Coming off all of the crazy comments I received over last week’s blog on Goya, I started reading a book titled, Hate, Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another. It’s written by Matt Taibbi, a Rolling Stone journalist who says that the press has mastered the art of monetizing anger, paranoia and distrust. Chapter 2 is titled, The Ten Rules of Hate. If you read nothing else, you should read that chapter. It smartly explains how we have been manipulated into believing that everything is either red or blue, and why the media not only wants us in a perpetual state of disagreement, it wants us to hate one another. The book helped me to write my first podcast which I call Closing the Political Divide. On Monday, I will be interviewed on a live webinar to an invited audience of NAHREP leaders discussing my Goya blog and my personal vision for the Latino community as it relates to politics. I am told we already have more than 200 people registered for the event. I’ll be writing about it next week.
By definition, unintended consequences are the results of an action different from what was expected or planned. They are often referenced in relation to changes in policies. I have heard the term used for years, primarily related to government policies. Still, I didn’t realize until recently that much has been written on the subject, and most experts believe that there are three categories of unintended consequences:
I once read that sports are a universal language. Regardless of ethnicity or what language you speak, almost everyone speaks sports. No place has that been more evident than the Olympics, where every four years, we are moved by images of athletic rivals from around the world shaking hands and embracing each other in moving displays of sportsmanship.
Happy Easter! The blog will resume on April 7, 2024.