Amid the chaos

Happy Friday, friends….we’re almost there!

As things stand now, massive numbers of federal government employees are being laid off…or not.  Our President is going to force Ukraine to surrender to Russia…or not.  The U.S. gold reserve is still at Fort Knox…or not.

Who knows about any of these things?  The chaos and confusion that seems to reign in Washington right now is pretty well beyond our individual control, and the circumstances keep changing to fit the latest stories that are circulating.  And the American people are seldom getting the full story or straight answers to questions asked of President Trump and other high-ranking officials.

So we work on the things where we have some control and ownership.  

For example, I have migrated from Twitter (now called “X” by its owner) over a year ago.  Over time many of the accounts I followed to keep up on things of interest migrated to Threads, which is connected to Instagram.  I enjoyed Threads for the most part but it seemed that “bots” had become more and more common.  Those are accounts that exist strictly to attract and connect with as many account holders as possible and use their data against them.  It was taking me longer to block them all, it seemed.

Along about the same time as I started my Threads account, I also became aware of a new platform called BlueSky.  I signed up and looked around and didn’t really see a lot of people there whom I followed elsewhere.

Fast forward to last week, when I noted that quite a few members of the media and other entities now have BlueSky accounts, so I decided to go all in.  In this portal it’s quite a bit easier to see the posts and reposts of those persons whom you follow, and I like that a lot.  If you have an account with X, give this a try, you’ll find it to be a little more agreeable than its forerunners.

Changes appear to be continual within the mass media.  After President Trump criticized them at the recent CPAC event, MSNBC elected to layoff or reassign virtually every host who’s a person of color.  Primary among this group is Joy Reid, who has hosted the weeknight 7:00 PM block on that network for some time.  She has been a highly outspoken critic of Trump and his policies and was clearly the most dejected of their panel of hosts on election night last November.

Seemingly minutes after this, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon and now the owner and CEO of the Washington Post, announced that the paper is drastically changing its editorial policies, opening the door to appeasement of the White House in its coverage to an even greater degree than had been occurring over the past few weeks and months.

Somehow I don’t think this type of capitulation is what we need in our traditional media.  To me, it’s more important than ever to report the truth and speak truth to power, but so many such outlets have gone the safe route.  This while the White House announced it will now decide who covers the President, instead of defaulting to the White House Correspondents’ Association.

Walter Cronkite would not approve.

And I write this with the television on in my hotel room and a local news report reminds me that today is the day for the national spending boycott, designed to protest the dismantling of so many programs within employers promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.  I don’t think I can entirely avoid spending money today, since I have to travel back to my home area, but I’ll try.  Our President claims that the end of DEI on a widespread basis will ensure that people with competence and qualifications will now occupy most jobs within the federal government.  Um, OK.  In response, I give you the Trump Cabinet and its motley crew of members.

That’s all I have this morning.  I’ll be back when I think of more.