Discernment

It occurs to me that, in this era of instant communications, we human beings have completely lost our capacity for discernment. I'm not just talking about spiritual discernment, which sort of implies moral discernment or the imposition of some sort of value system upon things (because God knows, we in America are just too politically correct to believe in absolute values or to judge anything. And we Christians incorrectly think that only God will judge, so we should sit by passively and accept any and everything that comes our way). But I digress. I don't feel good, I missed my workout last night, and I'm eating sugar and carbs for breakfast. Which pretty much means the whole day is going to be a waste, but it's an explanation as to why I've digressed.

Getting back to the point: We have no discernment. Today's very opinionated rant will concern Charlie Sheen and email. Let's tackle email first, since it's the easiest. Now, I have 6 or 7 email addresses. I've created them in an attempt to have my inbox not swamped with junk mail, and to be able to quickly get to the emails I need to read. Unfortunately, I'm a slave to technology and have used an aggregator to have all my email accounts appear in one inbox (can we say "lack of discernment?" Or maybe just "stupidity?"). So the emails from my two classes appear alongside my friends' jokes, all intermingled with interminable offers from every website I've ever visited, let alone those places from which I've actually bought things....

I was going to go on a rant about our lack of discernment in sending emails, but as I'm cleaning them out, I'm realizing that it's not people who are actually doing the sending, it's bots -- computerized programs that pick up email addresses and add them to mailing lists, based on predetermined criteria. May there be a special place in Hell reserved for the minds who created them....

Now on to Charlie Sheen. My favorite 2 and a half men actor has had a very public struggle, apparently with bipolar disorder, resulting in a public meltdown, very vocal attacks on his former employers, and his subsequent release from his employment with CBS. In the midst of his meltdown, Charlie raised his per-episosode salary demand by a million dollars an episode. he said "Mark my words. They'll come back." Or something to that effect.

So imagine my surprise this morning when I heard on the news that CBS is actually considering taking him back. Discernment. They released him saying he was dangerous and too unstable to work; now they're going to take him back?!?!? He may be clean and sober, but he's had no treatment, and if you look at him or listen to him, you can clearly see he's a madman. I wonder if they are really that beholden to the dollar, or if they think the only way they can get out of his threatened lawsuit against them is to rehire him and have him melt down publicly? Either way, I think the decision to rehire him is ill-advised.

And I think that we, the American public, need to go on a fast from TV. If this is the sort of actions, attitudes, and behaviors that we condone and promote by watching TV, is TV-watching really something we want to do?

OK, I'm through for the moment....