Rev. Barbara Kaufmann

Michael Jackson On Trial Again -- Part III

2011-11-21T08:56:07-05:00

Go here for Part I and Part II.

When Michael Jackson, in a drug-induced altered state of consciousness and slurring speech, talked about building a hospital for children, it wasn't the first time Michael Jackson had talked about building medical facilities for sick children. He equipped a burn wing at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City and built a 19-bed wing at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York.

Artist David Nordahl, Michael Jackson's friend for more than 20 years, and whose work was commissioned for Neverland Ranch, recently shared some memories of Jackson:

"That conversation they played in court was so Michael. Taking care of sick children is what he talked about in every conversation we ever had. He took care of sick children all over the world. He paid for Bela Farcas' liver; the cost was $125,000 and when they found out it was for Lisa Marie Presley and Michael Jackson who decided to split the cost, the price jumped to a quarter of a million. Bela got his liver.

"I didn't do just paintings for Michael; he asked me to do sketches for rides he invented at Neverland and the drawings for condos he planned to build for critically ill children and their families. He knew that critically ill children heal better in an environment of hope, positive thoughts, laughter and magic. The darkened and quiet sick room fosters depression, not joy and joy heals according to Michael. His condos had large bay windows in the front and they were supposed to look like tree houses in the forest.

"He wanted the large windows because he knew that very ill children often can't sleep and wake up at night afraid, so he built an outdoor theater to run cartoons 24/7 so that if the children woke up, they would be able to see the cartoons from the window."

Nordahl spoke about Michael's mischaracterized love for children. How was he during that time when he was accused, I wanted to know.

"Michael knew, I mean absolutely knew -- without a doubt -- that his personal destiny was to heal children; it was his calling. He visited orphanages all over the world, built some, built children's wings on hospitals, he sent doctors to the Balkans and even sent a 737 with medical supplies to Sarajevo.

Michael loved children; he lived for children. They were the most important thing in his life; in fact, they were his reason for living. All Michael's work was dedicated to children -- to the children of the world or to the child in all of us. Neverland Ranch was dedicated to children and it was always under construction. Its similarity to Disneyland was intentional. Michael saw helping children in this world as his life mission. He traveled the world advocating for children and contributing a great personal fortune to children's causes. It was his life and it was his reason for living. Can you imagine what it was like for him to be accused of harming children?"

The story told is that as Michael befriended a divorced family with a boy diagnosed with cancer and brought them to Neverland because children healed there from all kinds of troubles and wounds, he came in contact with the boy's father who believed himself to be creative and an unrecognized talent as a playwright. Ravaged by a mental illness and prone to its delusions, the father believed he would become Jackson's partner in his planned production company -- Lost Boys Productions. Jackson, with $40 million in start-up money from his record company, commissioned Nordahl to design some logos for the project. Before the paint was dry, the boy's father realized he was never going to be Jackson's partner in the venture, and he demanded half the money. When Jackson refused, the rest became easy: make an accusation and collect $20 million earmarked for filmmaking -- Jackson's passion and next venture.

Unfortunately Jackson never got to realize his dream of making films. His reputation suffered and some will always think him guilty of a crime when his only crime was being "different." But geniuses usually are often outcasts of their peers and culture. And we can guess, given the times, that more than a little of what happened to Michael Jackson was racially motivated.

I pointed out to Nordahl that the blueprint for the condos at Neverland included waterfalls that produce negative ions which are uplifting and make people feel good; he had to know about endorphins.

"Of course he knew; he had music piped in at Neverland for the flowers because he knew it encouraged them to grow," Nordahl replied, "Michael read all the time. He knew a lot about healing; he knew joy and delight had an effect on hormones and mood. He wanted some of the construction at Neverland to be secret so that children visiting would not know ahead of time everything they would encounter there, so that there was the joy of surprise. He knew how it would delight them and make them feel."

"But the magic for Michael was gone. Michael loved magic; he asked for it in paintings. He saw the world that way and he deliberately looked through the magical eyes of a child because he preferred it. It's true he felt the loss of childhood, but more than that, Michael liked seeing the world through fresh un-indoctrinated and fresh eyes, so he chose it. Looking with those eyes and through the lens of innocence allowed his creativity to flow freely and fiercely like a river. When the accusations came, especially the last one, his river of creativity was dammed and went dry."

The media, in a frenzy, used Jackson to sell their wares -- the tabloid headlines, the stolen and unflattering pictures. He took to wearing a mask to discourage them. Fortunes were made on fictionalized stories and unauthorized biographies by people who never met him or knew him only on at the fringes of his orbit.

The loudest Jackson detractors are often the most guilty of using Jackson and riding the hysteria surrounding him to launch and sustain careers "reporting" on Michael Jackson's life. Those same people know sensation sells and knowingly contributed to it. They still ride his coattails even in death, revisit the crimes whenever in front of a camera, and claim guilt to this day despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary and a not guilty (14 counts) verdict. They can't afford to be exposed for their bullying so they stubbornly occupy their position. They bullied him for his skin color lightened by the disease Vitiligo; the paternity of his children despite modern adoptions and fertilization methods for couples unable to conceive, for his surgeries in a culture that reveres youth and eschews 'aging rockers.' Deep pockets and a racist agenda explains much because Jackson was born into and grew up in a racist culture and married white women. The rest is explained by the ego that: sees people not as who they are but as who you are being.

"Some called Neverland a child magnet," Nordahl reminded me. "And it was really; that was deliberate. But Michael did not have the agenda they said he had -- his agenda was not to harm children; his only agenda was to bring joy and magic to kids. I watched him do that for 20 years. Michael himself had a kind of magical attraction. Kids just followed him. We were once in a Toys-R-Us store where Michael was buying toys for kids and I turned around to find a sea of kids following us. And Michael was in disguise."

"People said he was a recluse; he wasn't. He just always drew crowds. There was something about him; watching people descend on him was like watching a wave crashing to shore. He had to practice getting out of any article of clothing quickly because people around him went into a kind of frenzy. He could get out clothes faster than anyone I've ever seen."

Nordahl remembers too, the loneliness that Michael suffered.

"Before and during the trial he felt abandoned. He was being convicted in the court of public opinion and he worried about getting a fair trial. He worried about what would happen to his kids if he went to prison. He had trouble sleeping. We were staying at a friend's beach house on the ocean and I told him if he couldn't sleep to come down and visit me. He was worried he'd keep me awake but I didn't mind; I knew he was lonely and worried. We spent many long hours talking and sometimes walking on the beach waiting for sunrise. He couldn't sleep. When you take away someone's reason for living, the reason for his life, what's left?"

I wanted to know if David Nordahl had been watching the trial.

"Sure; it's hard because you know they had to make it about Michael. I wish the world could know the real Michael. Michael always said that if you talked about the good you did in the world, you cancelled the beneficence of the gift, so he was very private about his humanitarian work. Nobody will ever know how much he did for this world and for the children. The world will never know what it lost because they took Michael from his work and that cheated not just him of his future, but it cheated all of us."

Artist David Nordahl lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he is currently getting ready for a show in Tucson, Arizona at Settler's West Gallery on November 19, 2011 and in Las Vegas at a hotel on the strip in April.

Michael Jackson On Trial Again -- Part II

2011-11-18T15:39:18-05:00

Go here for Part I.

Conrad Murray's trial for manslaughter predictably became about Michael Jackson instead of his doctor because the use of Propofol was unusual and the patient was famous. In court, the displaying of medication bottles was high drama and the media pounced and rushed to publish "Michael Jackson's addiction."

A close look at the dates, the number of pills prescribed measured against the number taken, number left and span of time the pills sat in that bedroom proves not that Jackson was an addict, but that he was actually non-compliant with medications he was prescribed. But that isn't sexy; and it's all about sexy and getting viewers for a trial that was predicted to be "bigger than the Casey Anthony trial." Except it wasn't. Hysteria fatigue, perhaps? Have we had enough?

Pundits on HLN seemed to push the "addict" label because it suited their agenda to promote books and careers. "Michael Jackson" has promoted many books and careers involuntarily as people conscripted his name for their own purposes. HLN was no exception. An addiction specialist physician jumped on the same "addict" meme despite the conflicting information between addiction, bottle labeling and usage, and despite medical records entered in evidence that were unsigned and confusing. The physician's questionable records were allowed in court but the physician was not and he wasn't made able to explain his treatment of Jackson for facial procedures to reconstruct his face. Jackson had Vitiligo and Discoid Lupus -- the same disease which has left the entertainer Seal, facially scarred. It is entirely reasonable that Michael Jackson's face be treated and re-sculpted; he made his living on stage.

That same physician also hypothesized that the nightly use of Propofol accounted for the poor condition of Jackson's lungs while it was well known to insiders that Michael Jackson had a Tryptophan Synthetase Deficiency which is a lung disease characterized by a lack of protein for lubrication. Jackson's fans could have enlightened any one of these talking heads but they didn't fact check nor ask fans. If you want to know something about a sports or pop culture figure, ask fans who know everything about them.

In fairness to the pundits, the coverage could have been much worse and the fans could have been depicted in a much poorer or darker light. Unfortunately the fringe elements of fandom were highlighted and that included conspiracy theorists who believe that Jackson is alive and in hiding. And for the most part, fans behaved well except for an occasional scuffle.

Mainstream Jackson fans who get less attention than the vocal fringe, are articulate, thoughtful, bright, and interested in justice and vindication. Many are professionals who contribute to society, pay their taxes and raise children in the suburbs and cities. They have an interesting story to tell society should anyone ever want to listen. What they have to say is shocking.

The trial, it seems was all about Michael Jackson despite Murray's dalliances are well known -- seven children with six women, his methodology even in his clinic appeared reckless to other physicians and one who ventured: "The only thing Murray could have done that was more dangerous was to push Jackson out of an airplane without a parachute." And what doctor ships a stockpile of medication to a private residence? What doctor using a dangerous drug does not have the proper emergency equipment required for safety and for resuscitation when he is the only one there in case something happens to the patient? The drug labeling requires it as do protocols. A simple regulator pump that would have saved Jackson's life by regulating the flow of Propofol according to body weight and dosage guidelines would have cost $1,500 of a salary one hundred times that per month. Murray owned a clinic; if he could order Propofol in bulk, he could order medical equipment that would have saved Jackson's life.

Yes, it was the Michael Jackson trial because once again, Jackson was put on trial even in the afterlife. And it's ironic that the most compelling piece of evidence came not from the prosecutor or from the defense, but from Michael Jackson himself. Jackson, whom a nurse anesthetist says sounded like he was under the influence of Propofol -- with no cameras filming, no media in attendance, was clear about his motivation, his intention and his future plans even in that sedated state. He said:

"Elvis didn't do it. The Beatles didn't do it. When people leave my show I want them to say 'I've never seen nothing like it in my life. Go. Go. I've never seen nothing like this. Go. It's amazing. He's the greatest entertainer in the world.' I'm taking that money, a million children, a children's hospital, the biggest in the world. Michael Jackson's Children's Hospital.

Gonna have a movie theater, game room. Children are depressed -- in those hospitals, no game room no movie theater, They're sick because they're depressed, Their mind is depressing them I want to give them that, I care about them angels. God wants me to do it. God wants me to do it. I'm gonna do it, Conrad.

Don't have enough hope; no more hope. That's the next generation that's going to save our planet starting with - well talk about it. United States, Europe, Prague, my babies.

They walk around with no mother. They drop them off, they leave -- a psychological degradation -- that. They reach out to me -- please take me with you.

I want to do that for them. I'm gonna do that for them. That will be remembered more than my performances. My performances will be up there helping my children and always be my dream. I love them. I love them because I didn't have a childhood. I had no childhood. I feel their pain. I feel their hurt, I can deal with it.

'Heal the World,' 'We are the World,' 'Will You Be There?', 'The Lost Children.' These are the songs I've written because I hurt, you know, I hurt."

A children's hospital or healing center was Michael Jackson's dream. And this is not the first time the subject of medical treatment and healing of children has come up in Michael Jackson's legacy. When Jackson's slurred declaration was first reported Jane Velez Mitchell of HLN declared on air that this recording of Jackson proves what Michael Jackson fans have been saying all along -- that Michael was misunderstood and mischaracterized and Neverland Ranch was misrepresented to the public. She called the conversation vindication for Michael Jackson. She only said it once as that very same day people who made money with "hit piece" biographies chastised her on Twitter and she went silent.

Conrad Murray is not the first nor the last person to be privy to Michael Jackson's dream for children. In an article by Italian journalist Silvia Bizio, Anjelica Huston who played opposite Jackson in the Captain EO film for Disney, accidentally ran into Michael Jackson about a month before he died. They hugged, hunkered down in a room together and caught up on each others' lives.

Huston remembered Michael as being tender and fragile, having trouble mustering up enough anger to carry out his role as Captain EO with a spaceship crew who sings 'We are here to change the world.' She said it was as if anger didn't live in his DNA. He needed her there, in costume and sneering her lines to play off her villainous character. Huston said he seemed even more fragile especially emotionally, during their brief encounter. She put her arms around him; she says:

"We talked about how he had felt humiliated by the accusation of sexual harassment and about the sorrow for the loss of Neverland, where he had lived many years. I remember his words: 'They ruined my dream. I had this dream, perhaps childish and foolish, a place designed to celebrate the innocence of that childhood that I never had, and they took it from me. I love children, I could never do them harm. I spent all my life loving them and trying to do good things for them. The libel of harming a child--that breaks my heart. It is an unbearable pain, those accusations are unjust and terrible...' As he said these things, he began to cry. I held him in my arms...He was so skinny and frail."

Jackson told her he was preparing for the London concerts. She remembers:

"He was training hard because he would have 'no more hope to be loved back again.' He wanted to be let back in to the hearts of the public after his public lynching for something he said he didn't do and a jury of his peers agreed with. Huston goes on: "he was thin and pale; I could feel so much pain in him for the past and a lot of anxiety and uncertainty for the future."

When asked by Bizio, "What do you think really killed Michael Jackson?' Anjelica Huston didn't hesitate: "Michael had a broken heart. For this he died. The truth is that they broke his heart."

Continue on to Part III.

Michael Jackson On Trial Again -- Part I

2011-11-17T12:54:51-05:00

In the "trial of the century," the prosecution rested, the defense rested, the jury can rest now that they're dismissed. When does Michael Jackson get to rest? To the media this wasn't the manslaughter trial of Conrad Murray; it was "the Michael Jackson Death Trial." And much of the time, Michael Jackson, though dead, was on trial.

Michael Jackson was not treated as a human being, but as a cash cow. His death hasn't changed that. The exploitation of Jackson was legion -- by acquaintances, hired help, colleagues, the music industry, the justice system, by families looking for deep pockets, by hangers-on, sycophants and especially by the media. Millions were made off the Jackson brand. What the public doesn't know, is how cynical and deliberate the exploitation was. Author Joe Vogel wrote about the widespread cultural abuse of Jackson in a recent article titled "Am I the Beast you Visualized?"

The latest betrayal is a documentary by Conrad Murray -- the very doctor who is convicted of killing Jackson. Murray, charged with manslaughter, struck a deal two years ago with October Films for a documentary about his relationship with Jackson and his final days. Family and fans are asking how could NBC, in good conscience, produce and air a film that exploits Jackson yet again after death and by the very person responsible for that death? Murray inked a contract as Jackson was being laid to rest.

The documentary included scenes depicting "private rooms" in Jackson's home with clips recognized as photos of Neverland Ranch taken in 2003 after sheriff's deputies raided and rifled through it. The same photos, originally used to slant opinion about Jackson's private habits, made their way into Murray's "documentary" along with a few contrived comments designed to denigrate Jackson while elevating Murray. How honest is a film and its intentions when cleverly edited for impact and ratings? Reminiscent of MSNBC Martin Bashir's Living With Michael Jackson, another cleverly edited film called a "hit piece mocumentary" that was cynically produced for ratings and profit was refuted later by Jackson's own film crew who taped the same footage simultaneously with Bashir's crew. Murray's documentary circumvented the justice system allowing in the testimony he refused to give in court despite a family's frantic search for answers to what happened to their dead loved one, Michael.

Conrad Murray's manslaughter trial became "the Michael Jackson Death Trial" because media long ago learned that connecting Jackson's name to anything increased revenues. People promoting their own brand still cynically link to Jackson knowing that negative stories about him increases attention. Reporters invented stories and not to be left out of the profit making game, mainstream media soon followed suit. A large segment of the population still believes the tabloid caricature of Jackson and the accusations from which he was exonerated. And they mistakenly believe self proclaimed "Michael Jackson experts" -- who never even met the man and have an agenda and a reason to perpetuate the caricature myth -- to avoid being exposed for their past treachery -- using a human being for profit and to future careers. The propaganda about Jackson says more about the writer than it does about their subject. Nick Davies in his Flat Earth News exposé claims the public would be sickened by cynical media tactics and how they manipulate á la tabloid journalism gone mainstream.

Jackson fans, who have been trying to warn consumers for years about the racist agenda and media exploitation of Jackson, issued a statement this week: "Michael Jackson fans have had enough. Ridicule us if you must, call us names, tell us we only think of Michael as an 'idol' -- but we are not the ones selling his memory, objectifying him and making money off him." They have called for a boycott of NBC and its sponsors.

Murray may have administered the fatal dose of poison, but the media poisoning of public opinion regarding Jackson was relentless and protracted. Did the media torture a man to death for nothing more than ratings and profit? The most famous man in the world was also the most bullied. The tabloid campaign exploiting and lynching Jackson was unparalleled and lasted decades. Jackson's exploiters hail from every possible position -- from cleaning ladies to doctors and a rabbi spiritual director who published recordings of Jackson's private sessions -- all to make a buck off his brand.

Physicians are outraged by Murray's reckless treatment and his violation of HIPAA laws and patient confidentiality. They find it incredulous that a doctor, now convicted felon, skirted both the law and testifying in court and pimped his documentary that profits the very man he killed.

The fans, aware that public opinion about them has also been manipulated, are concerned that the public continues to allow salacious media exploitation of public figures and are duped into its consumption unawares. One fan writes:

"Our living rooms should not be dumping grounds for salacious materials that strip humans not only of their dignity, but their very humanity -- and ours in the process. Where is the public outcry that says 'enough is enough'? People were outraged when the Rupert Murdoch scandal broke about phone hacking for headlines for front page fodder with ill gotten sensationalized information; where are they now? Airing this documentary is shameful."

British Huffington Post journalist Charles Thomson chronicled the shaming irresponsibility of the media while covering the Jackson trial in 2005 in a piece called "The Most Shameful Episode in Journalistic History."

It might be worth pondering why a man who appeared to have it all needed such extreme measures to sleep. Why did he require medication that did not just help him sleep but rendered him unconscious nightly in order to rest? How did a vegetarian and purist who hated drugs come to rely on them? Remember, Jackson was found not guilty of exploiting children but the accusation would forever taint his legacy. Yet the Murray trial showcased, in Jackson's own words, his dream to build a children's hospital. His attorney, Thomas Mesereau voices concern about the recklessness of a slanted media that capitalizes and exaggerates drama for profit and ratings; he is joined by other attorneys like Matt Semino and Mark Geragos who worry that celebrity cultism and media manipulated public opinion preempt justice.

Authors Aphrodite Jones in Conspiracy: The Michael Jackson Story, Jermaine Jackson in You Are Not Alone: Michael Through a Brother's Eyes, and Joe Vogel with Man in the Music: The Creative Life and Work of Michael Jackson, as well as Armond White and others, try to set the record straight by telling the true Jackson story with new books that counter the tabloid trash and chronicle history.

Even today few people are aware that in both cases accusing Jackson of harming children the same players appear -- the district attorney nicknamed "Mad Dog," the same attorney who recruited and represented both accusing families and the same psychiatrist reporting the accusations. Few people realize this gang still socializes together. Both the FBI and social services investigated Jackson and found no wrongdoing .

Few understand what really happened to Jackson because his dehumanization in tabloids was so deliberate and the caricature painted so thorough. His ruination by public opinion and the media was so disheartening, the violation of his civil rights by law enforcement so encompassing that it rendered Jackson so dispirited and disillusioned that he left his homeland, the place where a little black kid from the inner city made it to Hollywood.

The last insult came from Rupert Murdoch's Sun tabloid publishing a photo of the dead Jackson front page in Britain with the racist moniker "Jacko" -- whose origin describes monkeys and can be a slur used for those of African descent. Within hours after the release of that photo on HLN, extremely sadistic and cruel bullies send a copy to Jackson's children with the message "From Daddy with love."

The second generation of Jacksons, including Michael Jackson's children, have themselves been victims of bullying -- their lives, relationships and paternity made fodder for gossip because tabloid reporters apparently eschew the legitimacy of adoption or fertilization techniques for childless families, and find alternative paternity and parenting somehow aberrant. Masks in public prevented them from being recognized at playgrounds later when accompanied by bodyguards who substituted for a father unable to accompany them in recreational outings without causing a media circus and security problems for police. Yet public opinion ridiculed Jackson for protecting his children from harm.

There are those who seem to insist that public figures and their lives belong to the public instead of to themselves, who expect to be privy to any and all private information, who feel that celebrities are not entitled to the same civil rights everyone else enjoys. And there are those who pander to those compulsions and serve up the dirt whether true or not, for ratings and profits -- doing it with illegal phone hacking, checkbook journalism and paying large sums for stories -- the more salacious the story, the more zeroes on the check for stories that lynch and carve up real people on front pages -- for profit.

Adults wonder out loud where children get the ideas that seem so cruel and heartless. Enamored by celebrity, kids imitate the most popular, and are keenly aware of the values displayed by the adults around them. The new generation has just rediscovered Michael Jackson since his passing. Do you think they naively miss the tabloid battering of Michael Jackson? Where do they learn bullying? They are watching the media and watching us!

Continue to Part II.

Man Behind the Myth from Walking Moon Studios on Vimeo.

Power to the People Works When People Claim the Power

2011-08-23T11:47:26-04:00

Co-authored by Matt Semino, Esq.

The misuse of words can harm. Consider rousing speeches of dictators, nations' call to arms, the hysteria of the lynch mob, ancient crusades, and modern hate speech against minorities. Words can also influence, demand, protect and heal. When people have a voice the culture advances. That's power to the people.

The fundamental right to be heard is not conferred on everyone. Some, historically bullied into silence, have organized recent revolutions against oppression gaining footholds through social media like Facebook and Twitter, forever changing the face of the Mediterranean and North Africa. Democratic societies confer the legal right to speak and to be heard; in America the first constitutional amendment guarantees a free press and free speech.

"Voice" is value and valued. The field of communications, media in particular, with its current longer reach, raises more than a few questions, and one burning one: when one has a bully pulpit or platform, does it come with inherent responsibilities and if so, what are they? Other questions that beg consideration are about ethics, their governance, and where and how do consumers of information make their voices heard.

Collective outrage ruled social media as people bristled at the Murdoch story and hacking of private information from a murdered girl's phone. The outcry against such impropriety and abuse of power was swift and fierce. The damage from certain media practices may be far more collateral than we first thought; words used irresponsibly harm, bully and even threaten life.

Sensationalized and framed so as to herd people's thoughts to a particular destination or conclusion, words assembled can constitute propaganda. Propaganda seeks to indoctrinate and prejudice in an attempt to herd your mind to the place where someone else thinks it should live. That's not your conclusion; it's their conclusion.

Does the media have responsibilities? When people are in positions of power or influence over others, is there an inherent obligation to tell the truth? If the backlash against Murdoch taught anything, it's this: People do not like underhanded tactics used by a media considered out-of-control and behaving irresponsibly.

We don't yell "fire" in a theater because it's against the law and someone could get hurt. For the same reason we don't yell "Off with their heads!" Or at least we shouldn't. A recent storm of scorn was aimed at television programs and pundits who do exactly that by targeting crime stories or trials while vilifying parties before they ever set foot in a courtroom, and who call for the heads of jurors deemed "misguided" in their verdicts.

The justice system deliberately does not try someone in the court of public opinion because historically, that hasn't worked so well -- in mob lynchings, witch trials and ancient coliseums. Words used irresponsibly can inflict irreversible harm on the innocent. Prominent attorneys stepped up and on air recently to speak to the dangers of proclaiming guilt upon accusation alone, because people are falsely accused all the time. Many argued that preliminary judgment can obscure false accusations and make real justice impossible or even obstruct it. Other attorneys caution about jurors being allowed to give interviews or make book deals for money. They fear that when large sums of money changes hands justice can be thwarted.

Still others argue that when acquittals are ignored and the person found "not guilty" continues to be vilified or their charge repeated with each mention in the press, democratic principles, individuals, families and society itself are harmed. That harm can be irreversible: think Richard Jewell of Olympic Park bombing notoriety or Patsy Ramsey, mother of Jonbenet Ramsey.

Both Ramsey and Jewell were eventually exonerated, but their families would argue that media had something to do with the early graves of each. In recent weeks, a woman was run off the road because she resembled Casey Anthony. Can someone be chased and hounded into an early grave by tabloids, hysterical press and public opinion fueled by snarling hyperbole, and does that constitute media terrorism?

There are ethics that are supposed to govern journalism. Each media entity has its own guidelines, even Journalism and Writers' schools that teach ethics as a part of their programs. As we are learning from daily revelations, the tabloid or tabloid-infected culture seems to have thrown out any ethics altogether. Since the regular press must compete with tabloids for readers' discretionary cash, is all media now in danger from urban color or similar genres or "tabloidization?"

Debra Schaffer, Phd. Linguistics and Professor of English at Montana State University Billings, author of seminal works on the linguistics of tabloid journalism and the language of prejudice has a few cautions for consumers of media:

"The public needs to examine language, claims, arguments and evidence critically and objectively, since what propaganda and other forms of persuasive language try to do is to short circuit critical thinking and hit us right in the gut." The tactics of using emotionally charged words, nicknames or first names of those become famous or celebrities in order to establish a sense of familiarity and intimacy with them -- creates the illusion that the readers know them personally.

"The omniscient narrator in news writing or the pseudo-quote gives readers a sense that the writer has access to the mind and attitudes of the person quoted by leading with a pronoun, even though they are not direct quotes and the writer could not possibly be privy to that information nor the thoughts in someone's mind. We should be wary, especially when it is presented as truth."

Media consumers must first acknowledge and be aware that what they are frequently ingesting when it comes to "news" is yet another finely packaged entertainment product with content dictated almost overwhelmingly by market forces. Though, unlike what is shown on the silver screen, it is real human beings and events that serve simultaneously as both the actors and backdrop for ever-changing story lines. Consumers must decide what they will swallow.

Ideally, the "news" can be used to shed light on pressing social problems and spur positive public policy changes and many times, it helps us accomplish these lofty goals. Other times, its messages and means of delivery can have a damaging effect on individual lives and society. We have recently observed this phenomenon with the Murdoch scandal and in the past with other high-profile news subjects. Ultimately, media consumers need to take heed that what they are purchasing is a product without labels and warning signs. Loosely regulated, it is product that must always be viewed with a highly critical and educated eye.

"News" is increasingly an opinion and editorially driven enterprise and no longer just the reporting of facts. It's created to arouse emotion in its audience, as opposed to simply just inform. Those with the power in the media to influence public opinion do have a social responsibility to be ethical and truthful in the presentation of their subject matter even while opinion is at the core of any democracy and such liberties should be protected.

Now, more than ever, the viewer must work harder to separate objective truth from subjective presentation, particularly around legal justice stories where it is very easy to paint the picture of guilt or innocence. There is no doubt that this parsing process is difficult to do, but it is entirely possible. With even more information at our fingertips, the viewing public has the power to challenge the media and pundits if they believe that a story or news subject is not being reported accurately or in an ethical manner.

Even with all of the background noise and competing points of view of, for example, high-profile trials like the Casey Anthony case and the upcoming Conrad Murray trial, the legal analysis and opinions of the media and their commentators outside the courtroom should not be taken as gospel. Instead, viewers should be empowered to critique the message with their own, well researched and informed perspective. Always with their guard up, media consumers will be able to hold the "news" accountable for its messages as opposed to feeling overwhelmed and victimized.

So it seems that readers and viewers may no longer rely on getting strictly "just the facts, please." The days of passive media consumption and assumed accuracy are over. Readers and viewers share in the responsibility of and for -- truth. And that carries an obligation -- first to question, and then to understand that at the other end of that remote is a product that's not without flaws.

Like any other product brought into the home that doesn't perform to standards, it's up to the consumer to make their feelings known by taking the providers to task when they're wrong or offensive, or stop buying the product altogether while letting the producers and even sponsors, know you're not swallowing it, and why. "Power to the people" is an empowering philosophy. For it to have power, the people must first claim it; then use it.

"Shocking Secrets Revealed: Illegal Means Used to Carve Up Live Humans for Human Consumption"

2011-08-11T13:39:59-04:00

Get your attention? That is a tabloid headline. It's also true. The last few weeks revealed a shocking story that has uncovered widespread treachery. We witnessed dramatic shutdowns of newspapers, arrests of key figures, seizure of records, metro police and Scotland Yard officials stepping down, heads of governments accused of courting corruption, illegal phone and email hacking, planted listening devices, grieving families stalked, celebrities hacked in retaliation or in effigy, verbal wars, transatlantic Twitter fights, convoluted liaisons and incestuous abuses of power.

These "black ops" are not machinations of national security, but of contemporary media and how its' business is conducted. The Murdoch scandal shines a light on something so out of control for so long but hardly noticeable because it's so tightly woven into the fabric of modern culture as to be invisible. Does nobody remember when reporter Walter Cronkite was "the most trusted man in America?" People intuit that this story and investigation has only scratched the surface and is far from over while those in the glare of its scrutiny hope the storm of indignation has subsided from a public's notoriously short attention span. But a still deeper revelation awaits yet unexamined, under the surface dirt being swept away.

"We can't see the forest because the trees are so loud!" There's another headline designed to startle and grab attention but for a different purpose; it's a koan. A koan, instead of telling you what to think, provokes you to -- think. Here's another: As the underhand is revealed does the underbelly go unnoticed?

Maybe the real story is that the real story is buried beneath the real story. What exactly is noble about using electronic eavesdropping for: invading personal lives; ambushing people in interviews; celebrity surveillance; breaking into confidential medical records; exposing private family conversations; herding public opinion all the while shouting "this is in the public interest" to conceal the real agenda -- power and bullying? In fact what is noble about it without the electronics?

What is admirable about: paying private detectives to dig up information; paying off law enforcement for confidential material; checkbook journalism that pays gobs of money for sensational stories -- the more sensational the teller can make the story, the bigger the payout dangled?

What social value is there in 7 inch headlines designed to bypass the brain and critical thinking, screaming labels like "freak," "naked," "evil," fat," "bizarre," "gay," "scandal" with an accompanying photo of someone now dragged to a public platform for dismemberment and humiliation? It both numbs and dumbs.

What is heroic about clever linguistics and innuendo that plants labels or suggestions in people's minds with "sources tell me" when there are no "sources"? What is honest about printing half truths or lies front page and later, a retraction in small print on the back page? Sensationalism doesn't sell you news; it sells newspapers. Nick Cohen, columnist for the British Observer calls tabloid journalism "a theatre of cruelty" and says the current crisis is "a chance to pull ourselves out of the gutter."

What is the gutter? Remember those funny signs, "You are here?" Perhaps we are and the only way out is up. What social value does the gutter press provide? Well, they do nothing to elevate the human condition nor celebrate it. They don't improve an ecosystem, but make it even more toxic. They breed cynicism and devalue humans. Their stock-in-trade is to dehumanize, humiliate and relegate human beings to caricatures. They don't evolve humanity, they devolve it. So what is noble or entertaining about carving up other humans for human consumption or peddling human flesh for cash? There are names for both those "nobilities" and neither is pretty.

Tabloids and even mainstream media have engineered "spectacle," something akin to circus sideshows where carnival barkers shouted "step right up, see the freak human!" Those were the humans with missing limbs, deformities, or hair, skin or growth maladies -- actual medical conditions or diseases. Come on in folks and make fun of the handicapped! Engineered "spectacle" also ruled the ancient amphitheaters where humans were devoured by animals or slain by other humans -- for sport.

More modern versions of spectacle for sport arose at particularly shameful intervals in history -- not enlightened ones: witch burnings, hangings, racial lynchings and the most recent version -- public executions of "wayward" women by misogynist terrorists.

The tabloid's front page is a curtain drawn on the theater of cruelty for exposing, dismembering or performing pseudo or psychological autopsies on live human beings. It even violates the cultural taboo of deriding the dead. Attacking the humanity of real people on stage is most apparent in the cult of celebrity with its implied ownership of the private lives and troubles of the famous. Celebrities are hunted, attacked by reporters who taunt to provoke them and paparazzi who stalk them for the "money shot" even unto death -- and after. Remember the people's Queen of Hearts--Diana?

Public figures and those conferred "fame" by virtue of their talent, service, sport, or gift are deliberately exploited under the misguided premise that celebrities seek fame, therefore their lives are open season. No thought is given to the idea that the gifted and creative among us are sensitive artists living their whole lives in fishbowls and under public scrutiny. The "Hollywood star making" meme and rituals are so customary in our culture that celebrities are forced to play that wearying traditional fame game. It becomes a trap for both them and us -- a game of cat and mouse or even predator and prey.

A talented or gifted person, driven by the creative impulse must create. The talented genius or luminary cannot hide their gift, nor should they; art belongs to the world, not an individual. Artists cannot suppress inspiration or the creative impulse. Sharing art-as-gift requires they take a courageous leap of faith in offering it to the world. And how do we often repay them? With envy, scorn and Schadenfreude -- the dark side of human nature that finds glee in another's misfortune. Tabloid journalism is only too happy to help us humans express our darkest impulses while extracting our cash.

The systematic humiliation and vilification of celebrity provides an effigy and illusory "public enemy" become mirror for the dark projections heaped upon that stranger cleverly made to feel familiar -- the projections cover what we can't bear to acknowledge in ourselves. Instead of seeing woundedness and feeling compassion, we are encouraged to feed our own shadow. That promotes division among humans, not unity; it precludes self esteem and love by a compassion for woundedness -- others and our own. People who love themselves have no need to harm other people; they recognize they are fellow sentient beings sharing a common experience -- life with all its sorrows and challenges.

Websites with those same tabloid agendas encourage "hits" or clicks from consumers so that they can prove high traffic to sponsors who support the sale of more of the same theater of cruelty that abuses and dehumanizes not just gifted celebrities, but by proxy--us.

Ambush journalism proffers that same abuse by drawing subjects and putting them at ease with a ruse promising to: feature positive attributes, enhance image, garner support for a favorite charity, convert an untruth, or help distraught families find a missing child -- as we recently saw News Corp doing in the U.K. The ambush journalist, a practiced sycophant, promises fair depiction in an interview or documentary and delivers instead a cleverly edited sensationalized "hit piece" that fails the promise and profits only its producers. It cleverly dupes not just the human it features, but its audience -- again for a profit.

Is the tabloid culture healthy for humans? Does a steady diet of human misery and shadow nourish the mind and human spirit? What are the long term cultural effects of systematic and public dehumanizing of other humans? How did a decades-long Murdochian ecosystem impact the popular mood? Did it foster hope or despair? Is the result now playing out on the streets of London?

In America, how has entertainment at the expense of others molded culture? Has the devaluing of human beings infected and mutated business or politics? Is there a hidden cost to the constant focus on bad news and human misery? Does it have worldwide or even humanity-wide implications?

What is harmless entertainment? What happens to a society with a vacuum where compassion is supposed to live? What kind of world is created by a constant stream of shadow, cynicism and hopelessness; what is the projected return on that investment?

Do you really welcome and enjoy the emotional, metaphorical or actual wounding and bleeding of a fellow human as they claim you do? Did you see it coming or did it sneak up on you? When and how did it become commonplace and acceptable to support and consume public humiliation, devaluing, bullying and dismemberment of real human beings? In some places they call that "crimes against humanity."

Sometimes we forget to revisit and evaluate if a systemic practice or enterprise in our world is death dealing or life affirming before we invite or allow more of the same. How might it change our personal world and our collective world if we insisted on writing a new headline? How about: "Humanity Wins!" Something important is coming to light in this pivotal moment in history. Pay close attention; humanity, and Humanity, is at stake.

When the Empire Strikes, Will the People Strike Back?

2011-07-18T10:35:33-04:00

If I were keeping score in the epic battle of good versus evil on this planet, I would calculate the events of last week thus: Light- one; Darkness- zero. Everybody senses that there is more at stake in the Murdoch affair than the management of newspapers and a "naughty" media-gone-wild. Everybody is right. It's our humanity that's at stake. Score one last week for human dignity and for treachery -- zero. We intuitively know that pirating someone's private information in order to carve them up on the front page is more than a little wrong.

This epic battle being waged currently on the global modern-day stage is not a new one; what is ironic though, is that it has surfaced within the industry that represents us to us. It's the same media that so often captures that battle in film or brings it into our living rooms courtesy of TV. The archetypal theme is well documented in history, is very familiar and is played out over and over in media itself and cinematically in a theater near you. The modern version of this epic good v. evil keeps returning -- seen in its modern version in Harry Potter, James Cameron's Avatar, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and poignantly in an eerily clairvoyant film from the seventies called Network about media struggles for ratings and a network that will do anything to get them.

Network is a movie worth renting and revisiting. The heroes are the people (culture) who at the behest of a newsman-turned-evangelist (savior figure) get up from their chairs (complacency) and go the windows (public forum) and yell "I'm as mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore."

That precise scenario played out over Twitter, Facebook, the Internet and mainstream media with hurricane fury last week. The Twitter storm was a result of a perfect storm of events that came together to create a climate where people felt empowered and motivated to speak out because they are filled up on treachery (anything goes on the airwaves and in print) and apparently want the paradigm to change.

When we watch stories play out, we intuitively know who the villains are and we applaud the heroes that swoop in to sweep the darkness away for us. The same is true in this story. What ultimately happens in this saga and the outcome will be a vote for human dignity, decency and civility -- or it won't. It will end bullying by a media that has grown to become the biggest offender on the global block, or it will by default, invite public bullying to become even more entrenched and more powerful in the culture of the twenty first century. Humanity always writes its own legacy and often its destiny.

The railing was against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp -- a $33 billion industry with a long reach. Holdings are worldwide and include Europe and the U.K with The Times, the Sunday Times, The Sun, e Financial News, The Times Literary Supplement, The Wall Street Journal Europe and the recently sacrificed News of the World; in the U.S. holdings include The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Barrons, Community News Group, Dow Jones Local Media Group, and Seven News Information Services; Asia claims The Wall Street Journal Asia; and in Australia includes The Australian, The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun, The Advertiser and 150 others. And that's just Murdoch's media empire. Other holdings include 10 film companies including Twentieth Century Fox; Fox News, Fox Cable, Fox News and 27 Fox outlets; National Geographic International; from 25 to 39 percent of 3 Satellite TV markets; Harper Collins publishers U.S. and India; News Corp Digital Media which includes My Space and IGN Entertainment.

That's a lot of money, a lot of power, but more importantly, it's a lot of influence. Especially when that influence is used to hack into people's private phone messages, emails and medical records -- to use that private information to write salacious and sensational stories about peoples' lives and troubles. These stories, then, are offered up to the public as fact, not as a public service -- but in the guise of "newsworthy" simply, cynically, and only to sell newspapers. And in tabloid journalism, the truth has never been allowed to interfere with a good story.

Media -- the very venue that could have been a bastion standing for democracy and truth has become its worst offender. Some media, reminiscent of mafia, dominates the culture and cultivates a them-against-us mentality. It could just as easily encourage unity. People sensed the wrongness of hacking, of fostering a society of deceit, and the mercenary splaying of private lives and private information for sport on front. People were as mad as hell and it sounds like they don't want to take it anymore. Score one for humanity.

Murdoch, who inherited his business from his father in his homeland Australia, imported his brand of journalism to Britain beginning the rein of the tabloids. "Fleet Street" boasted about choosing the Prime Minister for the English public and even a wife for Prince Charles by asking in big headlines: "Charles why haven't you popped the question to Diana?" The sardonic and cynical tone and the tactics of tabloid journalism were cultivated and encouraged by Murdoch himself according to former tabloid journalists become biographers in tell all confession books like Yellow Journalism, Tabloid Baby, Tabloid Prodigy and revealed in programs like Frontline.

The financial success of the tabloid press did not go unnoticed by competitors and initial resentment turned to copycat tactics and junk journalism in Britain and then America. It ultimately leaked its way into, and contaminated, mainstream media. This tabloid turn toward making public figures fair game became traditional during the Clinton tenure in the White House. Dirty laundry trumped the news and essentially became the news. News anchor Walter Cronkite, called 'the most trusted man in America,' warned of what he saw as "the loss of journalistic integrity" and the death of an icon came to represent to many, the end of a noble era.

This ancient battle revisited has all the makings of a modern revolution. Will it come to that? It depends on humans and collective human consciousness. It depends on whether the race is ready to evolve. It depends on whether we have had enough of powerful people deliberately and cynically pandering to our darkest impulses rather than our brightest inspirations. It depends on whether the recent incendiary, spontaneous, passionate revulsion and desire for change was just a temporary flash of insight that will die down quickly (some in media are hoping it will) or whether the human race is truly ready to take a step to move the race forward.

Until last week, it seemed that the public might be forever at the mercy of a system that existed only to feed its own machine. The industry serves up information and people to a public it claims is hungry for this kind of information and "entertainment." But which came first -- the chicken or the egg? Allowing the fox to explain chicken to chickens is either stupid or incestuous or both. Is it really human nature for humanity to salivate over its own degradation? Or did the media create and cultivate a climate for darkness and then serve it up to the masses? In a defense for the irresponsible use of the first amendment, we often hear the excuse "but if the public didn't clamor for this stuff, there wouldn't be a market for it! We are only giving the people what they want!"

That's the same argument used by tobacco companies trying to convince a public that it was only providing a product the public wanted all the while researching and employing methods to get consumers addicted to something that their own research showed would kill them. The fact that the product killed their consumers did nothing to raise the standards of the industry; it prompted more seductive marketing strategies in order to replace the self-extinguishing users with new subscribers.

Predictably, Murdoch and media think tanks will hope that this all dies down and goes away or will pray that our attention span is so short that we will all soon get back to business as usual. The American media will try to ignore the story as it grows to engulf more and more of the industry and the world. Some guilty themselves of tabloidization in their work will, of course, try to distance themselves from the scandal. Some will lose interest. Others will hide, cover or disguise themselves to hide the egg conspicuously decorating their face.

But if we all go back to business as usual, our humanity takes a step backward. So who will subdue this looming Goliath of darkness; who will be our hero? Who will demand that we turn toward the Light? Maybe it's us. Maybe we are the ones we have been waiting for? It's our world. It's our minds that are being used as dumpsters. Are you sick of it yet? Retreating to the recliner and the remote is not going to solve the problem. It's not going to push the race forward or make the world a better place. If you're really not going to take it anymore you have to become your own hero -- get up from the chair of complacency and use your voice. Tell them you're 'mad as hell and you're not going to take it anymore.'

Wisconsin Weekend Rally: More Philosophy Than Politics

2011-03-14T13:19:51-04:00

I joined first a trickle, then a river and finally a sea of people making their way to the Capitol Mall in Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday. The river moved counterclockwise around the capitol building as drums played and feet marched and someone began a call and response chant that went something like this:

The speaker: "Show me what democracy looks like."

The river: "This is what democracy looks like!"

Soon the cadence rippled through the entire crowd as smiles lit up the river, then ignited an ocean. They may have been one in their consternation and despairing but there was a smiling camaraderie that fanned out as far as one could see.

People seemed resolute but cheerful! They were kind, respectful and polite; I must have heard and said "Excuse me" a thousand times to a crowd estimated at more than a hundred thousand-- waves of diversity: youth, elderly, handicapped, children, and all the in-betweens. There were firefighters in their uniforms; off duty security and law enforement; hard hats; teachers; nurses; public works employees; healthcare workers; the Teamsters, Boilermakers and Transport Workers unions; and they brought their families--many of them still in strollers. A fraction came from other states to show their solidarity with Wisconsin workers. There was even an announcement about a sympathetic rally in Berlin, Germany to show support for Wisconsin ideals.

And that is what seemed most important at the rally--ideals. The rally seemed more about philosophy than the concerning material issues about budget or political parties.

Signs read:
"The ego has landed."
"I want my democracy back."
"This is a civil rights battle!"
"The moral compass of the leaders is broken."
"Walker- in school we call this 'bullying.'"
"An injury to one is an injury to all."
"We have just begun the fight."
"Democracy or deception?"
"Democracy doesn't end on election day."
Governor Walker, tear down this wall!"
"This is a fight for those who are elected by the people to listen to the people."
"You have awakened a sleeping giant."

And indeed a giant may have been wakened. Something certainly was awakened in Wisconsin and it seems that whatever it is, it has echoes elsewhere in the world. I'm not sure there is a word for it yet. Despite the seriousness of the issues to the crowd, the mood was friendly and elevated, but the voices resolute, the faces determined. I saw or heard the slogan "Power to the People" throughout the day. It was reminiscent of the sixties.

Some rally participants carried inflated palm trees-- an obvious mocking of Fox News' faux pas in featuring a clip of a supposedly "Wisconsin" rally highlighting angry participants shoving and railing against authorities that included palm trees in the background. (There are no palm trees in Wisconsin and there was no violence on the Madison campus during the rally). The first amendment is important to Wisconsinites but so is integrity in media, the right to petition for redress against grievances and the right to peaceable assembly.

An idealist and activist all my life (anti-war and Viet Nam, nukes and chem weapons) I had been wondering for quite awhile if people were really aware of what was happening in the world? Did they sense the same creeping cynicism, a sardonic mood in the political and social landscape? I worried that the current generation was growing apathetic and limp in its complacency. Was it a resurrection of the fifties when people went along with the status quo, the leaders and the prevailing agendas. I wondered what might happen if ever the chips were down. Would they find their voices? Would there be voices? Would they be loud? Make themselves heard? But most critically--would they even care enough to speak up?

I needn't have worried; and apparently the chips are down. The mood of the crowd on Saturday and the finger on the pulse of it told me-- idealists live! That the people are still capable of leading when they want the leaders to follow. Idealism is the furnace where hope burns brightest. And it ignites the fires under the crucible of change.

No matter what side of the issue you come down on, there is something delightful and inspiring about the coming together of people in a common bond for something greater than themselves. Especially when they do it with non-violence and peacefully. It's inspiring when there is a stand-up-and-push-back against something that people view as amoral or an infringement on civil rights. And that is how that crowd appeared to see it--as a trampling on the rights of the common man. For most, it was an identification with the principles that accompany a democracy. And a willingness to negotiate and compromise; to sacrifice for the right reasons--but they must involve human acknowledgement of dignity and worth. It's about value and valuing the common man and the least of those among us.

Wisconsin isn't famous just for dairy cows, the Green Bay Packers and cheese heads--the heads on Saturday held and valued freedom over cheese. There is a long tradition of labor rights in Wisconsin. It is the birthplace of "Fighting Bob LaFollete," an attorney and Republican who became a Progressive because he thought the Republican Party had abandoned its ideals of anti-slavery and its leanings toward autonomy and people over industry and corporate interests. He is credited with party reform in favor of voter control and consumer rights and a direct by-the-people-democracy. He was Wisconsin's Governor who became a Senator campaigning on that "Power to the People" platform. The battle for government 'by the people, for the people' and individual rights was hard fought and hard won in Wisconsin so Wisconsinites don't like having their rights taken away. And that appears to be how they view the current leadership--as taking away rights that took more than forty years to establish. The LaFollete tradition of citizens more involved in their government is strong; election recall campaigns are underway.

There is something bigger going on here. In fact, there is something going on in the world and it is gathering momentum and racing headlong toward critical mass. Wisconsin's concern for what is seen as the trampling of inherent freedoms echoes the clarion call in the Middle East and North Africa. There is a kind of common fatigue at work. One can feel it in the crowds; they are tired of something unnameable as yet. There is a resolute determination and deep desire for change. Immersed in the human river, one feels that also. And yes, something powerful is being awakened, that sleeping giant movement is just beginning to stretch, yawn, shake itself conscious, and move.

As I spoke to people about the obvious philosophical nature of the rally in Wisconsin, I heard a collective voice of disdain and revolt against a philosophy that is perceived at once as tyrannical, oppressive, arbitrary power-mongering, sublime bullying, patriarchal and an oligarchy. It embraces and moves with a kind of inherent fatigue that consumes yet engages a hard push-back against a perceived kind terrorism trampling the civil rights of the very people it is supposed to represent.

If indeed this is a movement, it has the makings of reform not just locally, but globally. It appears to be gaining momentum and hasn't yet reached crescendo. It serves the common principles of worth, dignity and the recognition of civil and human rights. It appears to be sweeping in nature. I'm not sure what to call it yet, but I feel it. Many do. It is a solidarity that asks leadership to listen. To place a finger on the heart, not head, to feel its heartbeat. To bring a change and create the kind of world that values and respects the rights of all humans over power structures. It asks us fundamentally to 'be the change' by enacting the changes that will get us there--perhaps to even become what we wish to see in and as the world.

More inspiring than Rev. Jesse Jackson who spoke about Martin Luther King and the anniversaries of voter rights, Susan Sarandon who said 'Wisconsin is the front line in the war to restore democracy," and even the 14 Wisconsin Senators who remembered the power in dissent and civil disobedience, was a young man who gave a platform to the common person. He gained permission from the capitol security police to set up his microphone and speakers so that average people could have a voice. Students spoke about their teachers and thanked them for their educations; farmers thanked the crowd for their solidarity-- something farmers have not achieved so well in the state. One man who came with his personal equipment to give voice to the common man was the embodiment of a metaphor for the entire gathering-- he gave voice to those who might otherwise not be heard. He demonstrated how very simple democracy is-- give a voice to the people and listen when they speak.

Speaking of Violence: Words In The Wake of Tucson's Tragedy

2011-01-15T12:39:00-05:00

A snippet of conversation:

Speaker: "Grandpa always said: 'You have to choose your battles and decide what hill you want to die on' and that's how I live my life. I'm going to kill two birds with one stone this time giving it my best shot even though I know it's a long shot. I know I'm walking through a minefield. I know I'm a target. I just hope that while I'm in the crosshairs that my idea doesn't bomb or get shot down. I'm going to aim it right between their eyes and I will take no prisoners. It's a failsafe plan that will advance our whole mission. I personally think it's to die for. I know I'm sticking my neck out here but you just can't keep beating a dead horse. So I promise to soldier on keeping the ultimate goal of victory in my sights."

Response: "You're such a trooper; that place can be such a war zone. Sounds like you're locked and loaded, buddy, and more than ready for this skirmish. I'm thinking that plan of yours will blow them out of the water. You really know how bring 'em to their knees. Now go get 'em, comrade. Knock 'em dead."

What if I told you this conversation is not about a battlefront but a boardroom? Now read it again and this time notice how you feel and what's happening in your body. How does it feel in your stomach or solar plexus? Any heat there? Any tightness under your ribcage? What is your breath doing? Did you hold your breath at all or did your breath go shallow? Did your jaw tighten just a little? Is there a tension somewhere in your muscles?

In that dialogue, I not only violated the cardinal rules about not using clichés but I used a litany of violent words with accompanying violent images. I used weaponry, battle and war metaphors. The idiom "kill two birds with one stone" comes from the 17th century and was originally a reference to statistics and how unlikely it is to solve two problems with the same action by referencing bird killing with a slingshot. Some of the language suggests weapons and in particular, guns. There are war metaphors, some of them even nuclear. Beating an animal is cruelty and beating it until it's dead is far beyond cruel or violent; it's sadistic. Explosions and beheading or lynching is suggested with a reference to the neck. It's not a battle or fight of humans that is being described here; it's a meeting of humans!

There is an inherent kind of violence that is already there -- in the words themselves. Many of the words and phrases that inform and construct vocabulary, feature inherent violence in the lexicon and it instructs also the mental vocabulary. That violence almost goes unnoticed. The body, however, can't escape it -- it feels it and tightens. That same inherent hint of violence in cultural words and images subliminally suggests aggression and violence and is cleverly hidden in plain sight. It's like the tree outside your door -- it is so habitual in the landscape, that it's hardly noticed anymore. We never really see the tree.

Sometimes the messages that encourage aggression are so subtle as to be hardly noticeable. No disrespect intended here, but many commercials are specifically designed with subliminal suggestion to provoke action. Do you remember the clever commercial for Hummer where a woman, feeling diminished by a conversation subsequently goes out and buys a Hummer in order to feel powerful? The subliminal suggestion of machismo and aggression through the use of a status symbol is subtle, but is there. Now factor in augmenting the powerlessness of the human with weaponry or by mechanical means. That is how war weaponry escalated. The Hummer was originally designed for use in war. From the moment a caveman picked up a stone or club, the size of weapons -- used to augment the human hand and reach -- has grown exponentially. Weapons have advanced over time and with human imagination, reached eventually from the cave to the stratosphere. Humankind's violence now has a long reach.

Paradoxically, we have created interesting ways to culturally warn about the dangers of violence: we rate movies, label music, set parental controls. Does that work when those same parents who control, listen to shock jocks on radio and watch shock jocks TV with teens in earshot? A person's commentary on "the news" can reveal precisely who they are listening to and a short conversation will even tell you which network.

We may not know it, how to define it or ever say it out loud, but we sense intuitively something is wrong when grown people in Washington who are elected to lead, exchange heated and hateful phrases across the aisle at opponents. Something inside us knows. We sense it viscerally when things are uncivil and when we ignore the warning signals, we must then desensitize, and add layers of armor or shielding. Old Testament rhetoric in particular has a vibe and speech that features vengeance and retribution; it also has traditionally supported an agenda that holds violence as inherent and inevitable. Damnation lives today!

We know in our gut when something is just, well... wrong. We know intuitively that putting up crosshairs on targets that represent real people is not a good thing. The fact that both sides use heated rhetoric is irrelevant. There is either enough blame to go around or there is nobody to blame because it's endemic. Perhaps it's time that we all look at the landscape and remember the tree. We can take this opportunity to honestly take stock instead of grabbing the stock and barrel to fire back: "Crosshairs" and "in the crosshairs" does not refer to dog grooming or puppies... it refers to gun sights and guns! That is the implied reference. The debate now rages on Capitol Hill. The debate is about whom to blame for the murders in Arizona. Debate all you want fearless leaders... We the people can tell you that while you debate these murders -- murder, is not an acceptable way to debate our political opponents. Metaphorically or otherwise.

Widely published professor of English, Linguistics, Composition and Genre Literature at Montana State University at Billings, Deborah Schaffer, whose Ph.D. is in linguistics, has been studying inflammatory and prejudicial speech since the nineties. She warns us:

It's true that language is frequently used to stir up and manipulate emotions; that's what master propagandists like Hitler, Churchill, Limbaugh and others do, sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. Language is what underpins logic and reasoning, but it can also be used to short circuit the brain and speak right to the gut, evoking such strong emotions as hate, love, fear, loyalty and others. Listeners or readers are swept along, sometimes acting on the message without reasoning out what's really being said to them or recognizing the wisdom or folly of that message. Words can evoke emotions and encourage taking action on impulses, which is, again, why everyone needs to weigh the implications and consequences of anything they say or write.

Any linguist and much of the general public, knows that the old chestnut 'sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me' is actually dead wrong. Words themselves are actions, and since all actions have consequences, it follows that what one says can lead to intended and unintended results, both mental and physical. It's widely recognized, for example, that prejudice is not only expressed, but is also reinforced, if not created by, prejudiced language -- language like racial epithets, expressing prejudiced attitudes, both consciously and unconsciously, and in the case of propaganda, political or otherwise -- it's clear that language is strategically used to bypass reason and appeal directly to emotions, and yes, prejudices.

In the Tucson case, whether or not these shootings were actually prompted by the violent rhetoric that has dominated much of politics for years now, the incident should be taken as a stern warning that we all have an obligation to think before we speak as well as act, to anticipate possible reactions to our words, and indeed, to avoid the equivalent of shouting "fire" in a crowded theatre. The days of people spewing hate speech, telling mean-spirited jokes, calling for the most harmful kind of behavior, and then exclaiming when someone actually acts in response to that language that they didn't mean it literally, or they didn't realize how others would take their spontaneous outpourings of emotion, or whatever -- should be over. We aren't arguing for language police here but agreeing that we all need to learn more about any troublesome situation before we open our mouths, and when we do open them, we need to speak with consideration, intelligence, and a sense of responsibility for consequences. And if people can't anticipate how others might respond to emotionally charged speech or behaviors, mouths should remain shut until informed. And when being informed says to tone down the message--to follow that prescription or keep silent, after all.

Whether perceptible or not, there is a physical and mental response to being confronted with violence. The body reacts to violence because it can't not react. No biological disconnect insulates the body from the mind and what is heard, felt or seen -- that connection is hard-wired into our biology. A recent study in Pain magazine, a publication for youth and body art, reveals that just thinking pain-oriented words activates the pain centers of the brain and can increase acute or chronic pain. Words inform the mental vocabulary. What we feed our minds is the food that creates mental nourishment for our ecosystem. Is your mind a toxic dump or a clean space? While you are here and living in this body, you are spending not just time and life, but mind. And we spend a lot of time there. What you bathe your mind in creates the ecosystem in which you live -- put poison in, get poison out. Darkness in; darkness out.

The disconnect from humans and from humanity occurs when we harden our hearts, or when we become desensitized or armor ourselves so as to not feel. Stoking anger to steel oneself is dangerous for it means a lack of engagement between head and heart. Is that the prevailing ecosystem? That disengagement has never been nourishing. It has never been pretty. In fact, it has resulted in many ugly things in humanity's evolution. It has never advanced the race forward in the consciousness of humans or what it means to be human; and certainly not in its humanity.

Within every tragedy is a lesson. We have just been presented with an opportunity to step out of a kind of pervasive darkness and into more light by ceasing the blame and creating room to emerge into a new place -- of compassion, right relationship and a more respectful and healthy political discourse. While we grieve the loss of real people we grieve by association now, whether or not contrived -- the loss of civility. There might be a way to personally honor those now gone and those injured who brought us to yet another crossroads. Let me suggest how:

For a few days, be watchful and mindful of words, speech, images and how they are used. Monitor your words for violence. Be vigilant with the TV and with newspapers and look closely for charged words. It will astound you with revelations about our culture and its ecosystem. Watching your own words and paying particular attention to the violence inherent in those words will awaken you to something that may have escaped your awareness. Try becoming a Violence Detective for the next little while with respect to words, images, marketing and all things media. It will be eye-opening. Prepare to be shocked. Prepare to be saddened. And maybe to change. If you make this challenge personal and take it to heart, you may even want to become the change you wish to see in the world.

Why is that personal commitment important? Because we know the narrative on this planet is not humane. Because publicly condemning, humiliating or vilifying people or peoples in order to justify their endings is an old game here. Deriding people because of their beliefs, ideas, aesthetic or lives to make them first "other," and then less than fully human simply because they are different or don't agree with our way is an old tribal tradition. Making them the enemy and constructing metaphorical or actual killing fields has become a common, practiced and perfected human pastime on this planet. It's been around for centuries. They call it warring. It's always been the perfect way to forget our humanity.

Bullying: Not Just for Playgrounds Anymore

2011-01-11T11:56:47-05:00

Bullying is not just for playgrounds anymore. An alarm has been ringing across the cultures of an entire globe catching the attention of leaders and educators who desperately search for its cure in programs that teach sensitivity and empathy to youth. All of the educational materials define bullying and tell how to recognize its many forms -- verbal taunting, physical harm, racial and sexual prejudice, cyberbullying and more. Bullying is defined as "persistent unwelcome behavior." How do we know when a behavior is unwelcome? We feel it; it deeply rattles our sensibilities -- sometimes to the bone, or in a new discovery -- to the bones of an icon.

Bullying can intrude anywhere -- at home, at work, online, on the highway, on the playground... and now it appears to reach even into the afterlife. Bullying almost rose to new heights to take an even more sinister turn recently when Discovery Channel announced its plans to air Michael Jackson's Autopsy: What really killed Michael Jackson? There was such a backlash of outrage by the family, Jackson's estate, fans and the general public, that Discovery was forced to "postpone indefinitely" the crossing of that line. So for now, that human indignity was avoided and humanity is safe; or is it?

Is something really important being missed in the campaign against bullying? Is the subject of bullying being viewed through a lens that is too narrow? We might need to back up a bit, widen the focus and adjust the scope to a broader fisheye view. Has bullying permeated an entire ecosystem? A worldwide ecosystem?

What makes bullying possible is a culture that blurs the lines of humanity and human dignity. Bullying survives when an ecosystem supports it. When that ecosystem accepts the dehumanization and inhumane treatment of its constituents, an "anything goes" climate renders its' narrative as empty of humanity. People are irreversibly harmed in such a climate.

Parents, educators and clergy are wringing their hands in shock and outrage at the behavior of youth asking: "Where do they get these ideas?" and "Where does this kind of aggression and indifference in our youth come from?" They seem genuinely perplexed. They only need look to the culture. What kind of culture would consider, even momentarily, that an invasion into one's mortuary is entertaining? Or acceptable? Discovery's program was advertised as presenting a graphic synthetic cadaver with a real and currently practicing physician conducting the autopsy with voiceover commentary by one of Jackson's many personal physicians.

What kind of ecosystem made Discovery think that an international audience would have an appetite for viewing the re-enactment of an actual autopsy -- of the most well known icon of the twentieth century? Of someone who is still a beloved figure to millions around the world? What made physicians sign on to such a violation of the sanctity of human remains, virtual or otherwise? More celebrity medicine? All cultures have recognized the sanctity of burial and respect for the mourning of those who were loved, those who loved them -- and who love them still. Discovery's cynical promotional photo for the program featured a shrouded body on a gurney with Jackson's signature sequined glove protruding from under the sheet. Does this represent the standards of humanity that we want to continue into this new millennium?

In the wake of Discovery Channel's major faux pas, some hard and uncomfortable questions have been thrown up about the culture and its ecosystem. The very same culture that can't seem to get its youth to behave civilly toward one another -- in institutions built to nurture and grow young minds. Discovery and its board of directors are to be congratulated for their change of heart and eventual good sense in pulling the program but one wonders what would make them, or anyone else for that matter, think that a mock autopsy of Michael Jackson for our viewing pleasure, would be acceptable? Is it because Jackson was bullied most of his life and apparently some at Discovery thought it acceptable to take that agenda beyond his grave? Does the Discovery debacle mark yet another seminal moment in our culture?

A culture where sadistic behavior toward others is epidemic, a deeper look finds a whole system trending toward cynicism, human indifference and lack of empathy for others. Why are the fundamental principles of tolerance, compassion and human dignity missing? Why are special programs necessary for children to make human and humane connections? Why isn't compassion and empathy already hard wired into human consciousness? And as we evolve into the twenty first century shall we leave our humanity behind?

How does this humane disconnect become possible? When the natural world is ignored or avoided, children never interact with the place where life's beginnings take form and the value of life and alive and breathing sentient beings is learned. Our connections with nature and animals are what help us to develop heart and compassion for all beings. Statistics about animal cruelty and torture punctuate this alienation from the sanctity of life. Where is it being taught that life is precious and valuable and who is responsible for teaching it? Where do kids get the idea that bullying is permissible and that callously exposing someone's private life, secret struggles and woundedness publicly is somehow acceptable? Where indeed?

It is hardwired into our culture and it begins with words and images. They are the symbols and language that form a culture's narrative. They illuminate the culture's dominant pastimes and preoccupations. It is how those words and images are used -- their nuances, meanings, semantics, semiotics, linguistics and sometimes their archetypal and evocative nature -- that forms and informs -- the foundation of the cultural ecosystem. What is culturally acceptable in communication and behavior among and between humans is determined by its architecture and memes -- a kind of cultural lexiconography arises.

Images and words have punch. They comfort, evoke, challenge, inform, expel, motivate, embrace, alienate, destroy, uplift and so on. They can objectify or humanize. When people are dehumanized with images and words, all sentient beings inhabiting that ecosystem are affected. Words and images harm; and they can heal.

The Journals of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, of Family Psychology, and the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, tell us that bullying creates children who suffer from anxiety, depression, loneliness, and PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and are at risk for suicide, peer rejection, conduct problems, anxiety, behavioral difficulties, hyperactivity, academic difficulties, rule-breaking behavior, reactive aggression and are also at risk for problems in young adulthood -- psychiatric disorders and criminal offenses. The question then becomes, what kinds of adults does this produce?

Those same experts say that sibling aggression when not mitigated and aggression at home, can migrate to schools. Most homes, of course, don't feature violence as the dominant means of navigating life as an acceptable cultural norm -- or do they? The experts also say that the average 4 to 6 hours of television per day that children and teens watch, serves up 4 ½ violent incidents per hour. In the last 7 years, TV violence has increased by 75% with a 45% of that increase during the 8 P.M. "family hour" and a 92% increase an hour later. The Pew Research Center says 75% of respondents to their survey would like to see tighter enforcement of government rules on broadcast content with 69% of those in favor of higher fines for media companies who violate code. Journalistic codes abound but are rarely followed or enforced. There are no real consequences for code violations with media often citing the first amendment as the reason.

How is it that the cultural ecosystem on the one hand intervenes in child-on-child violence with campaigns like 'It Gets Better' while supporting a cultural ecosystem of inhumane treatment of people and violence as a means of conciliation and problem solving? Given the current cultural undertones we might ask: does it really get better? Does that premise work? And do our children believe it?

Remember Columbine? Columbine crossed a cultural line. With the causal theories swirling around that painful event in the collective psyche -- the guns, violence, video games, medications, "Gothic culture," or psychological pathology, experts have speculated about the whys. Harris and Klebold told us why in their words via journals left behind, that tell how they lived in a culture of exclusion, superiority, homophobia and ridicule by the jocks. And they also told us they could find nothing redeeming about society in general. While that is no excuse for their violence, it was their reason. They cited feeling disenfranchised, bullied, disillusioned and powerless. Columbine was retaliation against an ecosystem that they felt didn't support them and tolerated a climate of dehumanization, violence, tribalism and exclusion.

The recent teen suicides crossed a line of acceptability and jarred adults to awareness. In examining teen bullying, we learned of suicides by adolescents whose budding hormones and sexuality found their affections involuntarily extending toward the same gender. Confused and conflicted kids were bullied, called "fag" and other sexual epithets and sadistically "outed" on the internet by sneering peers. While their death certificates read "suicide," the real cause of death is homophobia -- and an intolerant ecosystem that dehumanizes them as people. Young and tender human beings barely out of childhood -- a captive audience required to daily visit an ecosystem that torments them -- are ostracized and terrorized simply for being different -- whether in style, interests, affections, habits, economics, race, intellectual capacity, beliefs, or that all important superficial attribute -- appearance.

In order to believe that the future 'gets better' children need hope. They need evidence. They have to be able to imagine a brighter tomorrow. Hope is emotive and conveyed through images and words and. their reinforcement. Cooley's Looking Glass Theory cites the reflection of self in others as informing the opinion of self. Most visual references and reflections in children's lives come from television and film. What human characteristics, and inspirations do they witness that tells them there is a bright tomorrow? Desperate Housewives is rated number one in viewership and sensual vampirism linking blood and sexuality dominates the screen in theaters. There are cops shows, bounty hunters, forensic investigators that illustrate the darkness in human nature while reality TV gives us a slice of life few of us experience, and that invokes and rewards tactical treachery -- then admires that treachery as laudable strategy.

Nightly news is never good news and altruism is highlighted rarely. Television in prime time around the dinner hour features the famous and showcases them solely to make sensational mischief and contemptuous commentary about their missteps. Nowhere is bullying more evident than in the cult of celebrity. That genre sexualizes and dehumanizes early -- reducing even young adults to non-human objects. Tabloidization of television and press brings us the daily and nightly ritual of impaling the famous or nailing them to the cross of public scrutiny solely for entertainment purposes.

Celebrities, sports figures and politicians' private lives are picked over like the bones of last night's dinner during tonight's dinner hour. That's not journalism; it's cannibalism. And it's well known among those A-listers, that whoever criticizes a jaundiced journalist or TV outlet becomes fodder for the next day's tabloid headline. Vocal dissenters are moved on deck to be the next one bullied in print and images. Youth are enamored of celebrities, watch their foibles daily exposed with glee and we wonder why our children bully?

When a culture dehumanizes its constituents, its heroic, iconic or beloved figures and devalues them, the rules change. Devaluing humans with repetitive desensitizing eventually make the outrageous possible -- genocide, racism, classism, sexism, Nazism and all manner of other ugly isms that humans can impose on one another. The relaxing or devaluing of what it means to be human is a dangerous and slippery slope as Discovery Channel has just reminded us. An ecosystem supporting disdain, exclusion, isolation, discrimination, humiliation, latitude for making humans the butt of cruel jokes, banishment, and bullying in the extreme provides a rationale for terrorism and eventually, war. Aggression, cynicism and tribalism unchecked leaches into the soil of a growing and advancing culture placing it precariously on shaky ground.

Illustrations that diminish the sanctity of real human beings may be witnessed in schools, business, corporations, governments, in the disappearing corporate perks and pensions, the insurance industry, the media and on Wall Street and Main Street alike. It's evidenced in the images and words we use to scribe and describe the human condition. The trend of insensitivity toward other humans feeds and encourages an ecosystem with severe consequences yet to be imagined, as we move forward in the new millennium. As respect for the uniqueness of life and each life diminishes, dignity and our humanity erodes in the collective consciousness in step with the cultural foundation. Indifference is a slippery slope that can become a grand slide of humanity toward the bottom of a trajectory that allows abominations to become the norm -- poisonous gas released in a subway in Japan, an attack on New York's World Trade Center. That too is bullying; the only difference is the scale. Where does this war against human dignity and sanctity begin? It begins at home. It may be friendly fire.

What is supposed to be a sanctuary, the family living room, plays host to fear, political fodder, bad news, the insider who betrays, the outsider with the inside story, and a kind of domestic terrorism that ridicules the famous or momentarily famous. Government, politics and leadership features adults-behaving-badly with name calling and bullying on TV as those we would like to look up to, deride and condemn each other in uncivil debates while breaking ethics codes behind the scenes.

For the younger crowd, TV shows feature hopeful idols performing in competitions that foster distant and future hope. Hope lives! But the failed auditioning contestants then become fodder for filler clips that make fun of those hopefuls -- at their expense. Judges sardonically and gleefully review and ridicule the performances. Reality shows reward underhanded schemers in rival groups while pseudo tribal overseers ostracize the throw away individuals voted out of the game and off the program.

With our current twenty-four-hour news cycle, the major outlets must fill dead time while competing with each other for viewers. The end game is commanding attention while global markets drive the networks. Newshound journalists are taught "if it bleeds it leads" and are encouraged to sniff out the blood in the big story. Interviewers are coached to "ask the tough questions" that are frequently crude, rude and invasive designed not to get information or truth, but to lead the interviewee where the host thinks the most viewers will follow.

Cable news outlets begin broadcasts with the requisite "breaking news" scrolling at the bottom of the screen and if something is not particularly sensational before the broadcast--it will be by its end. The pressures of competition and dead time does not allow for proper scrutiny or fact checking. The lead story is then repeated, speculated about by pundits, reviewed in voiceover clips with "experts weighing in." The constant repetition of that imagined truth in sound bites today converts it to "truth" by tomorrow. Accusations become fact, guilt is assumed, and the court of public opinion lowers its gavel.

The cultural "isms" that define humanity are uploaded to YouTube. Both amateur and real shock-jocks circle in the cesspools of human foibles like sharks. The humiliation of real people, begun by showcasing the famous, is now considered good copy and no one is exempt -- now apparently not even the dead. No, bullying isn't just for kids. We are far removed from Walter Cronkite standards and the investigative journalism that defined the culture of the twentieth century. "Gotcha" journalism and exploitive film sells -- or so they tell us.

What are we role modeling to our children? What ancient gladiator sport do we mimic when we publicly dismember those who stand on the public stage? What ancient form of torture and death do we parody when we repeat yet unexamined or unproven, salacious "allegations" each news cycle? When we neglect equal air time to the exonerated? And even when a falsehood is proven, we revisit the accusation with each subsequent sound bite? When we continue it even after death? People's lives are ruined in record time -- during their 15 minutes of fame. And we gleefully high five those first out with the scoop, scandal or expose`.

Does that cultural ecosystem support the meme that life, as it advances will improve? Does the investigations and desperations of housewives and others, the bad news, the shaming and blaming of "reality" and real celebrities reflect to our youth 'it gets better?' Does the cultural fare highlight the lofty side, the dignity and integrity of human nature? Does it inspire? Does it provide a healthy ecosystem for the little people who have to grow up in it?

Has the fact that a dangerous line was almost crossed escaped our attention? Does the image manufactured to take us subliminally across a line or its meaning have an iconic message? It may well be so. There was another image introduced into our culture that became the iconic opposite of human devaluation -- it came from NASA and showed us the reality that we are all humans sharing a precious and finite ecosystem. It was the "Blue Marble Earth" photo from Apollo 17 introduced into our culture in 1972. Forty years and a generation or two later, the hope for collective human dignity still doesn't have a clear picture. That is why words and images are so important. Have we just witnessed an ecosystem already trending toward dangerous turf narrowly miss trespassing into its own mortuary? Discovery Channel may have brought us to a significant crossroads. Or maybe Michael Jackson has.

Maybe it was his fans who as one voice, spoke loudly and clearly. Many children loved Jackson and his body of work; many children today are discovering him for the first time. And the real human being buried under all the unkind dark tabloid caricatures living in the cultural lexicon of the twentieth century, may be slowly coming to light in the twenty first. Discovery did the ethical thing by canceling the program. Their plan was not a good one. But it certainly reminds us about bullying. Never before in the history of media has a culture witnessed one human being so bullied. On a global scale. Michael Jackson is the poster boy for bullying. It wouldn't be the first time Jackson gave us an image that reflected ourselves back to us. Discovery almost crossed a line that we might want to ponder a bit further.

It may have sounded an urgent alarm at the beginning of a new year and new decade. Perhaps there is yet another toxic ecosystem caused by humans that needs cleaning up in order to save its' mammals? Will we hear the call just made by multiple thousands of voices stunned into speaking out for a renewed integrity? For a re-examination of what human dignity means? For the return of reason and respect? For a more humane narrative on this planet? Where do today's children and tomorrow's global leaders get the idea that bullying is acceptable? Good question. 'The tribe has spoken.' And the children are listening.