Good Morning friends! A cardinal is chirping outside my window, the lilacs are blooming and parents are walking their children to school. The Bride just called and we’ll be heading out to a garden center soon on this sunny spring day. But the biggest news is that the plaster cast came off my right hand and I’ll be wearing a removable splint for awhile.
Actually the biggest news is that a number of Nashville women, called #VoicesforsaferTN https://safertn.org/ including Moms Demand Action and my daughter and her physician friends, organized the three mile long chain of red-shirted people from Vandy’s Children’s Hospital to the State House yesterday! They wanted at least 3,000 people to link arms against gun violence and more than 8,500 showed up. 8,500 bipartisan people! One would think this would make national headlines, right?
Wrong… The 1st Amendment case between “Fox entertainment and alternate reality News” and Dominion was settled; China is planning to launch some new spy drones; and Whoopie is trending on Twitter don’t ask me why cause I’ve not watched the View in a very long time.
Now as an old-timey reporter, I know that fires sell newspapers, not the best cow at the fair. Still, only the Rolling Stone picked up the Wednesday linking arms action last night and this morning. Sure the local TV news gave it a few seconds, and the only reason RS gave it a storyline is because there were celebrities involved, including Sheryl Crow. Here is a local spin, which sounds weary if you ask me – the news anchor is probably thinking what’s the point.
“My son just turned 18 in February, he can now finally buy a lighter in Tennessee. He cannot buy cigarettes. He can buy a gun. He can’t buy a beer. I mean, it’s absolutely insane. Insane what’s going on in this country,” said Kirsten Deitelhoff, a supporter along the chain.
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/three-mile-line-supporters-linking-arms-for-a-change-in-gun-laws-in-tennessee
Yes I guess some states are more insane than others. But if you want to know how our divided nation went from zero to a hundred so quickly I can report it’s called “enragement algorithms.” Social media is the journalist’s evil step-sister. If you “like” a lot of cat videos, that’s what you get. And if you happen to “like” the previous twice impeached insurrectionist prez, your feed will take you down a rabbit hole of disinformation and conspiracy theories.
In this morning’s Tennessean, the 2.5 Billion dollar new Titans stadium is coming up for a final vote and their headline is: “Slim majority of residents oppose new stadium!” If you go ahead and read the article, it’s actually quite a big majority. But I guess football means MONEY, and children’s lives mean what?
I’m glad my children didn’t have mini-phones taped to their hands all the time, but chances are the Grands will. Ask your sixteen year old self if you can spot the difference between truth and lies. I think I’d start laughing, because of course my lie detector was strong. How is yours doing amid the algorithms?
MountainMornings 