Here is an interesting rack-up of how different mainstream news media described the January 6th incident at the US Capitol Building. This published survey omitted Facebook and the late-night talk shows which, even though they lack much factual quality control, are the go-to news sources for many US residents. Also, it appears that the survey covers only news reports focusing on people who entered the Capitol Building (some by force and some peacefully, judging from the available videos).

How News Media is Describing the Incident at the U.S. Capitol

The descriptive labels used in the news stories help shape public opinion and, in turn, perceived opinions of each media outlet’s customer base affect the slant taken in that outlet’s reporting. Perhaps this helps explain the nuances seen from one outlet to another in the tally, while the consistencies seen across all of the media underscore the main thrust of the reporting. Or at least that’s one way to view it.

A similar survey of how news media outlets described recent attempts to invade and destroy the federal courthouse building in Portland, Oregon would probably show much larger differences in wording. I contacted the people who published the survey illustrated above to ask about reporting of last year’s incident. If they come through with an answer, I will try to bring you the comparison.

You probably have some experience with automatic spell-checkers changing what you type (or what you dictate) in an email or text message. Those corrections often become the stuff of much humor and embarrassment. Some people turn off the spell-check option on their smartphone (yes, you can do that!) but others just grin and bear it. Or, as the spell checker might say, grim and bare it! So, do you see the spell-checker and its “help” as a bug or as a feature in your smartphone’s operating system? 

We can see the visual equivalent of an automatic spell-checker in how different digital cameras take and process photos. Look at these two photos:

The first photo came from a Canon SL2 digital single lens reflex; the second from an iPhone 11 Pro. Which photo do you prefer, and why? Regardless, image processing software built into the iPhone apparently enriches the colors and perhaps sharpens the focus, almost to the point of making the image look a bit artificial.

Market surveys suggest that consumers prefer the enriched colors of smartphone images, so the image processing must be a feature rather than a bug, at least in the eyes of those consumers. However, at what point does image processing start deceiving us about what we saw? Your eye and brain work together to see things, and no camera is quite as good as this system God designed. Which is why photos of memorable scenes (e.g., a colorful sunset or a beautiful flower) often do not turn out quite as well as what we saw. Or think we saw, since our brain and memory are part of the process.

Moving (but not very far) to another topic, the corporate news media and social media all do a certain amount of processing as they turn information into news stories. Sometimes the processing amounts to distortion, and sometimes it involves incomplete information or even suppression of entire news stories. This is like adjusting colors, correcting perceived distortions, cropping the photo, or even deleting the photo before anyone can see it. The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NPR, PBS, televised news networks, and all the rest each do it differently, and sometimes they explain their approach by pointing to the wishes of their customer base. Even the Associated Press, which serves as a major news feed for most of the corporate media, writes and reports from its own worldview and its associated biases. But what if you want unfiltered, unprocessed news? Raw data, so to speak, like a RAW image format (for serious photographers). Good luck finding that kind of information! You have no control over the reporting, but you can read between the lines, compare news sources, learn from different perspectives, assemble facts, and persist in seeking truth. Trust me; you can do it!

This series of shots shows the Moon over the past ten days, and also represents a learning curve for the photographer.

“When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” Psalm 8:3-4

Have you ever wondered why we call the large ice-covered island west of Iceland by the name Greenland? History has it that Eric the Red, who visited from Iceland in 982 A.D. and later returned to colonize the island, called it Greenland to attract potential settlers to join him in the endeavor. Parts of the southwest side of Greenland were suitable for farming, and the colonists thrived (or at least survived) for several generations.

Why was the southwest side of Greenland suitable to colonize and farm? That part of the world experienced what researchers call the “Medieval Warm Period” from 900 A.D. or so until 1300 or perhaps even 1350 A.D. The climate was warmer during these years, warm enough to grow wine grapes as far north as England and warm enough to pasture cattle as part of the Norse farming enterprise in Greenland. However, then the climate changed.

The “Little Ice Age” brought colder temperatures to Greenland, Iceland, and Europe. It began in about 1350 or so and ended many years later. This made farming and food production difficult, and probably contributed to the collapse of the Norse colonies in southwest Greenland. But the climate changed, again, and gave us more or less what we have today. Except that today’s climate is not any more static than it was in 900, 1300, or 1700 A.D. Our climate is dynamic, and responds to many different influencing effects.

Some clarifying comments are in order: 

First, while climate may change globally in terms of factors such as average ocean surface temperatures, air temperatures, and weather patterns, climate also varies locally from one region to another. For example, one region might warm while another cools, and one area might become wetter while another experiences drought. In other words, global climate includes significant regional variability. If we want to talk about climate with respect to public policy or climate with respect to its implications for humans, we need to be clear about the terms we use in the discussion.

Second, global climate can change more quickly than we might think. We see this in evidence from tree rings and ice cap cores, among other things. However, since day to day, season to season, and year to year weather puts its stamp on whatever the global climate might be doing (and, in turn, climate influences weather), it is hard to point to a particular year and say, “Aha! The climate changed right then!” In other words, global climate includes significant temporal (over time) variability. Our level of understanding of this temporal variability and the effects that drive it calls for some humility as we discuss climate and its implications.

Clarifications aside, given that the climate has changed in the past, there is no reason to think that it will not change again, or that it isn’t changing now. For example, notice the blue lakes on top of the ice sheet in the photo above. This photo dates from 5 June 2019 rather than from the end of a warm summer. So, does it say anything about our climate, that those lakes of meltwater are there atop the ice sheet? Or do they only reflect year-to-year variability in the weather?

At this point you may wonder how much influence humans have on climate change. People and their activities have a lot of influence on our planet, but there are many other factors to consider. Simply put, human-caused effects include emissions into the atmosphere, land-use changes, energy use, and other factors. Natural effects include cloud cover, fluctuations in energy output from the sun, volcanic eruptions, and other factors. And reality is more complicated since natural effects influence human activities and at least some human activities influence what might otherwise be considered natural effects (e.g., atmospheric emissions influencing cloud formation). The problems are complex, and we are still learning.

Contrary to what many politicians and some scientists say, as long as researchers make new discoveries and serious questions go unanswered, the science is not really settled. (More about whether science is ever really settled in a future blog post.) However, history shows that our climate and its associated weather patterns have changed, and more than once. So, what should we do, other than ignore the political bluster? A few people suggest re-engineering the climate on a global scale, but that seems risky, rash, and perhaps downright scary. Others call for re-engineering the US economy, but without obvious regard for what the rest of the world might do. The US tried that kind of experiment during the Carter administration when we decided to stop reprocessing plutonium and hoped the rest of the world’s nuclear powers would follow suit. The others did not follow our example then, so why do we think they would truthfully follow a new example and re-engineer their domestic economies now? For that matter, how do we know that reworking our economy would make the right differences in terms of aggregate effects on climate, health, or human welfare?

Prudence suggests that we continue to investigate how the climate changes, why it varies from one region to another, and how to anticipate these changes so that we can adapt. In other words, we need research to understand our climate, its dynamics, and its effects. Prudence also suggests that we develop options to mitigate the effects of climate change. In other words, we need to develop innovations in engineering, agricultural, hydrology, and other fields to be able to adapt. Meanwhile, if anyone tells you that they have all the answers, please tune up your critical thinking skills and don’t hesitate to probe those answers for more information!

Football teams usually show us good examples of teamwork: players with different skills work together to move the ball down the field (or stop the other team from moving the ball) and eventually win the game. What would happen if the coach allowed (or even encouraged) the players to work against each other? Believe it or not, some managers do this, and it reflects what we call a warring tribes management style. This involves keeping different groups fighting with each other rather than uniting in a common purpose. Why would any manager do this? To maintain control, and to use the groups for his own ends.

I once saw warring tribes management up close and personal. A program leader met monthly with the managers who led the half dozen or so organizations working in his team. Rather than encourage cooperation or collaboration, he frequently played them off against each other. His tools included playing favorites; moving resources from one group to another, often without explanation; threats, insults, and shaming; and even an occasional whispered rumor of “do you know what they said about your group?” His management was childish and divisive, but effective at maintaining control. Effective, but damaging to teamwork and productivity, and ultimately career-limiting as people caught on to his games.

Increasingly over the past decade or more, much of our country has fallen prey to a warring tribes mentality, often encouraged by large and small political groups. Our “tribes” divide by race, ethnicity, location, education, wealth, political power, purpose in life, and other factors. Sometimes the divisions are real and sometimes they are only perceived, but these corrosive divisions still play people off against each other, and weaken our society. When will we catch on to the games?

Christians have an alternative to dividing into tribes. Jesus called us into a Christ-centered unity when He prayed in John 17:20-21, “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” By God’s Spirit, may we embrace this unity, centered in Jesus!

This blog covers a wide range of topics, some of them rather serious. Sometimes we need take a time out for amusement. The video shows a trial run for a Roomba self-propelled vacuum cleaner which turned out to be an effective if expensive dog toy!

Many years ago, sometime after the invention of email, an incoming Secretary of Energy felt that he needed to reform the Department of Energy. He called an all-hands meeting of the employees at headquarters, in downtown Washington D.C., and explained that DOE was a mess, blamed the bums out in the DOE field offices, and promised to clean it up. That same week, he traveled to the largest DOE field office, and called an all-hands meeting. He explained that DOE was a mess, blamed the bums at headquarters, and promised to clean it up. Much to his surprise, the staff at headquarters had emailed a transcript of his HQ speech to friends in the field offices, and later that week the field office staff emailed a transcript of his field office speech to friends at HQ. He went on to become a pretty good Secretary of Energy, but only after he rebuilt some credibility.

Then-new tools like email seemed to offer a small chance to seek accountability from politicians who like to talk out of both sides of their mouth, but digital technology has evolved a long way past simple email. Most of us carry cell phones capable of photos and audio or video recordings. Cameras and microphones seem to be everywhere people are present. And anything posted on the internet is there forever, although it may take some digging to find an archived copy.

Accountability remains as elusive as ever, though. Politicians, their handlers, and their allies have become skilled at denying what they said, even if confronted with a recording. They stall, deny, and change the subject, waiting for the news cycle to shift to something else. With today’s news media attention span, they usually don’t have to wait very long. Move along, move along, nothing to see here. And now we have big tech and big social media helping move us along.

So, what’s the point? To quote Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. Technology will change, but human nature and self-interest maybe not so much. As noted in a previous post, this is a time for critical thinking and thoughtful listening. And it is a time for seeking truth rather than moving along to the beat of corporate drummers.

This evening I tried to shoot the triple conjunction from a ridge south of Livermore, CA. The bright planet near the top of the image is Jupiter, the bright one near the horizon is Mercury, and the very faint planet up to the right of Mercury (near the right edge of the photo) is Saturn. Astronomical events like a triple conjunction won’t wait for my learning curve, though. Nevertheless, it was fun to try to capture an image of this part of God’s beautiful creation.

How many jokes have you heard about weather forecasts over the years? Atmospheric phenomena are inherently tricky to predict. Even with measurement networks, satellite imagery, computer models, and years of experience, the forecaster may call for a 70% chance of rain, yet we find our day drenched with sunshine under partly cloudy skies. Weather forecasters have a difficult job, and probably need a thick skin and sense of humor to survive the forecasts that don’t pan out.

The map shows locations of National Weather Service offices and forecast areas across the United States. Each office prepares forecasts for its designated area using resources like those mentioned above. Regional and larger-scale weather patterns generally move from west, southwest, or northwest towards the east, along with the jet stream, so it seems like offices east of the Rocky Mountains would have an easier job than those on the Pacific Coast. After all, an office in the Midwest, for example, could draw upon ground observations from hundreds of miles in every direction to tell them what might come their way. Offices on the Pacific Coast have no surface-level observations to their west (or upstream, so to speak) except for offshore deep-water buoys and ships at sea. This relatively large blind spot must make their work a little more challenging.

What would happen if the weather offices west of Missouri, for example, decided to report only weather their forecasters like? Most people (except perhaps for photographers) don’t like ice storms, so what if they chose not to report freezing rain? Forecasters in Missouri may be able to figure things out in time to forecast an ice storm, but maybe not. Regardless, it would be so much better to have the upstream observations help inform their understanding and their forecast. More information is usually better, at least when it comes to forecasting the weather.

More information is also usually better when it comes to understanding the news and, by extension, developments in our country’s politics and policies. Corporate news companies sometimes suppress information (e.g., the Hunter Biden story in October), sometimes omit part of the information (e.g., identities of groups rioting in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, and New York over the past six to eight months), and sometimes sensationalize part of the information (e.g., reporting the highest number in a range of Covid-19 cases rather than both the high and low numbers with the uncertainties they reflect). None of these practices help us become informed citizens.

What do we do, knowing that news we hear or read is often incomplete, distorted, or both? This is where our critical thinking skills must come into play. We need to ask questions: What is the context of the story? What information might be missing, and where might we obtain it? Does the story put the best construction or worst construction on developments, and why? What political or financial interests might affect the reporting? What other side (or sides) to the story do we need to be able to understand the full situation? What kind of world view or limited expertise (two very different things) might affect the information we receive?

No news reporting gives us all the information we should have, and much of it does not give us as much information as we would like. Some say this lack of good-quality news reporting could be one of the biggest long-term threats to our country. We need good, complete information to be able to participate as responsible citizens. On the other hand, there was never a time in history when news reporting was perfect, or even completely objective. Therefore, the burden is on us to research, ask questions, and keep an open mind (although not so open that our brains fall out!) before we reach or share our conclusions. 

While reading a friend’s Facebook post I once again ran across the phrase, “the person I’ve become” and found it thought-provoking, even a bit unsettling. The phrase turns up more often than you might expect. It usually comes up in the context of explaining a personal decision. Sometimes it helps explain a break with the past, the end of a friendship, or even the death of a marriage. People say they can’t go home again because it no longer suits “the person I’ve become.” Or they abandon their marriage because the person they once loved no longer suits “the person I’ve become.”

Conventional wisdom holds that the transition into a New Year marks a time to look back and a time to look ahead. So, in that spirit of self-examination, how does a person arrive at “the person I’ve become?” Do they drift into it, much as a boat might drift down river until it hits something? Does it happen by accident? Or is it a series of decisions that eventually lead somewhere, but at the price of relationships or even personal integrity? Or perhaps one of those self-help books really did help, but with an unanticipated personal cost. Regardless, too much emphasis on “the person I’ve become” can become corrosive if left unchecked. Abundant life is too rich for such a narrow focus.

Keeping “the person I’ve become” in check requires focusing on something besides self-interest. I think this is part of what Jesus had in mind when He said, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:25-26a). But how do we stop self, or self-interest, from ruling our life? We can’t make such a change on our own. Self-interest is part of our DNA from birth, and we do not have the power to overcome it. We need a new heart, to frame the problem in spiritual terms, but we cannot bootstrap ourselves into that kind of change. Fortunately, God promises to save us from “the person I’ve become” and replace our heart of stony self-interest with a heart and spirit of life (see Ezekiel 36:25-26 for starters). As that change occurs, as God brings us out of “the person I’ve become,” we can step forward into the New Year with a spirit of joy and anticipation!