On Sunday, March 28, 2004 I leafed through two newspapers in California. One was known as the largest and most read newspaper in the State. The other was from a major city in the Central Valley. One was liberal and the other conservative in orientation. Following are some squibs I gleaned from a single reading of both. There were others like them. One article reported that: Executives and workers steal $600 billion dollars from their companies each year (in comparison, the federal deficit is $560 billion dollars) . . .74% of high school students say they’ve cheated, 90% of college students say they’d lie to increase the odds of getting a job, and nearly 50% of all resumes contain outright lies . . . . the cheating culture will lead to cynicism and more cheating.
A major story in the sports section focused on a complaint from a player that his former team had not been honest with him. There appears to have been disregard for his injuries. In the travel section there was a review of a book about Peru that included a reference to Chile’s copper mining: that has kept Chile’s economy viable, while shortening and constricting the lives of countless miners and other workers. One section included a story of the recently assassinated Ahmed Yassin who founded the terrorist group known as Hamas: The organization he led and inspired had been responsible for the deaths of scores of . . . civilians. In the Business Section an auto making company was accused by jurists as having misled plaintiffs or lied in a number of lawsuits. . . .The automakers call the incidents honest mistakes. Another company avoided taxes by using a phony name and hard-sell tactics. In the book section a full page was given to the story of a former president of the world’s largest record company who began his book with fantasy stories of his debauchery. He stated: The more I misbehaved, the more the company profited.
The calendar section’s lead story was entitled, The Zipping Point, with the subtitle: Vulgarity overload is creating a critical mass of alliances that target big media along with bad taste. It’s not a pure liberal-versus-conservative issue anymore. The article dealt with the extensive problem of growing indecency in the media. In announcing a festival of films on the dark side the sub-title stated: Hollywood’s annual ode to crime and cynicism returns this week with plenty of evil to love. Another article featured George Carlin defending his belief that cursing is not to be limited: They are only words not acts. This was permitted to stand unchallenged, as were other untruths. (We need to remember that using words is an act, quite significant in the world.) A major article accented the annual outpouring of communal grief over the death of pop musician, Kurt Cobain, a drug addict who shot himself to death.
Daily, sordid stories are disseminated. With so much evidence, why be offended at the Christian doctrine of human depravity? There is a way out of the morass, in the forgiveness of Christ, and adoption of his belief and conduct code for the good life. In appreciation for life, if not to God, we ought to work to better human conduct. Dealing with primal human condition is primary to recovery. As an aside, one wonders why reading daily news is good, and Bible reading sectarian so to be avoided in public exchange – even made illegal in some contexts. The daily news is presumed not to be offending to the public. The good news of the love of God must be restricted so to avoid offense for the rights of persons to believe what they wish to believe. Go figure, as it is often said in the conflict of idea and actions. From time to time I have tallied the media on the reports of the day, finding the same litany or general behavior noted above. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020