Happy Easter

Even us non-believers occasionally get an Easter treat.

Happy Easter. I'm not religious myself, but I'm aware, by virtue of a Catholic upbringing, of the significance of Easter. May the holiday bring you joy.

Myself, well, I was surely a candidate for world's youngest atheist. I never really believed in heaven or higher powers, even at an early age. I surely had my chances: parochial schools, mandatory weekly masses (I was even a server), but all to no avail. Mama tried.

Somewhere along the way, in a catechism class, a nun told me that you had to be a Catholic in good standing to get into heaven. When I asked about my dad, who was not Catholic, she replied “There's still time for him to be saved.” Any heaven would not admit my old man, over a technicality, just wasn't for me. I haven't changed my mind since.

Those of you who know me, either in person or through my columns and essays, know that I am perpetually a glass-half-full guy. I'm always bullish on the future, I'm irredeemably optimistic that our best days are ahead. I think that history backs my view. There have always been ebbs and flows, but generally humankind has managed to improve it's lot through the ages.

A century ago, medicine was just eschewing leeches, streets in many cities were still filled with horse poop and communication was via analog signals over copper wire. Now we develop vaccines at warp speed to deal with a world-wide pandemic, you can travel anywhere in the world in less than a day and communications have evolved to the point that you may learn about anything you desire in seconds with a few taps on a keyboard.

All of that sure sounds like progress to me.

But there are a lot of folks out there who see a perpetual cloud of doom over everything ahead. It's not up to me to say, definitively, that they are wrong, but I sure do disagree.

Occasionally we move ourselves forward in leaps and bounds: the space program, the Internet, modern medicine. But most of the time it's in small increments. This morning I encountered one of those. And as little as I, an atheist, deserve an Easter treat, I surely got one. And it won't blow up my keto carb restrictions.

This morning, on one of the Sunday morning media self-examination cable news shows, I encountered a discussion concerning the manner in which the recent mass-casualty shooting in the 36th street subway station, in Brooklyn, NY, was covered by the media.

The suspect, Frank James, 62, is alleged to have donned a construction helmet, a high-vis safety vest and a gas mask, before boarding the subway and subsequently launching an attack on unwitting passengers with smoke grenades and a Glock. Unexploded home-made bombs found at the scene indicate that his intentions may have been far worse.

Although Mr. James was identified, first as a person of interest and later as a suspect, almost immediately, there was virtually no mention that he was black and that he had a rich and highly visible social media history of promoting black nationalism and violence.

Many, myself included, viewed the fact that much of the media was unwilling to identify Mr. James as black, in the middle of a man hunt, as a clear example of woke nonsense. In this case, highly counterproductive woke nonsense.

Had the subject been a white nationalist, I'm quite sure that the headlines would have screamed racism. Had the suspect been Muslim, the headlines would have been about terrorism. But in this case, aside from “we are looking for a guy,” crickets.

But what I heard on this show, this morning, gave me some hope. These days you can't just have media analysts and critics who call balls and strikes down the middle, you have to have one from the left side of the political spectrum and one from the right. It's what I heard from the one on the left that, at least in my view, moved us ahead, even if just ever so slightly.

The analyst in question, a former Democratic operative and current journalist, admitted that editors and producers often insist that race be downplayed in incidents like this, for the explicit purpose of limiting the blow back on the communities that they come from.

There's a good dollop of the truth right there - and I respect her greatly for saying it out loud. I've had a belly full of partisan fact checkers on the left and the right trying to justify their slant on the news as “objective” by pointing to utterly silly and useless things like the number of hits in a LexisNexis query (without noting placement). This woman, by simply admitting the obvious and then the reasoning behind it, enabled a productive conversation.

“Yes, it's true, here's why.” That is incredibly refreshing – and enabling.

The fact of the matter is that I, a slightly right of center person, see the logic in her point of view. Just admit the obvious. What I don't see is denying that there's any truth to it when it's just obvious that's wrong.

A lot of people claim to want honest conversations, but I meet very few who actually do. Just last week I was moderating a discussion in a group that's raison d'etre is promoting civil discussions and got yelled over by a partisan who objected to the parameters that I set out for a discussion. You don't get very far like that.

Anyway, that's my Easter treat – at least for now. I left about 100 Easter eggs out on our private motorcycle track that the kids are going to go look for later. That ought to be awesome as well.

For more on all of these essays, please visit my video blog, address below.

Associated Press and Idaho Club award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding mountain bikes and motorcycles and playing guitars. His commentary may be found on Substack (martinhackworth.substack.com) and his video blog: “Howlin' at the Moon in ii-V-I” may be found at https://www.facebook.com/HowlinattheMoonin251/ and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6C9D1ueAe_7HB55uhdPDhg