Money is Dirty - Pointing Fingers, Blaming, and Failing

"Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill immediately blamed each other today for the failure of a $700 billion bailout package in the House."

This is an excerpt from one of CNN's articles covering the failed bailout totaling $700 billion dollars. It's funny, money. It always seems to bring out the worst in people. Or at least...it rarely brings about good in a majority of situations. True, there are charitable people in society...but they are A. few and far between or B. are the ones with less money to give. So that brings us to the $700 billions dollars that the government is discussing and potentially could be throwing around to try to "stimulate the economy."

Well, I don't know about what you think, but it seems to me it's just causing more problems with the people heading up the government. We find ourselves in the middle of yet another controversial presidential election, where regardless of who wins the presidency there is going to be a huge break in history where either a woman takes the vice presidency or a black man takes the presidency. So with that going on...there's this other huge issue. The biggest attempt to bailout the economy or stimulate it since the Great Depression.

So according to CNN we now have a "very dissappointed" president about to leave office with an unresolved bill on the table...and the question is...where does this bill go next?

The republicans and democrats are now blaming each other for why it didn't pass and whether that was good or bad. One congressman, Republican John Culberson said we had the choice to either bankrupt our children or a few major companies that made bad decisions. Many blame Nancy Pelosi for her partisan speech before the vote. Showing that money that's touched the hands of many...is bound to be dirty. It causes problems in government and problems in general. So another question posed is, what can we do to cleanse ourselves of the dirty money? Or really, is there even anything to do?

How much longer will we have these issues with the economy? Maybe they are never ending...at least that's what history shows.

Downsizing, Upgrading, and Overextending

It's been a few days since I've updated...so getting back into the swing of things let me express something: My blog is essentially my take on little world matters that aren't always examined by most. I intend to provoke thought and incite some wisdom. A lot of my connections hail from the media world to the rest of life, but that's mostly because generally my days are concerned with the media as it is a large scale part of my chosen path toward profession, journalism. However, I will note things about any aspect with the greatest of abandon and sometimes in complete randomness sparked only by my own restless thoughts.

That being said, let's concern ourselves a bit with the huge corporations and conglomerates in the world today. In media specifically, there are six giant media owners. They own a wide variety of types of media and their goal is to consume smaller media outlets and then downsize and upgrade everything in sight. It seems that this is occurring more and more as technology and communication advance.

Coming with this consumption of as much as possible is an overextension of sorts. These conglomerates not only overextend their resources and abilities, but require a lot of their employees and the world overall. The world is being asked to get 38 hours worth of work or other tasks accomplished in a day of 24 hours. It leaves little time to breathe let alone rest. The requirements to gain anything of importance just grows in quantity and not necessarily in quality.

The things that are required, that push people to become overextended, aren't even always what is best, but it is just what is a lot. Or rather what seems to be impressive because it is an overload. Well, I could eat ten boxes of oreos and you wouldn't be impressed, so what needs to be looked at is what the act being done actually is accomplishing and not how much of something you are filling yourself or your plate (reference and pun toward the oreos totally not intended) with.

In the same notion, these large corporations and companies need to examine what they are consuming. The number of businesses you own doesn't denote success. The quality of the businesses you own does. A large successful corporation, Starbucks for example, is not a part of a huge conglomerate, but works with its customers in an effective way and takes stock in its employees, can do an awesome job making money and serving a purpose without overextending because it seems to know the limits. On the other hand, a huge conglomerate made of many different sections could do an awful job A. serving a purpose and B. making the money it seeks because it is requiring too much of itself, its employees and its customers.

So the idea that needs to be put into practice is that you have to know your limits and know when you are working in a qualitative way and not a quantitative way to reach your goal of success.

Connections Can Keep You Moving

The past two weeks (and only two weeks this quarter) that I've been in school I've noticed something...My classes are overlapping. I don't even mean just a little bit...I'm talking I've heard about Gutenburg and his printing press FOUR times in FOUR classes this week. That's not the only connection though. There are so many more...the Renaissance has been presented as significant in two of the four classes. The ideas of Plato and Aristotle and Ancient Greece and Rome have been brought up in two of four of the classes. And Ben Franklin and his newspaper have been mentioned in two more classes of the four.

Now, where is the point in all of this? Well the connections are keeping me on top of things. It's a huge advantage, redundant as it may seem initially. I am learning the information if not in any other way than repetition. The connections therefore, are a good thing.

That goes for almost all connections. Especially networking. Networking is a great form of connections that keeps you moving in this fast paced, high-demand world. If you know people and they know people that are useful to you, all you have to do is be kind to them and things will probably pay off for you in the end. It's another formula...(your friend + your kindness) + their friend = a payoff for you. That's not to say you should use people because using people and networking are completely different things. There is an advantage for both with networking; there is advantage for one and deception toward the other in misusage.

So make connections, utilize connections presented and you'll have a better time keeping up in the whirl of movement.

Can't Cover Crisis

Recently in my Journalism 101 class the Assistant Professor of E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, Yusuf Kalyango, spoke of the difficulty journalists in America (or rather, in general) have with reporting on a crisis situation. He noted that when they cover crises they tend to ignore their journalistic role. The reason, he explained, is that journalists haven't ever experienced this particular tragedy or crisis so, naturally they become emotionally attached because that's human nature.

Now, traditionally emotion shouldn't ever be brought into the story, but as humans it is almost impossible sometimes to do that. So instead of negatively letting your emotions affect the story, journalists should use it to help convey the message to the public. How? Well the goal of a journalist is to keep the people informed to tell the people how to deal with situations and find a solution. Instinct is a good thing to have to help get to a solution. Instinct, at it's high point, does involve emotion. So it's a formula then...Instinct times emotion plus a storyline equals the possible solution to convey to the public.

So maybe the lesson shouldn't be to avoid emotion at all costs and not keep away from stories that you could possibly invest emotion into. Maybe it should be that when you find yourself emotionally invested in a story...you need to utilize it in a good and postive journalistic way and keep in mind your goals as a journalist.

Politics, the World and Journalism

I've sat in my enormous lecture class for Journalism 101 twice now and have read two chapters in the coinciding course textbook and have noticed a few things...

Politics and discussion of the world are so adhesive to the subject of journalism and I have a completely coherent explanation as to why.

Journalism is an art and a career in which you have to communicate. Obviously, I mean, it's a communications major. In that point you also have the fact that in order to communicate at the level of being a journalist, you need to have someone to communicate your message to. That message, if it reaches it's intended success, will reach someone or a small group or in most circumstances the world at large. Therefore you have to have knowledge of the world with which you are communicating. Having that knowledge helps to effectively get your point across because you know about who you are talking to and how better to do so.

Simply put, if you don't like ascertaining information on the world and how it works and how better to work with it maybe journalism isn't the best career to pursue.

Politics then needs to be learned about too. Why? Because politics play a part in almost all things. Especially when it comes to careers because there are laws and regulations that have to be adhered to and abided by. You can sit in a room and note hundreds of ways in which the government is regulating you, from the FDA's stamp of approval on your toothpaste to the pillows from which you can't remove the tags and to the building codes that create and enforce rules as to how the walls are built around you. The list is long and the same can be said about the laws surrounding the way in which you communicate with the world.

So again...if you don't want to explore the politics behind journalism it's hard to say you are dedicated to the field.

The definition of pursuing an education and degree and eventual career in journalism just gained some baggage, yes?

Reading in Motion: Massive Collegiate Reading Assigned

Presently, it is the third day into the new fall quarter, 2008. What this means is that all the freshmen/ first year students, including myself, are discovering the seemingly endless pages of reading that classes are presenting them. Or, more specifically, professors are presenting them. I, myself, had approximately 200 pages of reading due by tomorrow, Thursday. Is it all finished? No. I still have about a fourth of it left, but the night is young.

So...college maybe is turning out to be a bit different than some had anticipated. I am genuinely a bit surprised. I expected a lot of reading...but this...is A LOT of reading. It just goes to show that you have to keep up in this fast paced world. Keep up with your news crawl, keep up with your reading, keep up with your friends. The list is nearly endless. You have to make time for all sorts of things throughout your day. Eating for example, in an overcrowded dining hall or buying groceries in a tiny market located in Nelson Commons.

The fast pace, while adventurous and exactly what you may need during the day, is also quite tiring and requires a good night's sleep. So I challenge you to enjoy your days in motion and to keep rested so you can keep going. And going....

And going...because trust me...if you stop...everything else won't. It keeps moving.

Racing Thoughts in a Fast Paced World

Some may be wondering what exactly is meant by the mere title of this blog. Well, allow me to explain...

This world is moving faster than ever before. Anywhere you look on tv, the internet, or newspapers and magazines even, the amount of information before you can be very overwhelming. There are news crawls to follow along with the reporter and the story being presented in the main and then there are sidebars and jumps from here to there. It can be hard to keep up. 

With all of these things going on there are understandable a considerable amount of thoughts floating around in the atmosphere and in our minds. Only a portion of those thoughts are ever released and turned into words or other forms of communication. 

So I've created a blog to get out a few more of my own atmospheres of thought. Maybe then I can slow down the news crawl on my mind and get a little feedback on it as well. 

I hope you enjoy my musings in motion....