Fifty years ago yesterday, Buddy Holly died in a plane crash along with the Big Bopper and Richie Valens. It's near unanimous that the form of Holly's band, his methods and beat were the real beginning of Rock'n Roll even though Elvis preceded him. I wasted far too much time on music in my youth. It's a hard habit to break, in fact XM 6 is playing softly as I write this.
A study recently released and reported in today's Wall Street Journal determined that television watching by young people leads to depression when they are adults. An estimated crowd of 350.000 (that's right, 350 thousand) people lined the streets of Pittsburgh today to celebrate their football team's victory. In the 70s, I was one of those celebrating Steeler Super Bowl wins. So there's music, television and sports, where we as a culture have exceeded moderation and there is a whole lot more.
As a people, we lack discernment, we have trouble electing good leaders, we fall for the allure of Madison Avenue and Wall Street and we have changed the meaning and expanded Harry Truman's phrase to "The buck stops here, and I'm keeping it, I deserve it, in fact, I want one of yours." Not only am I, not blameless in the collapse of our culture, I swung my own axe on it. We are where we are at and there is plenty of blame to go around.
In corporate America, there is a "problem solving" method where everyone involved starts shouting out, around the table, ideas to resolve the problem while one party writes them down. The thinking here is to encourage spontaneous ideas and the more timid individuals to share what might be good ideas. So here goes, I'll shout out just one thought. We need to set apart some time every week to meet with friends and just discuss the cultural situation we are in, how we got here and what we might be able to do to make a difference in at least our own lives. "As iron sharpeneth iron, so one man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." (Proverbs 27:17)
A study recently released and reported in today's Wall Street Journal determined that television watching by young people leads to depression when they are adults. An estimated crowd of 350.000 (that's right, 350 thousand) people lined the streets of Pittsburgh today to celebrate their football team's victory. In the 70s, I was one of those celebrating Steeler Super Bowl wins. So there's music, television and sports, where we as a culture have exceeded moderation and there is a whole lot more.
As a people, we lack discernment, we have trouble electing good leaders, we fall for the allure of Madison Avenue and Wall Street and we have changed the meaning and expanded Harry Truman's phrase to "The buck stops here, and I'm keeping it, I deserve it, in fact, I want one of yours." Not only am I, not blameless in the collapse of our culture, I swung my own axe on it. We are where we are at and there is plenty of blame to go around.
In corporate America, there is a "problem solving" method where everyone involved starts shouting out, around the table, ideas to resolve the problem while one party writes them down. The thinking here is to encourage spontaneous ideas and the more timid individuals to share what might be good ideas. So here goes, I'll shout out just one thought. We need to set apart some time every week to meet with friends and just discuss the cultural situation we are in, how we got here and what we might be able to do to make a difference in at least our own lives. "As iron sharpeneth iron, so one man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." (Proverbs 27:17)
