More than nostalgia for the 1960s.

I don't really know how it happened. How what was once wholesome and where right and wrong were clearly known and shown in our culture and in the media. But then something put in motion an unwhoiesome way of thinking about things and how to see them. This is been pushing things a particular way that has landed where we are today. The shows and programs in my childhood in the 1960s and very early '70s. A lot of criticism was heaped on those shows, but they were all like the Harry Potter books and the original Star Wars trilogy. Shows like Here Come the Brides and Star Trek and Kung Fu and Bonanza. Good and wholesome, but also brave in its honesty, sincerity, vlunerability, but also capable of meeting the challenges, the bullies, and the unethical. The world, at least my world, did have what was presented in popular television programs. But then things got edgier and weirder and creepier and sleazier as if all of life is that way when it is not. I'm very glad to be watching the weekend marathon showing of Here Come the Brides this weekend. It's unfortunate that the second season got just a tad edgier from the first season even if it was able to maintain decent writing. It was the 70s. Things drastically changed in that decade and we have yet to recover. I am also surprised to see so many people who had been on Star Trek doing work on Brides. In our time, it is The Mandalorian and baby Grogu that are harkening back to the wholesome. Wholesome is the way.

Mando & SG-1: Aspiration and Teamwork

1-21-21

I'm watching SG-1 and listening to an awesome mix of the best music clips from both seasons of The Mandalorian. 

SG-1 was on air for 10 years. I've watched interviews of the people who acted in and work on this show and it had a lot in common with all the people on The Mandalorian. But Jon and Dave in doing The Mandalorian and especially in creating the Child, baby Grogu in the Star Wars universe has tapped so deep into the consciousness it touches the infinite. That feeling you get when looking at the baby Yoda, is being in touch with the infinite. I might even call it the Force. We know when things feel good and wholesome, and when they stink. But apparently, as in all other abilities, having a good moral compass and a very astute bullshit detector is not as common as we would like to think. These are vital in being able to tell right and wrong, and knowing that is how one follows the Way. And there is a Way. You can feel it within yourself. And The Mandalorian is all about the Way. It is about caring for one another.  To me, this is the way, tho it is much easier said than done.

 

Oh that's right. I had originally started with the thought about wanting things to be more aspirational, uplifting, trite as that sounds. I go back to the shows I watched and the way the world felt, at least to me, it was like a golden age and there are many ideals we need to recover and bring forward to today. 

The lesson to learn from SG-1 is how to be a team. Each member has their strengths along with their own set of quirks. O'Neill, Jackson, Carter, and Teal'c. Would that we could find some way to do this in the groups we belong to. The goal is to not only accomplish necessary tasks but also to accomplish that sense teamwork. Something that the Japanese culture works hard to cultivate in their society. There is such a huge difference, but bridging that gap is doable and working on learning how to do that. Wish me luck.

Censorship and the problem of the media

Someone on my facebook feed posted this:

Four functions of the media

To inform.

To persuade.

To entertain.

To transmit culture.

It seems to me that in a way when we demonize the media, which seems to have become a favorite pastime, we might possibly be guilty of pointing a finger right back at ourselves, considering how often we use social media for many of those very same functions, and not necessarily in a fun or nice way.  We share our own opinions and slant on things in an effort to convince others of their wrongfulness.  It's been a while since Facebook has felt very friendly or sociable.

I answered with:

Those are the things the media should do, and would do if the people running things operated with the same kind of morality and common decency the rest of us go by. But the people running things in business and by extension the government which is used to create laws to favor the rich and powerful, have no interest in doing what would benefit the people as a whole. I cannot fathom a mind that is so selfish and so self-centered it is incapable of having any consideration for others whatsoever. It is that care and concern for others, for their lives and their well-being, that is missing from nearly all legislation today at every level of government or public office. And the laws that used to reign in power to protect the populace against excesses have been repealed or are not being enforced. In regard to the media, the Fairness Doctrine and the Equal Time Rule were both repealed in the 1980s under Reagan. The Fairness Doctrine is the reason why networks had a real news department and were require to tell the truth about things or at the very least provide both or more sides of an issue so that the public would be properly informed. Once that was repealed the media has become a propaganda tool owned by only 5 mega-corporations.

Also, most  Americans have been deliberately dumbed down so as not to understand the nature of their inherent right to exist free from conditions of any kind, especially economic, but with the exception that to live in a society all people must come to some kind agreement on how they will do that. The most fundament rules of behavior is that doing intentional harm to others is wrongful. By extension, the rules governing society should then be just. The problem we face today is how to clean up our government to become the government Jefferson talked about in the Declaration of Independence.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all people and living things are created equal and that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And that governments are instituted to secure these rights deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed."

I just wish I knew how to get from here to there. Actually I do know but it will take a whole lot of people coming together to agree on what needs to be done. Need to find a way to do that.

Putting love back into the universe

What Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have done is bring love back to the universe and make it the center of everything.

The comment at this video says:

I LOVE THIS. Our future looks promising. This inspires me, heals me, and invigorates me. I love and thank Lucas for his contribution to humanity. His legacy is in the right hands.<