America, Iran and the Cell Phone

I did not grow up in technology years...

There were no computers in my high school until my senior year. When I went to college we typed papers on a typewriter or PAID someone to type them. When DOT matrix printers came out – the professors specifically stated the paper would NOT be accepted if it came from a DOT matrix printer.

There were no cell phones, caller ID and no instant pictures, disposable digital cameras, or internet for that matter, and we remembered our college years – and all the fun we had and really stupid things we did the old fashioned way – memory.

Personally, I think this made life a LOT simpler.

Yesterday, I saw that circulating video of a young woman in Iran who was shot while what appeared to be "just watching" a demonstration. In seconds she was dead, right there for all to see, via the camcorder function of a cell phone. I could not begin to imagine that parent's pain. I cannot begin to imagine the pain of that nation.

Twenty years ago we worried about the USSR and not too much else. We didn't need to worry about Vietnam, it was over, and we didn't need to worry about other countries because other than the nightly news (which college students did NOT watch) we knew nothing about them other than what we read in text books and then only if we studied or opted for that particular course.

Young adults of today are blasted daily by atrocities and violence.

Is there ANY youth left at all? Are there any moments in a person’s life when they are NOT affected by the media and is this a good thing or a bad thing to see a woman die in the arms of her father so far away? Is it better to know and not help or to not know and not help?

And what, specifically has the media done for the United States?

In an attempt to get the story, have journalists with all their modern technology and instant access sacrificed America in its quest to be on the front line? I’m not talking about foreign correspondents either – I am specifically referring to our own citizens who go out on a Humvee with front line soldiers to film what they are doing, and often much more – to get "the story." "The Story" NEVER paints a glowing picture... by far, "The Story" is never good for the United States.

By going into war zones and sending photos and film back and now "instant" coverage via satellite are we dooming our own nation by making the already persistent hatred of the United States legitimate? In attempt to get the best story – are our OWN citizen journalists doing our country an injustice? Was America better portrayed before the introduction of modern technology – because modern technology and its images are never of good deeds, only of torture, and civilian casualties and uprisings – and all there is to hate in the world?

I ask you these questions as a focus of dicussion.

How have technologies – and more specifically - the advancement of media, been positive to America or American culture? Or has media affected the American way of life and how American people are viewed throughout the world in a negative way?

And finally to that girl that was so vivid in my dreams last night and her family:

"The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others." I Corinthians 2:7 CEV

May God rest her soul.