Time Warp #364
By Hank Silverberg
Commentary
I turned 71 years old this week. That is really NOT an achievement. Lot's of people get here. But the milestone has given me a chance to review a bit of history and wonder about the future. Growing up in the 60's you could spend much of your childhood never worrying about what the president was saying, or international affairs because there was no 24-hour news cycle and no social media.
Crime, poverty and violent conflicts existed, but as kids, in the suburbs most of us didn't see or hear it. Our parents, with the violence of World War Two still in their memory, didn't talk about it, and later as we grew up, the history books we read in school white-washed most of it.
You might read the newspaper to get the latest baseball score, or check out Beetle Bailey in the funny pages, but what was happening with the kids you hung out with in your neighborhood or school was more important than U-2 spy planes or presidential elections.
Every so often, like in October of 1962, you might have heard your parents express some concern. My mother bought a bunch of canned sardines and put them in the basement because of something happening in Cuba (sardines were supposed to fight radiation poisoning, I learned later). But we never really worried much when our teachers or the catchy tune in the animated cartoon featuring "Yertle the Turtle" would tell us to "duck and cover" in case of a nuclear attack.
That sheltered life changed for me on November 22, 1963 when John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas. The news coverage was extensive, and I believe that's when I caught the journalism bug, at age nine.
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| (Kennedy's motorcade, Dallas, 1963, Courtesy National Archives) |
Over the next six decades I watched as the world grew smaller, the issues grew bigger, and the information came faster with less time to think of all the possibilities and ramifications.
I thought about all this as I prepared a new class for my students next semester. It's "Introduction to Mass Communication," and although I taught it one semester eight years ago, the media landscape has changed so much since then I am now revising all the lectures.
Gen Z and Gen Alpha are coming of age or growing up in a world where a plethora of communication venues are swift, 24/7/365, and at their fingertips. It is also at a time where traditional political and journalism ethics have crumbled and Artificial Intelligence threatens to make almost everything you see and hear hard to believe.
When I was a child, phycologists and educators worried if television would brainwash all of us and substitute for a real education with human contact. Now with social media like Tik Tok and AI technology that threat seems much greater.
In 1958, pioneering broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow wondered in his famous speech to other broadcasters if T-V, which at that time consisted of mostly game shows and fledgling sitcom, had "only a fleeting and spasmodic reference to the fact that this nation is in mortal danger." And he wondered if 50 years in the future historians would look back at old recordings of that era and "find evidence of decadence, escapism and insulation from the realities of the world in which we live."
Murrow could never have imagined what the communications world would be in 2025. We have plenty of technology to spread the true news and information virtually, but little truth in the information we now spread. And today we also have a focused effort by big corporations and governments worldwide to push false narratives in the pursuit of either profit or power.
I will not be around 50 years from now. I wonder if the world, now fractured in the early 21st Century, even more than that it was in the early 20th Century, will resemble anything we know today.
News You May Have Missed
Arabic Numerals Taught in American Schools
Sometimes you see a news story that has your rolling on the floor laughing and running to fact checkers like snopes.com to see if they are really true. That was the case this week with this headline:
"Most Americans believe 'Arabic numerals' should not be taught in schools"
It's true. I checked it out. A Market Research company, CivicScience, did the poll. It was an effort to show prejudice among the American public, and it worked.
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| (Arabic numbers) |
About 2,020 people said "no" to the question, 39% said "yes" and 15% had "no opinion".
The poll ended up on X and immediately went viral.
The best response I saw to the X post was,
"Wait till they find out about Algebra!"
The numbers used by much of the world were developed by Arab scholars in the 10th Century C.E.
They became commonly used in Europe where Arabs ruled part of southern Spain for 700 years.
Nurses Not Professionals???
Nursing is one of the noblest professions of them all. Millions of women and men work long hours taking care of patients in our hospitals and medical facilities for very little money. And they all went through years of school to get graduate degrees in nursing.
But now the Trump administration has re-defined which degrees are considered "professional". The Department of Education has omitted nursing, social work and several other jobs from the list established in a 1965 federal law defining professional degrees. Those are professions which usually require a license to practice. It all has to do with student loans.
The new list includes only ten professions:
- Pharmacy (Pharm.D.)
- Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.)
- Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.)
- Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.)
- Law (L.L.B. or J.D.)
- Medicine (M.D.)
- Optometry (O.D.)
- Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.)
- Podiatry (D.P.M., D.P., or Pod.D.)
- Theology (M.Div., or M.H.L.)
The change could restrict how much money students can borrow in federal student loans.
Graduate students pursuing "professional degrees" defined on the list can borrow up to $50,000 a year and up to $200,000 overall. But students in programs not considered "professional degrees" have their loans capped at $20,000 per year and $100,000 overall.
Other programs that have been considered "professional degrees" for a long time that are not on the new list include architecture, accounting, occupational therapy, physical therapy, special education and public health.
The changes are slated to take effect July 1st of 2026.
Dumbest Quote of the Week!
I don't have a dumbest quote for this week. There were just so many of them, mostly from the White House and Congress that I just couldn't decide which was the dumbest. I will find one for next week.
(You suggestions and comments are welcome)
My recent book "The Campaign" can be purchased at the links below. Or you can buy a copy by emailing me at: HankSilverberg@gmail.com for instructions on how to get a copy at a reduced price and with my signature)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084Q7K6M5/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0
My NEWEST book is now available. It is designed for use in Public Speaking and entry level communications classes.
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