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Forsake Media Sensationalism

More people die annually from choking on food than in plane crashes or by guns, but mass shootings and deaths make for great footage

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For the past 20 months, much of the nation has been fixated on the TV screen, computer screen, and cellphone screen, caught up in COVID ‘news’ and media-generated hysteria. Apart from current events and contemporary issues, as a society, our exposure to the media has increased several hundred percent within a few decades.

Fifty years ago three major television networks dominated television – ABC, NBC and CBS. Today, well, you know the story… In fact, there are now 500+ full-power independent television stations.

While worldwide media coverage provides many benefits, it also has quite a few side effects. As we spend more and more hours tuned to electronic media, we are exposed to tens of thousands of messages and images. Similarly to too much food at one sitting, too much data at once isn’t easily ingested. The average person now spends more than eight solid years watching electronically how other people supposedly live.

So Alone

The sad truth is that we have become an anxious society, using electronics to not feel alone, to evade confronting why we can’t seem to get what we want, or to avoid better use of the hours we say we so earnestly desire.

As each breakthrough in communication and entertainment technology is introduced, it is accompanied by predictions of doom for its predecessors. Television was supposed to have finished radio. VCRs and then DVDs and DVRs were supposed to have finished off movie theaters. It hasn’t happened yet.

We retain, embrace, and offer rapt attention to all forms of media, and to the devices that transmit them to us. Our cultural and electronic addiction to the mass media not only inverts our perception of available time, but also diminishes our attention spans. Television and radio news features grow shorter and shorter to match the fragmented, decreasing attention spans of viewers.

Try this: For the next minute, stare at your watch or cell phone timer. Or, if that’s too boring, think about something pleasurable you’re going to do today. Your perception of the length of a minute will differ vastly from using that minute to listen to the news or read a page from a magazine. Warning: The exercise you were going to undertake for a full minute may have just failed.

Sensationalism Prevails

Our culture is so committed to motion and to information intake that you might be unable to make yourself stare at your watch or simply contemplate for one minute, even when the thought is of something pleasurable! Why?

Some 100 years ago, William Randolph Hearst used sensationalism to heighten the most mundane of stories to sell more newspapers. If one of his reporters turned in a story about a dog that got a foot stuck in a sewer grate, Hearst would have the headline changed to read, “CANINE TRAPPED IN TUNNEL OF DEATH.”

Today, to capture an over-stimulated, distracted population, television and other news media relies more and more on sensationalism. It’s now ingrained in the nature of broadcasting, and it’s hazardous to your breathing space.

With a planet of nearly eight billion people, the various forms of media are easily furnished with an endless supply of turmoil for mass transmission. At any given moment, somebody is fomenting violence or revolution somewhere. Such turmoil is packaged daily for the evening news.

We are lured with images of crashes, hostages, and natural disasters. We offer our time and rapt attention to each new hostility, scandal or disaster. Far more people die annually from choking on food than in plane crashes or by guns, but mass shootings and deaths make for great footage, and play into people’s fears.

According to a 2015 study from The Economist, your chance of dying from a domestic, commercial airplane mishap is about one in 5,400,000. So, you only need to be concerned if you fly 100 times per year, for several thousand years.

Time to Take Control

Unless it directly affects you or your community, give up offering any attention whatsoever to news coverage of spectacular crashes, train wrecks, etc. If you’re concerned about reducing the incidence of violent death, learn the Heimlich maneuver or CPR — stop being enthralled by spectacular media coverage of non-imperative events and sensationalized trivia.

You cannot afford to pay homage to everyone else’s 15 minutes of fame. Tomorrow morning when getting ready for work, rather than switching on the radio or TV, quietly envision how you would like your day to be. Include everything that’s important to you such as the commute, entering your building or your office, sitting down at your desk, handling tasks, and taking breaks.

Envision interacting with others, going to lunch, conducting or attending meetings, using the phone, finishing up projects, and walking out in the evening. With this exercise alone, you’ll begin to feel a greater sense of control in aspects of your job that you might have considered uncontrollable.

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Jeff Davidson is the world's only holder of the title "The Work-Life Balance Expert®" as awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He is the premier thought leader on work-life balance, integration, and harmony. Jeff speaks to organizations that seek to enhance their overall productivity by improving the effectiveness of their people. He is the author of Breathing Space, Simpler Living, Dial it Down, and Everyday Project Management. Visit www.BreathingSpace.com for more information on Jeff's keynote speeches and seminars, including: Managing the Pace with Grace® * Achieving Work-Life Balance™ * Managing Information and Communication Overload®



 
 
 

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Defund the US-Hating United Nations

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When I was a boy, we worshipped the United Nations. I remember taking the subway with my fourth-grade class from Brooklyn into Manhattan, where we observed the countries of the world as they carried out the lofty founding purpose of the UN: to maintain peace and foster cooperation between nations. My classmates and I admired the lucky bureaucrats who worked in the beautiful glass building on the East River.

Segue to 2023: the UN has betrayed its original goals. In reaction, the US should defund the UN and kick them out of town. Let them set up shop in Teheran and see how they like it. There are many reasons in support of what I am suggesting, but for now let’s stick to the two biggies: (1) The UN has become a pawn of Islamic anti-Western hatred; and (2) Self-serving UN bureaucrats are committed to a totalitarian globalist agenda that is diametrically opposed to US interests. Oh, I forgot a third reason: We can use the money.

Muslim states account for 18 of the 47 seats on the UN Human Rights Council. This Muslim bloc has been the driving force, says cnsnews.com, behind two key items on the Council’s agenda: the campaign for Islamic anti-blasphemy laws and condemnations of Israel. Now it seems they have the support of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Pamela Geller, author of Stop the Islamization of America, said Guterres “is a tool of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which has been running a years-long campaign against freedom of speech at the UN.”

Guterres has cited “Islamophobia” as the reason for increasing terrorism around the world. “One of the things that fuel terrorism,” said Guterres, “is the expression in some parts of the world of Islamophobic feelings and Islamophobic policies and Islamophobic hate speeches.” WorldNetDaily argued that, “Guterres just gave a free pass to Islamic extremists to commit acts of terror throughout the world.” It’s a lot like blaming the victim, says Phillip Haney, author of See Something Say Nothing. “He’s giving them an out. If they’re not required to take any responsibility for their terrorism and can simply blame the Islamophobic Western world,” says Haney, “it’s only going to get worse.”

John Guandolo, a former FBI counter-terrorism expert, said Islamophobia is the term Muslim leaders use to identify people who are guilty of the Islamic blasphemy laws. “This gives us the cherry on top of the argument for shutting down the United Nations and sending them back to their respective countries,” Guandolo said. “It is an anti-American organization which is littered with spies and haters of liberty and justice.”

“Guterres is doing the bidding of Islamic jihadists and is advancing Islamic conquest by silencing truthful speech about Islam,” former Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann told WND. “No other religion enjoys such protection from criticism,” Bachmann said. “Ironically, no other religion in current times has advanced more violence, carnage and bloodshed than Islam and yet Islam’s gatekeepers demand their religion not be criticized. We need to recognize this is nothing more than a well-designed strategy to achieve Islamic conquest and the UN Secretary General is now the jihadist’s advocate.”

The other reason to dump the UN is the globalist agenda adopted by the left-wing bureaucrats on the banks of the East River. “The tin pot dictators at the UN are only interested in redistribution of wealth, population control, the buildup of megacities, and global governance under the UN aegis,” says canadafreepress.com. UN globalists are pushing for open borders, penalties to stop global warming, and the destruction of capitalism.

The hysteria about global warming, said Senator James Inhofe, has been fueled by the UN’s desire for global control. Global climate change policies, said Inhofe, would give the UN its own funding source and make it unaccountable to member nations. “The climate scare is not driven by climate scientists,” agreed British political commentator Christopher Monckton. “It’s not driven by any adverse circumstances in the world’s weather. It is driven by a totalitarian political ideology.” This ideology, said Monckton, is fostered by the unelected bureaucrats at the UN and EU. Ottmar Edenhofer, German economist and UN official, admitted that global warming is a fiction created to camouflage the real intent of the UN—to redistribute the world’s resources under the control of a totalitarian world government.

“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy,” argues Edenhofer. “Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection. The next world climate summit is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.”

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change and the driving force behind the 2015 Paris Agreement, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism. As reported in Investor’s Business Daily, Figueres said, “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.” In case you don’t understand what that means, UN bureaucrats—under the guise of responding to climate change—want to take what you have and give it to people in the less developed parts of the world.

 

Fox News reports that the US contributes approximately $8 billion per year to the United Nations and its affiliated organizations. Look at what we are getting in return—not a very good deal. Imagine how we could put that money to better use. Build a wall? End poverty? Rebuild the military? Instead of doing what its founders intended, the UN has turned into an attack dog against the US and its ally, Israel. Let’s get rid of it.

 

Ed Brodow (www.edbrodowpolitics.com) is a conservative political commentator and author of ten books including the No. 1 Amazon best seller, THE WAR ON WHITES: How Hating White People Became the New National Sport.

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Military

Teaching Terrorists Everywhere that Taking Hostages Works

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Are you a conservative business person? Then check out the Red Referral Network and partner with Dinesh D’Souza by clicking the banner below: There was a time that they didn’t negotiate with kidnappers or terrorists. But obviously, things have changed, and, as one might expect, hostage taking has increased. Why? Because it works. It results in the release of convicted terrorists in custody and gets hours of media coverage for their cause.

Terrorists understand the West. Founded on Judeo-Christian values, the West puts a premium on each human life. Our respect for the individual is one of our strengths, but it clearly can cost us in facing terrorists. One cannot fault the families of anyone held hostage for fighting for their release and pleading and praying for their safe return. In the same situation, would not most of us do the same? Terrorists know that.

With the slow and steady drip of more hostages being released every day, the ceasefire continues to be extended and Israel remains constrained from their goal of eliminating Hamas from Gaza. With each passing day Israel is forced to face more restrictions in an effort to protect the innocent civilians. They are forced to deal with Hamas, give them supplies, and release dangerous captives back into Gaza.

As Hamas releases captives and the media covers the hostages’ heartwarming return home, Hamas is given the opportunity to present themselves as the “good guys,” releasing women and children to the appreciative eyes of the world. They inflate the numbers of Palestinian women and children already killed in Israel’s response. Hamas is finding that the repeated release will begin to soften the world’s view of their October 7th savagery,

While Israel is being forced to wait and watch the daily trickle of hostages being returned, they know full well that the supplies they’re bringing to Hamas will make their job to eliminate them more difficult. Weapons are being moved, fortifications are strengthened, forces are repositioned, and traps are being put in place to kill Israeli soldiers. Every day they delay their assault, their job is becoming more difficult.

The IDF and Israeli leaders are saying the right things. Getting the hostages returned is a welcome result. They know that having to release them by force would have put far more hostages and soldiers in danger. No doubt, many of the Israeli hostages now free might very well have died in the efforts to free them by force. Good has come, but at what cost to their ultimate aim?

What is rewarded gets replicated. In 2011, the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, also known in Arabic as Wafa al-Ahrar, “Faithful to the Free,” resulted in the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 Hamas prisoners held by Israel. It took the release of a thousand terrorists to get one captured soldier. That was a deal Hamas loved. As Israel negotiates now, how many convicted terrorists will be returned to Gaza to release the remaining hostages held captive? Once again, taking hostages is paying off in the number of Hamas terrorists freed.

As the ceasefire is extended and only a few hostages are released per day, the exchange could easily take weeks. Hamas is counting on the international press and wavering Western allies to keep up the pressure on Israel. What they want is a permanent ceasefire, and if Israel caves in and agrees to this, the entire war will have been for nothing. Hamas will remain in power in Gaza, and Israel will be left with a military failure and the assurance that more attacks will continue.

Israel has promised to resume their goal of eliminating Hamas from Gaza once the hostage negotiations have been completed. But the anti-Israel media will be ready to savage Israel for even considering to resume the assault.

But resume they must! Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a founding member of Hamas who went undercover as a spy for Israel, provides a warning the West should take to heart: “The danger is if Israel fails in their war in Gaza, which is a brutal war … it will inspire … savages [who will] blackmail superpowers and bring democracies to their knees. If Israel fails in Gaza, all will be next.”

Thankfully, Israel is used to being hated. They know what it is to go it alone if necessary. Netanyahu has promised to resume the assault and to take out Hamas leaders living in presumed safety abroad. Many of the Hamas fighters released in the hostage exchange will no doubt join the fight against Israel. Hopefully, many of them will die in their futile defense.

Terrorism must not win the day. Israel would be wise to put a time limit on when all hostages must be released. Provide a safe page for innocents until that deadline is reached. Some remaining hostages may die, but what assurance does Israel have that some hostages are not already dead. Israel must finish the job or an emboldened Hamas will be free to repeat their savage attacks. Evil must be defeated. God willing, it will be.
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