Fact Check Friday

It's back to another Friday of fact checking. It's been a pleasure contributing to this blog, not only as the technical adviser and occasional editor, but also to have a forum to share stories from the news from a variety of perspectives.

That said, I will admit bias. One unfortunate fact about news today is the insistence from news consumers that news be free from bias, and the news industry's attempt to pretend its coverage is non-biased.

Here's some facts: Everyone is biased! Individuals are biased based on their age, gender, socioeconomic class, and family history to name a few. "Wait!" you say. "I'm not biased!"

If you do not believe you're biased towards certain groups of people, read the following article, and reconsider: "Everyone is biased: Harvard professor’s work reveals we barely know our own minds."

Bias and prejudice have a negative connotation, but they can serve a purpose. While racism and sexism have fallen out of favor (for good reason), other types of prejudice are common. Some are even helpful. This TED Talk, "Can prejudice ever be a good thing?" describes the issues surrounding prejudice.

So what does this have to do with the news? What I would like to see is news media identify their biases, and allow consumers to decide if they agree with those biases. Here's some bias I perceive from major national news sources:

• CNN: Faux liberal bias. They love firing people up, but prefer the status quo of national gridlock and big money ruling federal elections because they make a lot of money off the people who fund candidates of both parties.
• Fox News: Fair and balanced. Fair as in they give equal representation to angry people that demonize secular humanism and people who demonize anyone who doesn't think capitalism is the bees knees. Oh, and they let "liberals" talk because that makes it balanced.
• NPR: Moderate, liberal bias. NPR is funded by the government and listeners to NPR. People in Minnesota value MPR enough to fund the vast majority of its programming. This is socialism: a group of people supporting a news network with their money (if they want to donate), or their taxes (if they don't want to donate), so NPR might stray from traditional news coverage by trying appeal to its audience rather than its "corporate sponsors."

Feel free to disagree. My statements above reveal some of my bias. Speaking of bias, how about that corporate welfare? We are so fortunate to live in a society where a free and appropriate education is the law of the land. Unfortunately, greedy corporate overlords and their puppets in state and federal legislatures figured out how they could become extremely rich. Read about it here:
"No Profit Left Behind".

Another bias: I don't like what Obama is doing with drones. After voting for Mr. Obama in 2008, I will now be able to tell my school children that a man with a father from Kenya, raised by a single mother and grandparents, who lived in Hawaii where I spent some of my youth, became president. And I helped.

Do I agree with all the president's policies? No. See my statement on drones. I do not, however, know what's in President Obama's heart. He says he is a Christian, and I believe him. Bill O'Reilly doubts Mr. Obama's Christianity, but I think history will shine a kinder light on Mr. Obama than the hate mongers at Fox News would have us believe.

A few more facts:

John Stewart, of Daily Show fame, destroyed Mr. O'Reilly in a 2012 debate. Don't believe me? Watch for yourself and you decide:

Too long to watch? OK, fine. Watch Mr. Stewart do it again, on O'Reilly's show:

Still don't believe me? Perhaps you think Stewart has a liberal bias. I'll grant you that point, for now. Watch this:

I'll miss Mr. Stewart as host of The Daily Show. My generation (I tend to identify with Generation X, but I'll let history work that one out) is pretty disenfranchised. We watched the baby boomers boom. Baby boomers were and are a proud bunch. Their families helped defeat an evil dictator, made babies, and saved money to give their baby boomers nice things. Cars, houses, good credit scores; you name it.

My parents are baby boomers. I love my parents. I love my parents' generation. Lots of my favorite people are baby boomers.

Unfortunately, baby boomers are an angry group of people. Their big houses aren't big enough. Their credit scores, a defining feature of our American economy, dropped quite a bit when greedy bankers and insurance companies pulled off the biggest transfer of wealth in United States history. Read about how investors stole money from hard working Americans here; "The true cost of the bank bailout." There's also a video on that link, so go ahead and watch it if all that reading makes you tired.

Again, I love baby boomers, but I feel bad for them. They were sold a bill of goods that said, "work hard, buy your home, put your money in the bank, then sit back and watch it grow, and you'll be happy."

Ask a baby boomer if they're happy. They might be. Or, they might be angry. The were laid of from their job where they made $88,000 a year, and now they can't find anything that will support their luxurious lifestyle. Contrast that with some of my friends who have college diplomas (a promise sold by greedy bankers and government officials who have profited on student loan debt) and are working as baristas to pay down their debt while they wait for the people who buy $4 cups of coffee to retire.

Read, "How Starbucks Saved My Life." Quit your job and work there if you aren't happy with your tremendous wealth. People tend the coffee plantations, especially the workers, work extremely hard to help you start your day with a little drug we call caffeine.
  

Buy it from Amazon or somewhere else!

The author of "How Starbucks Saved My Life" makes himself so vulnerable. He admits his bias. He admits his prejudice. He accepts his need for humility.

I pray every day that I can do the same. My heart hurts for those around me who suffer, partially do to my own greed and ambition.

But then I hear a still, small voice saying, "this is the way, walk in it."

Being a Christian isn't easy. It's not a road to perfection--it's a walk on dusty, narrow paths and trails.

Fortunately, all roads lead to the straight and narrow path. Unfortunately, those riding the "highway to hell" tend to crash before they find that straight and narrow path.

American Christians have become corrupted. Corrupted with greed, love of self, and the strange idea that they can make other Christians.

I came from a Lutheran tradition, and I was taught "all things work together for the good of those who love God." I was also taught, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

Who knows the mind of God? Who knows the Creator's heart? I don't. What I see now is only a poor reflection in a dimly lit mirror. And my mirror needs some polishing.

I'll close on this note. I identify with being Christian. I love the words catholic and orthodox because their ancient words and imply a sense of connectedness to all believers, everywhere. Evangelicals (read about them here: "Are We Ready For The Coming Evangelical Collapse?"), one of whom wrote a book called, "Love Wins," seem to believe that by letting everyone know how great Christians are and how miserable everyone else is have put a sour taste in the mouths of my generation. When the author of "Love Wins" was accused of universalism, he left the Evangelical movement.

Rob's crime? Daring to say, "God desires everyone to be saved, and while it may not happen here, now, or in time as we know it, the Creator of the universe gets what it wants (I refer to God as it in the trinitarian theological sense in which God has no sex, gender, or other humanly constructed trait).

When I go to sleep at night, I often have a hard time believing that a God who can know whatever our spirits are saying can love me so purely that it hurts. The theology of glory says we should love God because God is so powerful, we'd better. The theology of beauty says we should love God because he wants us to experience beauty in the world. The theology of the cross says we should love God because God first loved as and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Love wins.