Cognitive Dissonance

This fellow, Tom Guarriello, is a liberal from Connecticut. When it comes to the American political scene, he & I rarely agree. But he's also a smart man and one of my favourite vloggers. In this video he openly admits that he has biases and is reticent to hear other points of views that challenge his own. News Flash to everyone: Just like every other human being on the planet!
This is quite a contrast to this arrogant man I wrote about recently. Ditto for this pretty female vlogger who is probably the most close-minded person I've ever encountered on YouTube. The sad thing for her is that she is convinced that she's actually open minded. Perhaps when she's a bit older she'll learn that being "open minded" means that one must actually listen to other points of view with the possibility that they may change one's own views. That's clearly not the case right now.

Are Canadians Interested in the American Election?

This was the topic of conversation on today's CBC Radio 1 Cross Country Checkup show. I enjoy this show because they usually have a diverse set of interesting guests. What is always a predictable wall of ignorance are the majority of callers phoning up from all over Canada. For the most part, this is not a diverse group but rather an assortment of CBC Radio listeners, 99% of whom have ingested endless litres of mind-numbing Socialist Kool-Aid.

Here's the letter I sent them, which of course will not get read on-air because it doesn't fit in with their "narrative":


It's fascinating to listen in to the endless stream of devout CBC listeners, calling in to Cross Country Checkup today. Here's a sampling of the "brilliant" gems of fiction that several callers deeply believe to be true:

• George Bush stole the 2000 election.
• NAFTA and Free Trade in general is a terrible thing for Canadians.
• It's not a matter if the United States will implode and collapse, but when.
• Hillary Clinton has a lot of experience. (in what?)
• [The war in] Afghanistan was planned one year before 9/11.
• Stephen Harper is anti-woman.
• Ronald Reagan inspired just conservatives.
  

While such statements undoubtedly feed the frenzy of hatred amongst many Canadians toward 50% of Americans, they are absolutely and unequivocally false. But why let facts ever get in the way of prejudice?!

CBC's The Current: A Racist Hiring Policy?

Take a look at this set of faces. They work for "The Current", CBC Radio 1's morning primetime show. With a few minor exceptions, all of the staff are white, white, white.

Yet this show has a constant parade of segments featuring "ethnic" people who are constantly facing some sort of racism. Today there was a piece on mixed races. The general implication was that if you dare ask a person what ethnic makeup they are, then you are automatically a racist. What a crock!

I have two traits that make me guilty:

1. I'm a curious person. Always have been. It's one of the reasons I became an engineer.
2. I happen to be especially attracted to women of mixed races. I don't know precisely why but I so often find their looks to be very enchanting.

So in the same way that I'm curious to learn about where people have traveled to and what types of cuisine they like, I'm also curious to learn about their ethnic heritage. Wow, what a horrible person I am for doing so!!

I wrote The Current and [more gently] shared my thoughts with them. I also challenged them to do a future show that asked more pressing questions, walking outside the politically correct boundaries that the CBC has imposed on itself. Here's an example: A CBC radio reporter should interview a group of Chinese-Canadian teenagers in a mall and ask them the following: "Some might call you to be racist because you've not let into your social group anyone outside your own racial group. Do you agree? If not, why have you made no effort to diversify your social circle?"

Do you think they'll ever ask such a question?!

Letter to CBC Radio

On CBC Radio One's Sunday Edition program, host Nora Young had a fascinating discussion with author Andrew Keen. I felt compelled to send her this letter:

Your in-depth discussion with Andrew Keen about Web 2.0 and the ongoing death of MSM was extremely interesting.

While I agreed with several of his concerns about where people are now getting their information from, I believe he was off-target on several key points.

First off, he seemed to be in denial about the fact that the wave of technology can not be held back. Things have changed and there is simply no going back.

Second, if the Mainstream Media (MSM) does eventually die, it will not be the fault of technology. All the blame will lie collectively with the members of the MSM themselves. With Internet access, one still has the ability to get one's news strictly from MSM websites. But most choose not to. Why? Because most people have come to realize that straight news, without any editorial spin, is very rare these days. Now that people have the ability to avoid such spin or to avoid spin that doesn't sit well with their own world view, they choose to exercise this freedom.

Many Canadians and Americans criticize the spin of Fox News in the U.S. I would suggest to you that Fox News has gained its great success BECAUSE of the spin from other media outlets ... including your own.

Any journalist who claims they have no bias is as ignorant as a person saying that they have no accent when they speak. We all do! It's simply a matter of perspective.

I am deeply troubled by the many unsubstantiated beliefs of many, often fed and supported by websites run by anonymous wackos with some personal agenda. The key to moving beyond them is not for the MSM to dismiss them out of hand but to do things better. This means having staff of all political inclinations and striving to be first to be correct, not first to be first!

Case in point, if an anonymous survey were to be done of all CBC employees, do you think there would be some semblance of equal representation of political views? Please don't insult me by saying 'Yes'. For left and extreme left do not constitute a balance. This may begin to explain why fewer and fewer Canadians are listening to and watching CBC news and information programs these days. Your organization is fortunate to be funded by the generosity of the Canadian taxpayer. Without that, your fate would surely be the same as the rest of the MSM.

Cozy Propaganda

Friday morning I periodically tuned into CBC Radio 1 to get some news from the Liberal Leadership Convention in Montreal. What I heard though was not "news" but was more akin to pro-Liberal propaganda courtesy of our publicly funded national broadcaster. The host, Julie Van Dusen, was just fawning lovingly over every single Liberal she interviewed. There were NO tough questions. Instead, every element of the discussion was in the vain of "God's chosen party has been accidentally bumped out of office. What can we, the propaganda wing of the Liberal party, do to get you back to your rightful place ... and get rid of those horrible, bigoted, unprogressive Conservatives."

I'd long given up hoping for a modicum of evenhandedness when it comes to CBC but this was so extreme it actually became funny.

P.S. Mademoiselle Van Dusen even confessed that the "hospitality suites are killing me". She's actually admitting that she's letting the Liberals liquor her up. So incredibly professional!