taste so very acutely, and stare down with ever increasing passion and strength with every note I commit to the living, breathing score and my Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God –

Do be in touch. No rush – the best of this sort of thing can and do percolate, sometimes a lifetime, sometimes longer.

I look forward to meeting you over coffee, or your pleasant, dream-inducing percolation of choice.

Here’s the real kicker. Are you ready? This isn’t just for millennials. It’s for post-millennials. It’s built, as most things built upon consistent truth are, to endure.Report this

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James Damore’s Jerry Maguire Google Memo

Published on August 8, 2017
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By James Damore, in a Landmark Memo to Google that cost him his job.

Reply to public response and misrepresentation

I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem. Psychological safety is built on mutual respect and acceptance, but unfortunately our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber. Despite what the public response seems to have been, I’ve gotten many personal messages from fellow Googlers expressing their gratitude for bringing up these very important issues which they agree with but would never have the courage to say or defend because of our shaming culture and the possibility of being fired. This needs to change.

TL:DR

Google’s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety.
This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed.
The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology.
Extreme: all disparities in representation are due to oppression
Authoritarian: we should discriminate to correct for this oppression
Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.

Background [1]

People generally have good intentions, but we all have biases which are invisible to us. Thankfully, open and honest discussion with those who disagree can highlight our blind spots and help us grow, which is why I wrote this document.[2] Google has several biases and honest discussion about these biases is being silenced by the dominant ideology. What follows is by no means the complete story, but it’s a perspective that desperately needs to be told at Google.

Google’s biases

At Google, we talk so much about unconscious bias as it applies to race and gender, but we rarely discuss our moral biases. Political orientation is actually a result of deep moral preferences and thus biases. Considering that the overwhelming majority of the social sciences, media, and Google lean left, we should critically examine these prejudices.

Left Biases

Compassion for the weak
Disparities are due to injustices
Humans are inherently cooperative
Change is good (unstable)
Open
Idealist

Right Biases

Respect for the strong/authority
Disparities are natural and just
Humans are inherently competitive
Change is dangerous (stable)
Closed
Pragmatic

Neither side is 100% correct and both viewpoints are necessary for a functioning society or, in this case, company. A company too far to the right may be slow to react, overly hierarchical, and untrusting of others. In contrast, a company too far to the left will constantly be changing (deprecating much loved services), over diversify its interests (ignoring or being ashamed of its core business), and overly trust its employees and competitors.

Only facts and reason can shed light on these biases, but when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence. This silence removes any checks against encroaching extremist and authoritarian policies. For the rest of this document, I’ll concentrate on the extreme stance that all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment and the authoritarian element that’s required to actually discriminate to create equal representation.

Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech [3]

At Google, we’re regularly told that implicit (unconscious) and explicit biases are holding women back in tech and leadership. Of course, men and women experience bias, tech, and the workplace differently and we should be cognizant of this, but it’s far from the whole story.

On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:

They’re universal across human cultures
They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone
Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males
The underlying traits are highly heritable
They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective

Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.

Personality differences

Women, on average, have more:

Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing).
These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics.
Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness.
This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that these are just average differences and there’s overlap between men and women, but this is seen solely as a women’s issue. This leads to exclusory programs like Stretch and swaths of men without support.
Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

Note that contrary to what a social constructionist would argue, research suggests that “greater nation-level gender equality leads to psychological dissimilarity in men’s and women’s personality traits.” Because as “society becomes more prosperous and more egalitarian, innate dispositional differences between men and women have more space to develop and the gap that exists between men and women in their personality becomes wider.” We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism.

Men’s higher drive for status

We always ask why we don’t see women in top leadership positions, but we never ask why we see so many men in these jobs. These positions often require long, stressful hours that may not be worth it if you want a balanced and fulfilling life.

Status is the primary metric that men are judged on[4], pushing many men into these higher paying, less satisfying jobs for the status that they entail. Note, the same forces that lead men into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting, and suffer 93% of work-related deaths.

Non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap

Below I’ll go over some of the differences in distribution of traits between men and women that I outlined in the previous section and suggest ways to address them to increase women’s representation in tech and without resorting to discrimination. Google is already making strides in many of these areas, but I think it’s still instructive to list them:

Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things
We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain roles and Google can be and we shouldn’t deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this).
Women on average are more cooperative
Allow those exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive. Recent updates to Perf may be doing this to an extent, but maybe there’s more we can do. This doesn’t mean that we should remove all competitiveness from Google. Competitiveness and self reliance can be valuable traits and we shouldn’t necessarily disadvantage those that have them, like what’s been done in education. Women on average are more prone to anxiety. Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits.
Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average
Unfortunately, as long as tech and leadership remain high status, lucrative careers, men may disproportionately want to be in them. Allowing and truly endorsing (as part of our culture) part time work though can keep more women in tech.
The male gender role is currently inflexible
Feminism has made great progress in freeing women from the female gender role, but men are still very much tied to the male gender role. If we, as a society, allow men to be more “feminine,” then the gender gap will shrink, although probably because men will leave tech and leadership for traditionally feminine roles.

Philosophically, I don’t think we should do arbitrary social engineering of tech just to make it appealing to equal portions of both men and women. For each of these changes, we need principles reasons for why it helps Google; that is, we should be optimizing for Google—with Google’s diversity being a component of that. For example currently those trying to work extra hours or take extra stress will inevitably get ahead and if we try to change that too much, it may have disastrous consequences. Also, when considering the costs and benefits, we should keep in mind that Google’s funding is finite so its allocation is more zero-sum than is generally acknowledged.

The Harm of Google’s biases

I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices:

Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race [5]
A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates
Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate
Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scrutiny in the reverse direction (clear confirmation bias)
Setting org level OKRs for increased representation which can incentivize illegal discrimination [6]

These practices are based on false assumptions generated by our biases and can actually increase race and gender tensions. We’re told by senior leadership that what we’re doing is both the morally and economically correct thing to do, but without evidence this is just veiled left ideology[7] that can irreparably harm Google.

Why we’re blind

We all have biases and use motivated reasoning to dismiss ideas that run counter to our internal values. Just as some on the Right deny science that runs counter to the “God > humans > environment” hierarchy (e.g., evolution and climate change) the Left tends to deny science concerning biological differences between people (e.g., IQ[8] and sex differences). Thankfully, climate scientists and evolutionary biologists generally aren’t on the right. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of humanities and social scientists learn left (about 95%), which creates enormous confirmation bias, changes what’s being studied, and maintains myths like social constructionism and the gender wage gap[9]. Google’s left leaning makes us blind to this bias and uncritical of its results, which we’re using to justify highly politicized programs.

In addition to the Left’s affinity for those it sees as weak, humans are generally biased towards protecting females. As mentioned before, this likely evolved because males are biologically disposable and because women are generally more cooperative and areeable than men. We have extensive government and Google programs, fields of study, and legal and social norms to protect women, but when a man complains about a gender issue issue [sic] affecting men, he’s labelled as a misogynist and whiner[10]. Nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression. As with many things in life, gender differences are often a case of “grass being greener on the other side”; unfortunately, taxpayer and Google money is spent to water only one side of the lawn.

The same compassion for those seen as weak creates political correctness[11], which constrains discourse and is complacent to the extremely sensitive PC-authoritarians that use violence and shaming to advance their cause. While Google hasn’t harbored the violent leftists protests that we’re seeing at universities, the frequent shaming in TGIF and in our culture has created the same silence, psychologically unsafe environment.

Suggestions

I hope it’s clear that I’m not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn’t try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology. I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism).

My concrete suggestions are to:

De-moralize diversity.

As soon as we start to moralize an issue, we stop thinking about it in terms of costs and benefits, dismiss anyone that disagrees as immoral, and harshly punish those we see as villains to protect the “victims.”

Stop alienating conservatives.

Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity and political orientation is one of the most fundamental and significant ways in which people view things differently.
In highly progressive environments, conservatives are a minority that feel like they need to stay in the closet to avoid open hostility. We should empower those with different ideologies to be able to express themselves.
Alienating conservatives is both non-inclusive and generally bad business because conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is require for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.

Confront Google’s biases.

I’ve mostly concentrated on how our biases cloud our thinking about diversity and inclusion, but our moral biases are farther reaching than that.
I would start by breaking down Googlegeist scores by political orientation and personality to give a fuller picture into how our biases are affecting our culture.

Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races.

These discriminatory practices are both unfair and divisive. Instead focus on some of the non-discriminatory practices I outlined.

Have an open and honest discussion about the costs and benefits of our diversity programs.

Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts.
There’s currently very little transparency into the extend of our diversity programs which keeps it immune to criticism from those outside its ideological echo chamber.
These programs are highly politicized which further alienates non-progressives.
I realize that some of our programs may be precautions against government accusations of discrimination, but that can easily backfire since they incentivize illegal discrimination.

Focus on psychological safety, not just race/gender diversity.

We should focus on psychological safety, which has shown positive effects and should (hopefully) not lead to unfair discrimination.
We need psychological safety and shared values to gain the benefits of diversity
Having representative viewpoints is important for those designing and testing our products, but the benefits are less clear for those more removed from UX.

De-emphasize empathy.

I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts.

Prioritize intention.

Our focus on microaggressions and other unintentional transgressions increases our sensitivity, which is not universally positive: sensitivity increases both our tendency to take offense and our self censorship, leading to authoritarian policies. Speaking up without the fear of being harshly judged is central to psychological safety, but these practices can remove that safety by judging unintentional transgressions.
Microaggression training incorrectly and dangerously equates speech with violence and isn’t backed by evidence.

Be open about the science of human nature.

Once we acknowledge that not all differences are socially constructed or due to discrimination, we open our eyes to a more accurate view of the human condition which is necessary if we actually want to solve problems.

Reconsider making Unconscious Bias training mandatory for promo committees.

We haven’t been able to measure any effect of our Unconscious Bias training and it has the potential for overcorrecting or backlash, especially if made mandatory.
Some of the suggested methods of the current training (v2.3) are likely useful, but the political bias of the presentation is clear from the factual inaccuracies and the examples shown.
Spend more time on the many other types of biases besides stereotypes. Stereotypes are much more accurate and responsive to new information than the training suggests (I’m not advocating for using stereotypes, I [sic] just pointing out the factual inaccuracy of what’s said in the training).

[1] This document is mostly written from the perspective of Google’s Mountain View campus, I can’t speak about other offices or countries.

[2] Of course, I may be biased and only see evidence that supports my viewpoint. In terms of political biases, I consider myself a classical liberal and strongly value individualism and reason. I’d be very happy to discuss any of the document further and provide more citations.

[3] Throughout the document, by “tech”, I mostly mean software engineering.

[4] For heterosexual romantic relationships, men are more strongly judged by status and women by beauty. Again, this has biological origins and is culturally universal.

[5] Stretch, BOLD, CSSI, Engineering Practicum (to an extent), and several other Google funded internal and external programs are for people with a certain gender or race.

[6] Instead set Googlegeist OKRs, potentially for certain demographics. We can increase representation at an org level by either making it a better environment for certain groups (which would be seen in survey scores) or discriminating based on a protected status (which is illegal and I’ve seen it done). Increased representation OKRs can incentivize the latter and create zero-sum struggles between orgs.

[7] Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the “white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.”

[8] Ironically, IQ tests were initially championed by the Left when meritocracy meant helping the victims of the aristocracy.

[9] Yes, in a national aggregate, women have lower salaries than men for a variety of reasons. For the same work though, women get paid just as much as men. Considering women spend more money than men and that salary represents how much the employees sacrifices (e.g. more hours, stress, and danger), we really need to rethink our stereotypes around power.

[10] “The traditionalist system of gender does not deal well with the idea of men needing support. Men are expected to be strong, to not complain, and to deal with problems on their own. Men’s problems are more often seen as personal failings rather than victimhood,, due to our gendered idea of agency. This discourages men from bringing attention to their issues (whether individual or group-wide issues), for fear of being seen as whiners, complainers, or weak.”

[11] Political correctness is defined as “the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against,” which makes it clear why it’s a phenomenon of the Left and a tool of authoritarians.

************************** END TEXT OF MEMO – P.V.****************

Read about more good men fired for their faith:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/american-jobs-problem-1-we-fire-good-men-who-tell-truth-peter-vadala

Get more information about what the media and tech has done to America:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bible-believers-guide-anti-christian-media-peter-vadalaReport this

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Case: How Google Censors Your Conservative, Christian Web Results

Published on July 25, 2017
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I noticed that some of my most popular Conservative-Christian-themed LinkedIn pages using a particular search term drastically decreased in the Google ranks after I created an index page linking them all together.

Before, Google returned results that were generally expected to be among the top results, including those pertaining to a news topic trending at the moment, as well as articles of general wide-interest.

But after I created an index page for the most popular articles, the very same query resulted in my most unpopular articles – those which I had not included mutual links to for the central index page – rising to the top.

If that’s difficult to understand, essentially, Google punished me in search result rank for linking my similarly-themed Conservative Christian media theory – some of which, but not all, was critical of Google. And Google punished my popular search results in a rather evasive way. What did it do? Regarding the exact same query, which I am purposefully withholding here, Google took all of my slightly less-popular content – the ones which I had not included in the index page, and ranked all of those un-linked articles above the more popular articles which I purposefully linked so that readers could find others of relevance better.

So in this case, as you can see, Google is intentionally violating your will in favor of its own purposes. Sure, it may not be blatantly mixing in paid ads into your search results. It’s merely being passive-aggressive about imposing its leftist, anti-Christian ideological ideals into the way it presents the world to you.

Just like when Americans used to watch TV and listen to the Radio, television and radio stations would seldom mention the name of another media outlet for fear of free advertising; and media outlets seldom mentioned its other competitor – Church and all things of faith.

Google is doing the same exact thing that television and radio did, except in a slier, more 21st-century-savvy way. And so “Google Truth,” as it turns out, really is just the opposite.

The Google truth is that Google hates Christianity because just like any communications-based technology, Christianity and Conservative American living, authentic living of any kind, pose a direct threat to Google’s bottom line.

Google will do anything that it can to keep you clicking through its search site, even if that means censoring pages that Google knows you really want to see.

This should serve as a stark reminder to all Christians that the world’s new censor is not to be trusted, and is a formidable threat to the free-flowing marketplace of ideas and the American way of life, which relies upon an informed citizenry. And “informed” really was never intended to mean a people who can get lots of information faster than ever before; it means a Biblically wise America with the faith to understand the very facts of life which both leftist Google and the leftist historical mainstream media depend on your being ignorant of.

Check out the National Religious Broadcaster’s study. We need to keep on top of this; this is a very important issue. http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2011/september/nrb-study-social-sites-censoring-christians-/

What’s the solution? Create an environment conducive to multiple search-solutions, to end Google’s information-crippling monopoly. Christians, specifically, need a Christian search engine. It’s not enough to complain about Google’s hatred of Christianity, and continuing media’s tradition of imposing dumbed-down nonsense on America. Keep in mind, that while all of us have a responsibility to use media responsibly, we are natural beings, and media is an electronic device. We’re not really naturally equipped sometimes to discern truth from lies, especially when there’s electronic gimmickry involved. And that’s why we have institutions like the FCC, which are supposed to be looking out for our interests insofar as that’s concerned.

And by the way, you can check out that index page about my cutting-edge original media theory, built upon true conservative, Christian principles – right here:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bible-believers-guide-anti-christian-media-peter-vadala

Even the liberal media understands that this is a problem; as well they ought:

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-22/google-is-the-worlds-biggest-censor-and-its-power-must-be-regulatedReport this

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A Samsung Camera-Fridge from The Atlantic; and a 1950's-era classic Zenith Appliance — A Samsung Camera-Fridge from The Atlantic; and a 1950’s-era classic Zenith Appliance

Zenith Head of Development Goodwin, Samsung, Blowing The Whistle Of Media/Tech Over-saturation “Amusing Ourselves To Death.” Does anybody hear?

Published on July 20, 2017
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Housekeeping Note: Please don’t forget to correctly attribute your favorite Peter Vadala articles, opinion pieces, and creative work. Thanks so much. It takes time and resources to create cutting-edge content that actually benefits people in a mediasphere that generally doesn’t.

Huxley, Postman, and Orwell, even Bradbury warned us. The cogs in the machine are squeaking. The people who work in tech, though they haven’t yet figured out how to morally leverage or quit the things they’re most gifted and talented at – are starting to have the “ah-ha” moments, when they ask themselves – is the future I am creating really something I can live with being a part of? And they’re speaking out. I, of course, am one of them. My conscience didn’t allow me to stick around news long enough to profit off other people’s misery, but I’m thankful for that. You’ve already read this news reporter’s series on how media is killing America (click here); a good hundred chapters or so on the media industry, and its child – the so-called “social media,” which was catalyzed by possibly the most anti-social being on earth.

But here are some more sources, who are more closely related to the emerging technology field, at both Zenith and Samsung. Steve Jobs wouldn’t allow his children to have iPhones, I was told by one who knew him.

Now that America’s vocabulary is shrunken by 60% from the 1960s, meaning that Americans from when the Greatest Generation lived would consider all of us retarded – how do you feel about the fact that it’s only going to get worse? And why? Because you don’t read any more. You’re too busy in that Skinner-box of “social media.” Ding.

ZENITH’s EVP, U.S. Head of Innovation

And now, this:

I wryly asked a Bay-Area-based trainee in Samsung’s Innovation (R&D) department today what technological advances we can expect to enjoy – or not enjoy, in the next ten years.

Without missing a beat, he replied, “Big Brother will be everywhere.” He said that in the name of total connectivity, every light bulb, everything we own will be interconnected. Wired. That much I had known from some IT classes.

I joked that I’d definitely be that guy who moves into an isolated cabin in Switzerland. But Samsung Development said, rather calmly that, it wouldn’t do any good. And his fellow Samsung trainee chimed in that Google is sending hot air balloons all over the world to provide Internet access to impoverished nations – but that it’s a Trojan horse.

SOURCE: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/alphabet-co-opting-peter-vadala (May 4, 2016)

Read More Cutting-Edge Media and Tech theory from Peter: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bible-believers-guide-anti-christian-media-peter-vadalaReport this

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The Search Page Killed The Front Page Star: How The Web Really Killed Newspapers, And What To Do About It.

Published on July 17, 2017
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Please don’t forget to attribute any information borrowed from this article to Peter Vadala. Thanks.

In this article, I’d like to illustrate, simply, how the Web has killed the newspaper, but not in the way that most analysts have predicted.

In order to assess the real root cause of the “paper’s” demise-by Google, we must dispense, first of all, with marketing labels. Forget “Google News,” for the moment; as the marketing label distracts us from the root cause. And let us, like a product development researcher in the business world, analyze how people once used the newspaper, and how we now use the search engine, and it all becomes rather simple.

Think about how a search engine is used. Just like the miniature television screen we use to view the search page (i.e. “phone”), the page itself is such an invisibly ubiquitous part of our lives, that we don’t stop and think about what we’re doing, in the same way we never really stopped and think about why we used the newspaper. At least, not with the depth of a product analyst. So let’s take a meta-view to see if we can’t understand how the Web has usurped the influence of the newspaper, and why the Web’s more invisible, biased, anti-American influence is thus a more formidable threat to our democratic republic.

What does the newspaper article have in common with the search engine results? Let me give you a hint. First of all, the paragraphs in a newspaper column are not really paragraphs. Usually, they’re just a sentence or two, and a sentence does not a paragraph make, except in the warped world of AP “Style.” And as Neil Postman observed, journalism is not a literary tradition; it’s an electronic one.

How do you “use” a newspaper article? Well, you begin reading at the top, where the journalist has, by training, placed the most important bit of information (the “lede”) at the top of the story. And then, the next sentence has the next “relevant” factoid regarding the lede; and then the next after that presents a slightly more tangential fact, and so on and so forth. This is a different format than you’re used to in actual, bona fide literature. Can you imagine if a novel told you the most important thing at the very beginning? What if Gone With The Wind began, “A fetching Atlantan returned home in 1873 to find not only her home, but her entire life burned to the ground. ‘Frankly,’ said the man who tried to help…” But of course, newspapers are not like that. The more you read, by design, and quite literally, the less interesting the story gets. It’s designed, like television (Neil Postman) so you can pick it up and drop it whenever you like, and know as little or as much as you like about whatever strikes your passing fancy while using the paper.

To emphasize the main point there, the newspaper article begins with the most important idea, and continues to get less and less important, or “relevant” as you move down the page. What does that sound like? You guessed it, the search page of your most-used search engine.

Instead of picking up the paper in the morning, millennials turn to Google to inform them about what’s going on in the world. Only, instead of selecting from a predetermined list of headlines, we instead type in our own headline, and ask Google to spit back more information for us to read. The search results to our custom-aggregated “news story” in the order of decreasing relevance – the “search results” “edited” for us by a giant Google calculator, a series of electronic switches, put us in the editor-in-chief position of our own newspaper-reading experience. We tell the computer what we want to see, and it fetches us the stories. The “stories” aren’t necessarily news in the conventional sense. For many females, the most pertinent “stories” are about laughing babies and adorable puppy dogs playing the star-spangled banner. For many men, the stories are about people shooting each other. Fiction or non-fiction doesn’t matter; millennials need to be told a story, the same way that in a previous age, men of slightly better character used to pick up a newspaper.

To carry the analogy slightly further, when you’re done reading the beginning of the article on the front page, which contains roughly the same amount of text as the blurb inside a Google search result, you can choose to read the rest of the article (on the search page by clicking; on the newspaper front page, by turning the page appropriately). If you’re reading a paper and the article doesn’t interest you, you simply enter what we might call another “old-school search query.” You’d glance at the other headlines on the front page, and when one caught your fancy, you’d go ahead and read the blurb, and gloss over the “pyramid-written” article. It’s not a perfect analogy, but hte point is that we use a search page the same exact way we used to use a newspaper page. In the old days of paper news, you can’t click on a sentence to learn more. You’d have to go to a library, or perhaps a phone book, to see if Mike Davis, 23, from Jones Street around the block, is the same Mike Davis that just murdered somebody in the story.

Why does this matter? Well, Christians (i.e. conservatives) are catching on to the inherent anti-American bias hidden in the headlines. One of the ways the angry newspaper writer used to hide facts was by “burying” really relevant information such that nobody would take the trouble to find it; because again, there was an assumption that if something is important, it would be at the top of the article, and very few folks actually read to the end of articles, because it was and is, generally, a waste of time.

Now, nobody reads newspapers, with some exceptions like the Wall Street Journal. And all the media is finally coming under due scrutiny for, as it were, warping the truth for so long.

But this is but a distraction; why do we care about bias in a media that nobody watches or reads? Nobody watches network television news; nobody reads papers.

More of us, these days, are turning to Google as our arbiter of information. But Google is presenting to us the very same threat, the very same methods, even, of attempting to erase Christ and all things American from the psyche of the American citizen.

Google is playing a very old trick on real, patriotic, Christian Americans, that the god-hating, American-hating news talking heads and journalists played for years. Google is burying the most important information.

How? Well, the National Religious Broadcasters has confirmed clearly that Google censors all things Christian in ways that boggles the mind. Google hates God, and like the media, is trying to censor Him out of existence, even though God gave America everything we have, including Google’s ability to safely operate a business in the best country in the world. Google hates America, hates Christianity, hates marriage, and hates those of us who love America, just like the journalists and TV News performers of the Baby-Boomer TV golden age. Except we don’t take seriously what Google is doing – even though the wool was pulled over our eyes by unscrupulous journalists before – because we can’t see that, as I contend here, the search page is, effectively, and by the way we use it, our modern “front page story.” And it’s a story – your search page results – which you are the editor-in-chief of. Except – Google is writing the story, informing your spirituality – in ways that are designed specifically to undermine your faith. (if you’d like to know why, please message me and I can flesh that out further for you)

Now, if I were an angry journalist, I’d end the article here; however, I’m going to instead write this as a proper story, rather than the way the angry journalism world does. I’m going to prescribe a solution.

Very simply, we need a “Fair and Balanced” search engine – if you forgive the Trademarked expression (which I disclaim any affiliation with). We need a search engine that does not rely upon Google servers or search technology, to provide more honest search results.

Now, I know, a Christian search engine may not be as “advanced” technically as the evil, God-hating Google’s at first. But we have to start somewhere, lest someday, Google’s hatred of Christianity and God grow so white-hot that at the moment we’ve come to rely upon it completely, it twists our precious Word of God or denies us access to it altogether, and on top of it all trained us to think that like the “news” of ages past, that somehow, it’s infinitely more important than any book we could ever pick up.

And of course there is no substitute for books, real books, for the Word of God. But as long as we’re trafficking in technology, as Christians, we have a responsibility to turn our audience’s minds at every turn back to the authentic literature, the most honest, most sincere, most perfect Word ever written.

Journalism isn’t literature; it’s not truth; and it’s not important. The Word of God is the Word of God. Journalists hate it because they see it as a competitor to what they have to say, for your attention. For more information about the dangers of electronic media, please read Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman.

Truly, the media-makers are at the beginning of getting their long-deserved just desserts for deceiving the American people. And as much comfort as that may give us sincere truth-seekers, who rejoice in their endless parade of trite distractions in the form of headlines and talking heads is finally going away — we must be aware that the existential threat American journalism’s mind-poison represents is not going away; it is simply being replaced by a more efficient parade of distractions by a form of media which merely further reduces the “human-to-machine” ratio of content. Which is to say; journalism removed the human element from literature by introducing the telegraph and teletype machines as part of the creative process (again read Neil Postman’s AOTD). And today, Google is merely heightening, or accelerating, the role of technology in the creation of the final “news story” we end up reading, thereby depriving us to an even higher degree than the drive-by-media did of the critical human element which is key to appreciating Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for us; something Google’s immense network of calculators and switches has zero terrabytes of capacity to do. Media, you must remember, is and has always in the business on not healing humans, but of, in sum, accelerating human pain as a means of profiteering from it in a never-ending parade of trivial manipulations, which add up to a stunningly show-stopping, life-crippling, audience-stupefying effect. The media age saw America into a new age of Unabombers and terrorism, and school shootings whereas once upon a time, Americans as a people kept our doors unlocked and had friendly neighborhoods.

Google, if unchecked by a Fair and Balanced search engine, a Christian search engine, and/or an American-friendly search engine, will only further serve to derail an already media-infiltrated, morally deficient American people badly in need of the God whom we once understood, inherently, provides everything we could ever have or need.

Let’s get that fair and balanced Google-Alternative – the “Alt-search?” up and running ASAP, before Google poisons us with efficiency that will make Hollywood and the evil talking TV heads look like the puppy dogs from their silly kicker stories.Report this

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Banned TED Talk Reveals The god of TED

Published on December 24, 2016
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Peter VadalaLibrettist-Composer193 articles

The Religion Of Ted is predicated upon the myth of materialism, and specifically, the belief that technology, rather than God, or any higher power, cures all.

Here’s the man who very creatively figured out a way to essentially blaspheme the technological god of TED. What did TED do? Well, they banned him, of course. Why? Check out this previous note I wrote, called “The Religion of Ted.”Report this

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Google; returning profanity for Christian rock searches

Published on July 14, 2016
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I searched for “Simple Things.” Looking for – what else, the Amy Grant song. And Amy Grant isn’t really a Christian artist. She’s a crossover who ended it with a Christian against his will, from what I can gather.

What came out ahead of Simple Things?

A song called “The (Slang Word For Vagina) Is Mine.”

I mean, we all know the studies have shown that Google censors Christianity. But this takes the cake. Google, what is going on?

I know what you’re thinking. Amy Grant just isn’t as popular as dude with a weird mustache. And I’m being extra-sensitive in light of Google’s and Facebook’s recent anti-conservative, anti-Christian censorship.

And you’re right.Report this

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Codeway To Hell

Published on July 6, 2016
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The end game of the race to code – America’s new frontier – is, what, to put more Americans out of work and simultaneously entertain them, while they’re not working, into couch potato and all manner of vegetable, such that, ultimately, all we shall be good for is body heat for – what, growing vegetables, I suppose. And – powering the machines that have taken our jobs so we can watch Star Wars and make other meaningful use of our short time on this earth. So what do you want to be? I think I’ll be broccoli.

Don’t get me wrong, it seems like a great way to raise a new generation that takes its media-imposed lack of imaginations, media-imposed lack of smarts, to a whole new autistic low.

Imagine a world in which one can quote lines from streaming videos verbatim in between coding and sucking down Jolt cola, “in the zone.” And never leaving the zone, except for the company’s indoor playground and other quaint reminders of the world that once was. A world of playtime, and outdoors, and real human interaction, instead of beeping devices.

Regarding themed “edutainment,” from Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves:

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Published by America’s Man’s Man

Among the most shadow-banned men on Google, Linked In, YouTube, and Twitter, I’m committed to helping America rediscover its essential sense of authentic masculinity and femininity. My beliefs are rooted in ultimate man’s man, Jesus Christ. View all posts by America’s Man’s Man

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November 22, 2019 8:37 am

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Mark of the Beast
November 30, 2019 4:15 pm

Would you comply if your government forces you to receive a microchip implant?

This is where our future is coming to with RFID implantable microchip technology.

Even more note worthy, did you hear there was a man almost 2000 years ago who foretold of a cashless society in the last days? His name is Jesus.

Did you know that this RFID Microchip matches perfectly with the Mark of the Beast in Revelation 13:16-18?

“He(the false prophet) causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666” (Revelation 13:16-18).

Referring to the last days, this could only be speaking of a cashless money society, which we have yet to see, but are moving towards. Otherwise we could still buy or sell without the mark among others if physical money was still currency. This mark could not be spiritual, because the word references two distinct physical locations. If it was spiritual, it would only say in the forehead.

Carl Sanders attended seventeen New World Order meetings with heads-of-state officials such as Henry Kissinger and Bob Gates of the C.I.A. to discuss their agenda on how to bring about this one-world system. The government commissioned Carl Sanders to engineer a microchip for identifying and controlling the peoples of the world-a microchip that could be placed under the skin with a hypodermic needle(a fast, convenient process that would be gradually accepted by society).

Mr. Sanders, along with a team of engineers behind him, with US grant monies provided by tax dollars, took on this project and designed a chip that is powered by a lithium battery, rechargeable through the temperature fluctuations in our skin. Without having knowledge of the Bible(Brother Sanders was not a follower of Jesus at the time), these engineers spent one-and-a-half-million dollars doing research on the best and most convenient place to have the microchip inserted.

These researchers discovered that the forehead and the back of the hand(the two locations Revelation says the mark will go) are not only the most convenient locations, but are also the only viable locations for rapid, consistent temperature fluctuations in the skin to recharge the lithium battery. The RFID chip is approximately seven millimeters in length, .75 millimeters in diameter, about the size of a grain of rice. It is capable of holding pages of information about you. All your general history, work history, crime record, health history, and financial data can be stored on this chip.

Mr. Sanders believes that this microchip, which he regretfully helped design, is the “mark” spoken about in Revelation 13:16-18. The original Greek word for “mark” is “charagma,” which means a “scratch or etching.” It is also interesting to note that the number 666 is actually a word in the original Greek. The word is “chi xi stigma,” with the last part, “stigma,” also meaning “to stick or prick. Carl believes this is referring to the use of a hypodermic needle being poked into the human flesh to insert the microchip.”

Mr. Sanders spoke with a doctor asking what would happen if the lithium contained within the RFID chip leaked into the body. The doctor replied by saying a terrible sore would appear in that spot. This is what the book of Revelation has to say:

“And the first(Angel) went, and poured out his vial on the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore on the men which had the mark of the beast, and on them which worshipped his image” (Revelation 16:2).

The Bible tells us we cannot buy or sell without the mark of the beast, or the number of its name. This number is identified as 666. The Bible tells us to calculate the number 666.

In this world we are identified by numbers, whether it is our social security number, drivers license, or cards used to make payments. The number of the beast represents something like this, to identify us in a one world government system. This number will be stored within the RFID microchip to identify us so we may buy or sell.

To see the hidden meaning behind calculating the number 666(6+6+6=18), and how it aligns with scipture perfectly, go to (my Web site).

The Bible warns us in the last days that a false prophet will rise up doing miracles to deceive many to receive this mark. No matter the cost, do not take it!

“Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name” (Revelation 14:9-11).

Out of all the world religions, how can we be confident the Bible got it right? The scientific data has established and continues to support that the universe once had a beginning in which space, time and matter were created. Many know this as the big bang.

“The non-biblical religions tell us that god or god’s create within space and time that eternally exist. The Bible stands alone and says that time and space don’t exist until God creates the universe.” – Hugh Ross

Did you know that the real Noah’s Ark was discovered where the Bible told us it would be with the correct dimensions? As well as hard evidence for the destruction of Sodom Gomorrah and the Exodus account of the Red Sea crossing?

The Bible is the most translated and read book in the history of the world, full of predictive prophecies. Wouldn’t you expect God’s word to be so?

This information can all be found at (my Web site).

“And He(Jesus) said to me(Apostle John), “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts” (Revelation 21:6).

“Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water(the Holy Spirit) that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13-14).

“Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ (John 3:5-6).

All religion is man-made. Man can create religion, but no one can create the Holy Spirit that comes from God out of Heaven. Jesus never told us to follow a religion or denomination:

“Then He(Jesus) said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).

You can receive the Spirit of God right now. If you are willing to humble yourself before the Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead on the third day; call out to God and ask Him to forgive your sins, to receive His Holy Spirit. If you are genuine, He is faithful and just to forgive, and He will give you a new heart, a renewing of the mind, restoring everything the devil has stolen from you; making you like a child again.

When we receive the Spirit of God, we become born from above, and His seed resides within us. We no longer make a practice of sin, but rather turn away from unrighteousness and receive the righteousness of Christ.

From that point onward, we must put all our hope and trust in Jesus, and grow to walk in His ways, not straying from the narrow path. For Jesus says,

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty(One God), Who was(Jesus) and is(YHWH) and is to come(Jesus)!” (Revelation 4:8).

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