How to Boil a Frog. What Censorship Brings from Across the Pond.

In today’s world of paparazzi snapping embarrassing photos of the Royal Family and a controversial independent film on YouTube.com that is attributed for sparking uprisings in the Middle East, we need to understand the optics and tone of how these events can be used to advance an agenda for the reduction of our freedom of expression — and why we must stop it — cold.

 

There is a question we use to stimulate conversations about changing behaviors: How do you boil a frog, we ask? Answer: If you throw it into a pot of boiling water, then it hops out immediately, but if you slowly raise the temperate with the frog beginning in the pot of water at room temperature, then it will tire and eventually poach.  And so this is how we lose personal freedoms — one degree at a time and before we know it, we’re that frog. Croaked.

 

The tone is out there, just observe. The Today Show (9.18.2012) featured a former member of the paparazzi demonstrating how an innocent sunbather’s image can be captured from more than a mile away using a high-tech camera body and powerful lenses. Why? Is this a method to advance an agenda for reducing or eliminating individual rights (albeit abhorrent in the case of paparazzi) to take these photographs? Suppose we remove those freedoms of expression and then change the circumstances of how the camera is used to one where an image of a political figure is captured during an illegal or immoral act. Would that image disappear entirely or be prohibited from publication, even result in the punishment or imprisonment of its photographer? It happens in North Korea, China and countless other countries less imbued with freedoms we fortunate Americans enjoy.

 

When the eye behind the lens is a government employee, does that change your perception?  That’s a bit of a leading question, but we have to explore changes in the environment or circumstances to gauge the health of our freedoms. The optics get blurred through the lens one views life and how comfortable one is if greater restrictions are placed on personal expression through written words, photographs and video. Curbing or eliminating personal expression while removing restrictions on governmental intrusions is a dangerous concept. And in times of spy drones equipped with cameras flying high above us all, do we fully understand what their greater purpose serves?

 

A YouTube.com video trailer for The Innocence of Islam is attributed for the uprising s and attacks on U.S. Embassy locations that resulted in the deaths of American citizens and strategic personnel. The emerging narrative (via Media Matters and others) is that the video trailer should be removed in order to eliminate the offensive material from viewing. Censorship by the very same people in government who took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution? Yes, outright pressure from the U.S. government upon a private enterprise (YouTube.com and Google) to censor privately generated content — an oddly familiar tactic taken by countries in the Middle East that require governmental approval before publication. In those countries, simply knowing that censorship exists  at these levels retards the creative expressions of artists.  Fear of death, imprisonment or other gross penalty is the market gauge there, rather than free-market capitalism forces here. In America (right now) we are free to create content, view it, critique it and share it. Those are unreachable aspirations for less fortunate artists abroad.

 

And what happens if the narrative for restrictions and censorship, veiled as a tactic to protect the peace or prevent embarrassment, continue to advance? We know that freedoms, once given away, are regained only with sacrifice of blood and treasure.  And we know the only way to boil a frog is to do it slowly. Are we smarter or more aware of our situation than a frog? If so, then maybe these two most current events are where we realize that it’s hot here and we have to regain the collective resolve to leap back to freedom to preserve our way of life.

Obama Campaign Is Running Out The Clock On Romney

It’s like John McCain is somehow influencing the Romney campaign strategy at this point…Romney looks and acts the presidential part; it’s the role of nominee in a bare-fisted winner-take-all election fight he’s not getting. And that’s why Darwin was right and we have Obama in office.


This was the substance of an email exchange this morning with my father. eMail is a great way to share a thought or two and get the fingers moving. And then it occurred to me, Obama’s running out the clock on Mitt Romney. I’ll explain below.

The knock on the Obama campaign has been a lack of attack and detail on matters of substance — calling into the local “morning zoo” radio program and talking about great bar-b-que doesn’t solve the national debt crisis or explain the lack of a Syrian policy to get Russia and China to tow the line and tamp-down that civil war. The lack of substance is like watching a college basketball team hold onto a small fourth quarter lead by dragging the ball over the half-court line and then passing from corner to corner, avoiding defenders but willing to take a foul. Classic 80’s round ball. If there is one thing we know for sure about this president, he’s a basketball fanatic and plays it religiously. His own brother-in-law is a basketball coach! Trust me, they get this concept and are executing it — flawlessly.

And then there is Mitt Romney and his team who are swatting at the ball, lunging at the Obama team trying to stop the clock with the game refereed by mainstream media. This presents a terrific challenge to the Romney campaign that desperately needs to get into a heated running game up and down the court to score points in order to overcome the gap. Ask any basketball coach and he’ll tell you that you have to press hard, take a charge and sacrifice — leave it all on the court to overcome an opponent’s lead in the fourth quarter.

Here’s a word of advice to the Romney camp: Even though winning at this point may be out of the question given time on the clock, at least give the core supporters a final push to win that offers them some hope and a glimpse into the character of a candidate that is willing to leave it all on the court.

School Children Suffer Consequences of Teachers’ Strike

Our children practice lock-downs in school — an effort to teach children how to take cover and remain safe from threats outside of the classroom. But what happens when it’s a lock-out and the teachers are the ones threatening at the doors? What crisis of confidence does that create in the minds of a child from a broken home, or latch-keyed survivalists who every day must pass the grade of street lessons when school is out of session?

In today’s tumult, it would be a nice thing for children in Chicago to get up in the morning knowing their school is open, friends are gathering after a final summer weekend and their teachers are there to greet them — ready to deliver some knowledge (like it or not). Even better would be for struggling parents to count on a timeless tradition of sending children off to school as a convenience in order to earn an income without worry for the security and watchful presence of a safe school environment.

Is it right for an educator to take to the streets in order to teach a middle-schooler a lesson in shared sacrifice for some socialist agenda? Why are the teachers’ unions using children as the leverage point for negotiations? Is that moral? Imagine an entire school on lock-down; children huddled in a window-less room, clutching a lunch pale and bottle of water. Now imagine that same school and its hundreds of students in virtual lock-down with the very same teachers we entrust to keep our children safe now waiving signs and chanting slogans as participants in an angry mob. In the first example a teacher is protecting our children like a brave grizzly, while in the second example there is an imposing image of the bear on attack.

Look into the not too distant future and you may see a sign held by your emergency room physician who strikes for a larger slice of the shared-sacrifice pie that feeds less, yet promises more. We all love teachers for their standing in society and for their dedication — that cannot be denied. But they are leading by example in many ways and the lessons will only end in more pain, more sacrifices and perhaps, with a few more children left behind in a time when our nation can least afford it.