San Rafael High School Bulldog
As I watched the news last night I wished vaguely that I had taken Mr. Dressier’s physics class in high school. I’m sure there is some principal or other that applies to the persistence of the talking heads in thinking that our country’s leadership is going to turn some corner in the hallowed halls of the White House and come smack up against their senses. No matter how consistent the tweetings and twitterings from the seat of government, there seems to be this hope-springs-eternal mentality among the mainstream media. Frankly, I’m sick of it.
So what is that principal, anyway? Inertia? According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary for Kids (my particular physics speed), inertia is “a property of matter by which it remains at rest or in unchanging motion unless acted on by some external force.” When speaking of inertia and human activity, synonyms include “idleness, laziness, shiftlessness, sloth.”
Well… I hardly think the PBS news team can be said to suffer from any of those negative descriptors. In fact, I admire their industry very much. It’s the reluctance on their part (and on all of our parts) to stay stuck in the rut of what we are used to. For some reason we are all still agog that ‘things’ are different from ever before and that there are so many breaks from historical precedence.
Clearly, the folks in the Other Washington who are calling the shots (or trying too) are not troubled by inertia. So, the rest of us, including the news media probably need to look at the Laws of Chaos and the Laws of Order. I know even less about those “Universal Laws” than I do about Physics. I wonder if Mr. Dressier could have helped?
Order and Chaos
It’s disheartening when watching the news sets me off on one of these pointless rambles. I think I’ll give it all a rest for another little while – until things get back into some sort of alignment and the mainstream news stops lamenting and breast-beating and being amazed at the same-old same-old.
One has to struggle to find decent news. I have a couple of blogs coming up on that subject. Frankly, PBS news is no lighthouse beacon in my opinion. Gone very soft.