It Shines When It Shines

[Daveparts]

It Shines When It Shines
by David Glenn Cox


The sun comes up, and light shines through the window like a searchlight beam.
It finds my face and it shines in many ways, a different light that shines when it shines.

It is not darkness which causes blindness, it is the overabundance of light. When we are in the dark our eyes attempt to adjust; we reach out and grope with our hands and carefully shuffle our feet, using all of the sensory assets available to us. Yet, when our eyes are overpowered with bright light, we instinctively recoil and close them. Our hands seek only to shield our eyes and our feet to find us an escape from its intensity. So it could be said that when one is in the dark they are merely seeking, but when one is immersed in the light they cannot seek but only flee.

This is my fifth week in the garage and in that time I have not seen any TV shows. Yesterday I got access to the Internet back; it was available at the public library but using it there was not feasible. The library has ten computers for a population of over one hundred thousand people. Most of those on the computers were playing or shopping or just doing the things that all us with our own computers take for granted. The library was a palace, a beautiful, modern building that spoke of government opulence. Ten computers spoke volumes about misplaced appropriations in the twenty-first century.

I went to the laundry mat to wash my clothes and in the corner was a small television set with Fox News playing on and on. I was amazed at how base, obvious and manipulative it was. Of course Fox News behavior wasn’t new to me but having been separated from it and all TV news for five weeks made it as crude as a Louisville Slugger to the forehead. Stories about tea baggers and how the media, meaning all except Fox News, were portraying them. As Neil Cavuto explained, “Do these look like the champagne and Grey Poupon set? Or just plain folks, just regular Americans?”

I suppose Cavuto assumes that we forgot who was taking the video footage at the rally. If there had been a parking lot full of limousines with chauffeurs at the ready they never would have made it on the air. It was all so clumsy and ham-handed as to be nauseating. The next story was about Mrs. Clinton, the Secretary of State of the United States of America, who was in Mexico for discussions on the drug violence problem in Mexico. Fox News refers to her as Hillary. Mrs. Clinton discussed reviving an arms exportation treaty voted down in the Senate in 1998. Fox News, in an attempt to be fair and balanced, had as a guest Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association.

It was LaPierre’s contention that a treaty which requires importers of firearms from America into foreign countries to be registered with their governments is an infringement on American gun ownership rights. The issue was completely inverted into somehow limiting American’s freedom without ever connecting the dots. Cavuto asked, “Why was this treaty voted down in 1998?” Duh, who was President in 1998 and who controlled Congress in 1998? Who stands to lose money if they can’t export their firearms overseas? LaPierre’s answer, “It was just bad legislation, Neil.”

I put my clothes in the dryer and went out and sat in my truck and listened on the radio to “Democracy Now!” I feel fortunate every day for our local community radio station, WRFG, otherwise the airwaves of Atlanta would be full of only the mundane garbage that Capitalism provides. The host, Amy Goodman, interviewed the NSA employee who leaked the information about spying on Americans without FISA warrants. He’d been fired and was deeply in debt. He told how seventeen FBI agents broke down his door and raided his home, taking computers and cell phones while his small children stood trembling in the front yard, terrified.

In her other news, 800,000 American families received a notice of foreclosure in the first three months of this year. I went in to check my clothes and the channel had been changed to the local ABC affiliate news program. Their lead story was about a new sixty million-dollar baseball stadium financed by Gwinett County taxpayers. The minor league Braves team will use the park while the major league Braves are only twenty-six miles down the road. Seems a little excessive when there's only ten computers are in the library.

Then a happy-ending story, an elderly woman compensated by a dog food company for killing her dog with melamine-tainted dog food. It was explained that the melamine was added to boost protein levels, which is correct and incorrect all at the same time. Melamine is an industrial chemical used to make glue; it is not an additive or a food product. Melamine was used by Chinese dairy farmers who had watered down their milk to fool the testing agent. It was intentional and criminal behavior that was for some reason left out of the story. Dairy farmers add melamine to milk the way moonshiners used to add car battery acid to whiskey.

Then, even more good news. Experts think the economy in Georgia might be beginning to recover because unemployment held stable at an all-time record rate of 9.2%. Imagine going to the hospital and being told, “We think he’s getting a lot better. His temperature is at 103 but it has stopped going up!”

Then interviews with two women who have found jobs here in Atlanta. Closing the story the anchor added, “Most of the jobs have been found in retail, hotel and hospitality outlets, Wal-Mart, Days Inn and McDonalds.” Georgia has a population of over nine million people; 9.2% are unemployed, an all-time high. Three thousand people of that 9.2% in Georgia found jobs last month and this is served up as good news! Not a shit pie but excrement delight!

Next was a good news story about car sales being up, but they were quick to add, not new car sales, just used cars. “Could this mean the economy is recovering?” No, it means people got their tax refunds and so had money for a down payment on a used car.

The American media spins like a Tilt-A-Whirl; sixty million tax dollars spent to build a ball park for a mega million dollar franchise is greeted with glee and joy. “When we come back we’ll tell you what kind of fun you can expect at the new ball park!” Can we sleep there? Can we get jobs there that pay a living wage? This wasn’t part of a stimulus package; no right wing pundits held tea parties to decry such spending. It is more spin than news; media-generated feel good or feel bad depending on the direction of the spin, creating good guys and bad guys, heroes and villains.

During his campaign President Obama promised green jobs again and again, yet his alternative energy proposal contains funding for improved oil drilling technology. Funding research for the world’s most profitable corporations to drill for the most ungreen of technologies more efficiently. It was not hidden from you in the dark but hidden by the white light of media.

We've been bruised and brow beaten by the endless stream of calculated blows until we recoil and cover our eyes and try only to look away. You can’t know the truth if you’re never told the truth. But when you find the truth you’ll know it. You’ll relish it and hold on to it because it is yours. It will shine when it shines.

[tomreedtoon]

1. Pity you couldn't watch Comedy Central or HBO.

The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Real Time...those shows are the only real news shows left. Full of cynicism, anger, illustrated facts, and intolerance for sham, unlike the "professional" media whores.

I recall reading that in the height of the Great Depression, there was a little pamplet sold on the streets entitled "Oh, Yeah?" It had quotes from Hoover and the other rich and powerful people talking about how there was no depression and no economic problems, and that unemployed people were simply lazy.

Well, nobody reads any more, so the three shows I mentioned are the modern equivalent of "Oh, Yeah?"

[Demeter]

2. Would You Be Willing to Travel? Change States?

Looking for a roommate situation, or a house-sitting situation, or an elder-care situation? If your temperament lies in any of those directions....it is a possible way back out of the car and into the greater society.

Having a real address will make searching for the rest easier.

I worry about you. We can't afford to lose any sane people in these challenging times.