Being fed the human dead is an apt metaphor. The sleeping human might also 
be on point. TV is awful, few movies in our house make it to the "not a 
stinker" category. On whole, I am glad the warmer weather is upon us so 
that my attention will be directed outside with a greater "to do" list, 
including a new circle study to hang on the garden shed to compliment the 
black sun. And yet, on the whole I think the quality of my inner workings 
is up to me and not Hollywood.

Journalists used to vet our politicians and investigate the hidden. Or did 
I just think it was doing that? Now I find it going through the motions and 
selling out to sensationalism and private interest.

On Sunday, March 29, 2015 at 12:56:22 PM UTC-4, archytas wrote:
>
> One might think of this more directly in terms of a spiritual grasp of the 
> whole.  I don't mean chanting monks as Orn would tell us about, but rather 
>  whatever might have us involved (though chanting monks are surely more 
> interesting than live television watching people sleep - presumably hoping 
> they won't wake up and make things even more boring).  We might list 
> responses from Allan's sig line, chanting monks, soap opera, libidinal 
> newsrooms and direct action to living in a big data field that is very 
> distressing.
>
> Allan's sig line    - raises wicked witch of Berlin leading to 'arguments' 
> that distract from what real issues might be
> Chanting monks  - may have pleasant voices
> Reality TV          - needs cameras following idiots that 'watch' it
> Libidinal newsrooms  - need surveillance of quasi and real masturbation 
> fantasies (people write in protesting they can't see the legs of female 
> news presenters)
>
> All these matters and ,many more could be looked at in a big data 
> framework in which we could see the 'individual' formed in terms of time 
> spent in what is mostly not activity concerned with fulfilment.  Looking at 
> television schedules, Sue and I find almost nothing to watch and most of 
> that made 20 years ago and more.  Metaphorically, we think the 
> entertainment industry and internet powers, education and politics feed us 
> Soylent Green! 
>
> On Sunday, 29 March 2015 13:53:18 UTC+1, Molly wrote:
>>
>> "The tragedy of journalism now is that it is demand driven. And when you 
>> ask people what they want, we're like one of those rats that have a lever 
>> to push and cocaine comes out. And once that happens one time, they'll stay 
>> there till they die, until more of the drug appears. We can't help loving 
>> lurid stories and suspense and the kind of sex and violence which the news 
>> is now made up of," Marty Kaplan 
>> <https://www.facebook.com/pages/Marty-Kaplan/220259631346836> tells Bill 
>> in this interview.  
>> http://billmoyers.com/segment/marty-kaplan-on-the-weapons-of-mass-distraction/
>>
>> "The power of mass distraction" is an interesting notion, and I find that 
>> it is much easier for people to look away from a problem than to contribute 
>> to a solution. Part of that may be disagreement on what the solution is. 
>> Much of it may be the overall malaise of "nothing I can do about it" as 
>> most of us feel we have no real influence on the larger world problems. In 
>> the past four years I've seen a dramatic drop in public demonstrations in 
>> downtown Detroit and most of the demonstrations that happen are of the "for 
>> hire" variety, with the same nationally based organizers who are making a 
>> buck off the movement (big time) and choose the causes carefully to 
>> insure that.
>>
>> I demonstrated during the Vietnam demonstration era and found that many 
>> of my pier group became social organizers afterward, not organizing 
>> demonstrations but organizing communities from within, more of social 
>> service than social activism as we know it today. There are huge 
>> demonstrations going on all over the world but not many here in the US. 
>> Does this mean we are giving into distraction and looking away from 
>> solutions waiting for the action to implement? Or is there a different 
>> social organization emerging, one more of collaboration than dissension? Or 
>> something else?
>>
>

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