THYME Magazine Special Shutdown Issue III

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XIX

Taking the Narrative Back

Blogger Bill Evans Writes in a piece entitled NPR and the Power of Narrative [click to read]:

"Most of the government is shut down.” So we repeatedly hear from mainstream news outlets like National Public Radio (NPR), as they continue to hammer the narrative that American wellbeing and the interests of the common person are threatened by a small group of selfish “Tea Party extremists” who have seized control of the Republican Party in order to subvert the Constitution and representative democracy.

Of course, the reality is that the facts don’t support this narrative. According to informed estimates, 83 percent of the government continues to operate. And this, in turn, explains why lots of Americans don’t seem particularly worried, despite mainstream media efforts to portray the situation as apocalyptic or worse."

Dr. Evans continues: "Moreover, the Republican Party is, in fact, a splintered and messy conglomeration of main-street business interests, neo-cons, libertarians, cultural conservatives, religious conservatives, and yes, Tea Party types. And for the record, despite the whining of the current President, in this instance the government is working exactly as the Founding Fathers envisioned."

Dr. Evans goes on to point out that a body of citizens who possess little knowledge of how our government was designed to work look to the narrative as they form their opinions and make choices. He who controls the narrative controls the discussion. Using the example of the Matthew Shepard murder in 1998, Dr. Evans cites NPR host Rachel Martin's interview with author Stephen Jimenez about his book: The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard (Steerforth, 2014).While the narrative surrounding the murder was that it was undoubtedly a "hate crime," Jimenez' own investigation proved otherwise. Jimenez is a gay man himself, but his honest investigation and NPR's airing of the interview are laudible.

Still, the narrative of the "hate crime" became the driving force behind President Clinton's push for the subsequent Hate Crimes Legislation. Even as Jimenez, who admits wrestling with this confrontation of the truth, determined that the truth was what really mattered.

To be perfectly honest, all of us resort to the narrative. I recently considered a purported Bill Cosby quote that underscored MY narrative for inclusion in THYME. There was a problem though, my research pointed to the strong possibility that Cosby didn't say it. The quote was dropped. Another wonderful story hit my desk about NASA scientists "discovering" a "missing day," thus corroborating Scriptural accounts. The problem here was that there was no reference to any actual paper or research.

Truth matters. Sadly Mr. Jimenez is a rare force in journalism. Many in the mainstream media will continue to reinforce the narrative that "the government is shut down," but how many of them will consider the plight of those outside their narrative: "So the next time you hear NPR journalists talking about how “most of the government is shut down” (when it’s not) don’t be surprised. And the next time you notice NPR and the rest of the mainstream media studiously ignoring the people whose health insurance costs are skyrocketing because of the now ironically named Affordable Care Act, and at the same time paying no attention to part-time workers whose hours are being cut or who are losing their jobs due to the quite predictable impact of Obama Care (as anybody would have known if they had bothered to read the bill), don’t be surprised."

Taking Back the Narrative

Conservatives OUTSIDE the political process, ironically, are masters of the narrative  on their home court. (If you are reading this, you probably are Conservative or Libertarian; or one of my colleagues just being nice). Creating beautiful publications like American Conservative [click to read] and City Journal [click to read], we are great at telling a more complete, more truthful story. The problem is who we're NOT reaching.

If anything, the current government shutdown offers us a great opportunity. Our friends and family who are furloughed government workers have time on their hands... dare I suggest we give them some THYME? As self-serving as that may be, it behooves us to attempt at every turn to create provocative presentations of beauty and truth and share them. Hopefully we can insert solid dialogue and reason into the narrative.

THYME Magazine

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume IV, Issue XLV

What Would Lincoln Do?

The 'other' weekly news magazine asks That Question [click to read] this week. A better question would be: "What did Lincoln do?" Indeed, Lincoln faced a Nation divided and took steps (some might say oversteps) to preserve the Union. Utah artist Larry Winborg created the above painting as a companion piece to the famous painting of George Washington praying at Valley Forge. The point of both works, that great Presidents faced great challenges on their knees.

A visitor to the White House during the Civil War recounts hearing the sound of Lincoln falling to his knees in the room above him during the night. The man says that at that point he felt assurance in his heart that the Union was in good hands.

But let us look at Lincoln's own words, in the resolution which he endorsed during that troubled time. Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and signed by Lincoln on March 30, one month before the fast day was observed.

By the President of the United States of America. 

 A Proclamation.   Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty G-d, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation.   And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of G-d, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose G-d is the Lord.   And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People?

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten G-d. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the G-d that made us!   It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.   Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do, by this my proclamation, designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th. day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer. And I do hereby request all the People to abstain, on that day, from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite, at their several places of public worship and their respective homes, in keeping the day holy to the Lord, and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.   In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.   Done at the City of Washington, this thirtieth day of March, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.   By the President: Abraham Lincoln   William H. Seward, Secretary of State.
 
Source: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by Roy P. Basler.

Restoring Honor and 'One Nation' Compared

Socialists Come Up Short in the Aerial Photograph


The aerial photographs speak for themselves. Consider the fact that all of us paid our own way to 08/28 and people were offered free transportation and meals for the 10/02 event. ht/Phil.

Phil Has More [click to read]. Also of note is the 'trash test.' Phil Has That News Too [click to read].

"I Guess after free bus rides, free lunch, free Metro cards, they figured there was free trash pick-up???" -- Phil.

"Live free or die" has an entirely different meaning to these people Phil.

Remembering the Restoring Honor Rally


Arriving at the Lincoln Memorial for the Restoring Honor Rally...


...and the crowd stretches all the way down the reflecting pool to the World War II Memorial.


The crowd from the air... ht/Mike


...there are people crowded UNDER those trees as well.

More Photos [click to view].

Lynn Has More on the Rally [click to read].

Thoughts from the Side of the Reflecting Pool


Here I am at the rally. Photo by T. Barbour.

At today's Restoring Honor Rally, Glenn Beck pointed out the scar in the Washington Monument. Far down the reflecting pool, the mighty obelisk rises as a pure form of ancient architecture. Look closer and you see a change in the stone color, about a quarter of the way up the Monument.

That 'scar' marks the point where work was stopped as North and South fought the War between the States. This bloody conflict might well have ended the American experiment... but the Nation survived and became the great Nation we live in today. When work was resumed on the Monument, the builders went back to the original quarry but were unable to match the marble exactly. The change in color bears silent testimony to one of our most perilous times.

Beck asked the thousands listening to him to look beyond the scars of our differences and see the good that is in our Nation.

Joined by Governor Sarah Palin and Dr. Alveda King [neice of the great Civil Rights Leader], Beck led a call back to the foundations of good in our Nation... the sure step to do the right thing when no one is looking, the value of individual honor in service to one's fellows.

Aaron Copeland's 'Fanfare for the Common Man' played over the Reflecting Pool as the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity were celebrated. That piece had become a theme piece as I visited the Memorial on the July 4th weekend. It was on Xaver Wilhelmy's demonstration DVD played on the glass organ pipes! It was a nice departure from the 'Rocky' theme as I trotted up the steps of the Memorial to watch the morning light illuminate the shrine to Lincoln.

Now it became the theme for honoring people who exemplified the virtues.

Under the trees lining the Reflecting Pool, ordinary Americans came together to affirm the foundations of this country's greatness.

Prelude to Restoring Honor II

The Lincoln Memorial


The morning light illuminates the statue of Lincoln...


...from the East.