To the filmmakers

Some musings on your frustration with the media and how to change it that you articulated in The Great Rethinking email 6/28:

First, the ultimate way to bring the media back into balance and fair reporting is to own it.  Look at who ultimately owns the media and the concentration of it. Their revenue comes from corporations, specifically advertisements. Therefore, messages that do not fit the interests of the corporations, even if news, may not get heard. My concern more than the slanting that can occur, is the narrowing of the focus. If sensitive or controversial topics are left unexplored, then less and less is available for discussion. When watching international TV, by contrast, topics seem much more widely varied. This isolation from the greater variety of ideas causing a possibly narrow view is the greater worry in my mind. But, we still do get into some hot controversial areas, at least. Media access comes from good relationships with entities like politicians and government, and corporations. 

So to impact the scope or balance of coverage, the sphere of inquiry, start or find a buyout fund to buy out media companies to owners with this interest, or a fund to start a network to articulate fairer or newer views. The networks being developed with The Great Rethinking, What the Bleep, and other organizations are a natural to then start to do something about it. This type of socially-driven investing is growing and starting to hit the mainstream. See the CDVCA website (www.cdvca.org) on double bottom line funding with venture capital/equity. There is even one fund dedicated to double bottom line media funding. I am also involved with a group of public and private sector individuals and organizations trying to find a way to make long-term social good profitable today so that it will be done sooner. 

Another way to own media is to start media. With the profusion of cable/satellite TV channels and the growth of podcasts and webcasts, it is now possible to be little and still have a tailored message. Then, there are the blogs and chats. Multiple way videoconferencing has lately also become cheaper and much better. Then there are e-learning, e-universities, so many possibilities. Of course, you are using this some now, but your topics beg an interactive forum.

As you say, another strategy is to do your own homework on the internet. Find out how to effect change. It is absolutely amazing what you can piece together on the internet, and how that can change your worldview. I have just been through this over the last 5 years in the area of the health care system and traditional vs. alternative health care paradigm.  My research, recovery, and now desire and mechanisms to change the system would not have been possible without the internet. I have also found what I need to add

new information to the most relevant debates and discussions, and found that I need to personally take action to make industry evolution, not change but evolution.  The doctors pissed off the wrong woman.  I was not an activist of any stripe before, but now try to be a fair one based on the evidence available. 

A huge shift is happening right now in the thinking about health, our conception of what health involves, and with it, our relationship with the world and each other. The change in thinking parallels the thinking and science you highlighted in "What the Bleep". It is also similar to The Field, and the living operation of the internet itself. Chaos and complexity theory also adds a concept of social networks similar to a living organism, like its use of artificial life (not a robot, but a concept that the collective views and behavior shape systems in a living way, as if the whole social system was one organism). So, many different paths are leading to the same road, pulling together and integrating so many different fields and ways of thinking.

For me, although I have spent a lot of time thinking about these issues, in an evidence-based sort of way, unlearning and relearning as I go, it is all still a little nebulous, but I am starting to have that intuitive feeling that there is a defined "there" there, that will clear up and be amazing once better understood. So, if my note is vague, that's why.  Hope it helps anyway.

I hope to come to the Phoenix What The Bleep weekend, so maybe we'll get a chance to meet. Good luck with your mission. We each do what we can, and together it will get done!

Stephanie McGillivray, Scottsdale, AZ

To the editor:

JZ Knight definitely comes across as an eccentric, "different" person--and I am aware of how people may be very quick to judge her as a weirdo or just a charlatan (after all, we humans are notorious for our quickness to judge from our very, very limited perspectives). But what does it matter if she is channeling Ramtha or not? The insights she shared were poignant and "spot on". Believe in her channeling claims or not, it's the message that matters--not the form of the vehicle used to convey it.

Danny Villalobos Virginia Beach, VA

To the editor:

In the article Science Outside the Box, it occurs to me that all throughout history there has been this "good old boy" network to keep science in the control of the ones in power. Before it was religion that had control, and now it is the universities, the government, and Wall Street. If one dares to think outside the box you are an outcast, no matter how great the possibilities for mankind.