We were recently engaged in one of those unsolicited absences from the information bubble. It was driven by the haste of departure, the seclusion of the destination, and the absence of our usual external information sources. So, it is worth a mention in passing for how a brief and temporary absence from the stream is now profound.
It has all been noted in other contexts since our generation was struggling to replace our folks at the controls.But documenting the practical, vice theoretical impact is enough to clutch our pearls in wonder.
An absence of just a couple days from legacy media is revealing. As this pivotal year unfolds, there is a curious separation with the proliferation of unique information streams. Means of delivery are no longer the three television stations and two newspapers. With a modest amount of diligence, opposing views no longer need to be ignored. They may as well not exist at all.
We were sprung from medical confinement on Easter Sunday. We are not much on any organized faith, but there is something special about the religious holidays so important to believers. We are witnessing the passing of some of the old traditions of spirit along with the flood of information. The church, synagogue or mosque in the neighbhorbbod has ceased to be one of the social centers of gravity.
Polish towns in Detroit our crowd grew up near are now Somali centers. Their ethnicity and voting are part of the struggle that will go on through the summer and into the Fall which will determine some part of our collective fate.
Is is possible we are more susceptible due to information saturation? Or could we be less so due to lack of diversity in sources?
We wound up streaming sources outside of the usual ones with reliable bias. One was fun, a historical documentary on the City of New York. It had been created when the Twin Towers still stood proud, so there were a couple crisis times unknown to the knowledgible pundits and historians. But the sort of changes we are seeing now recall some of the episodes in New York’s colorful past.
There have been times of Newcomers in our nations, some as vast as the floodgates that have been left wide open. So, in the hazy black and white flickers there may be room for hope that the changes upon us are not riddled with catastrophic uncertainty. Just the room for it at the moment.
Here are the uncertainties of the Easter Weekend. The White House released a holiday greeting as is common for them. They specifically reference a thing called “Trans Awareness” day or something. Visibility? An idea of the lack of confidence in our leadership was demonstrated by the priorities of messaging.
Here they are, in short. Easter and the Trans Visibility days happen on the same day, annually, only infrequently. The next time we will have this discussion is a half century in the future. But the inability of the people managing our government to commemorate the sacrifice and rebirth of a man many consider as the son of a living God by even the mention of his name was kind of strange. And to highlight this by saying he had nothing to do with the proclamation, as he did with a sort of outrage that anything of the sort could happen left us with a combination of laughter and frowns.
We never thought we would arrive in a place and time when our President does not know who is running the country.
– Vic
Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com