Wake of Echoes

Let's make that question personal: Do all lives matter to YOU? Do all lives matter to ME? I ask because I stumbled across a lonely article last year, which I can't seem to find now. So I went to the source: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which reported that approximately 40,000 people lost their lives on American roadways during 2016. That estimate is up six percent from the 2015 numbers , when 35,092 people died on American roadways. Together, 2015 and 2016 mark the most drastic two-year escalation in roadway deaths in 53 years. But you haven't heard about that on the news, have you? No, there hasn't been time for the media to dwell on 75,000 Americans losing their lives. They were too busy talking about important deaths. You know, like the ones in Ferguson, Baltimore and San Francisco. And those other deaths caused by someone who shouldn't have a gun, or someone else with a pre-existing condition. Seventy-five thousand Americans, de...

Back in January, when I wrote about why I love Millennials , I mentioned that Millennials are media cynics who neither watch nor trust what the mainstream media has to say about politics. It's true, and I respect that. Truly. But I know what some of you were thinking: Yeah, but whether they watch the mainstream media or not, Millennials are still overwhelmingly liberal. Yep, that's true too. There are lots of explanations for that, just like there are lots of explanations for why senior citizens are mostly conservative. Some are detailed, some are vague. Some are logical, some are just insulting. Some go back hundreds of years, like the one below, which I've heard in one form or another for most of my life ( For more information on the origin of this saying, visit:  Quote Investigator ). We could talk for a long time about the influence of teachers, parents and peers on the political and ideological outlook of Millennials (okay, and everyone else too), but to...

Millennials. lazy. idiots. entitled. Well that's what comes up at the top of a Google search.  Some call them the "Me Generation." Others take to social media to label them crybabies, snowflakes, leeches, parasites and any number of other colorful insults. They are the champions of participation trophies. Armed with selfie sticks, this self-idolizing, instant-gratification generation of apps and memes doesn't know how to hold a conversation, much less a job, but insist on tweeting and texting every thought that passes through their heads (all without proper spelling and grammar!) Meanwhile they self-righteously berate their elders over the environment, the purity of Bernie Sanders and the proper use of genderless pronouns.  Whether you think that list is spot on or a stereotypical exaggeration, the real question is: do Millennials deserve all the guff we give them? Are the young people of this generation really a special kind of problem, nev...

Liar . Thief . Crooked. Bully . Pig. Criminal . Name calling in politics is nothing new, but with less than a week until election day, America is engaged in a presidential battle like never before, taking us back to the darkest days of our childhood, when taunts, shoving, stuck-out tongues and sing-song comebacks were the fiercest weapons we knew how to launch. But when the ballots are cast and the election is won by either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, will all that hair pulling and huffiness end? No. Because after multiple October Surprises ( Rolling Stone counted 23 , Fox News reported eight), we can only dream of a world where the controversies, lawsuits, investigations and theatrics surrounding these two individuals are behind us. And we'll be stuck with one of them as Commander-in-Chief. And don't forget those who are bemoaning (or maybe "pre-moaning"?) our fate as a nation should Trump manage to pull out a win, threatening to take their toy...

For the past couple of months, I've talked a lot about media bias: the forms it takes, where we find it, how it's manipulated by candidates and how to identify it. Today, I want to take a practical approach by analyzing a current event and how it is covered by several media outlets. Our case study involves Hillary Clinton's State Department giving preferential treatment to Clinton Foundation donors in the wake of the 2010 Haitian earthquake. To summarize the story, recently leaked State Department emails show a pattern of preferential treatment for "FOB" (friends of Bill) or "WJC VIPs" (William Jefferson Clinton very important person(s)) in contractors looking to help aid earthquake victims, in both emergency response and with more long-term rebuilding roles. As you might expect, liberals contend there's nothing to these stories -- no one financially benefited from an association with the Clintons, the emails in question simply express typical ne...