How do you usually reflect upon the seasons of the year and the seasons of your life?
Seasons obviously differ at various times of the year. They also differ in various places.
How do you usually think about seasons in relation to climates?
If this is your first experience of Very Necessary News, welcome.
What do you believe you need to know immediately, and why?
Perhaps you wish to learn more about the art of Very Necessary News.
Perhaps you wish to learn about the science of urgency.
How closely do you live in harmony with the
seasons you experience, and how do you know?
Very Necessary News is brought to you from the Adelaidezone Digital Arts Quarter associated with Adelaide in Australia.
September is the beginning of spring here.
Yet Very Necessary News has a global outlook, even though the images within it are mainly a reflection of medieval Europe.
If you are not yet in the picture about this publication, what are your questions about it, and why?
Please ask your questions while you still have the chance to do so. This publication is only likely to be accessible to the ordinary public for a very short while.
Perhaps you associate
spring with
Renaissance art.
How do you usually summarise time?
How do you prefer to measure time?
How do you shape each year in terms of events of importance to you?
What do you commemorate and celebrate at particular times of the year, and why?
Perhaps you commemorate events and/or celebrate events from
ancient history and/or ancient
mythology.
Perhaps you commemorate events and/or celebrate events from post-classical history.
Perhaps you celebrate the cycles of nature.
Perhaps you live your life as though it is part of a pattern.
Which calendar do you prefer to follow, and why?
How is your body influenced by the rhythms of nature?
How is your mind influenced by those rhythms, and by changes in those rhythms?
How does news influence your interpretations of the world?
When events are enjoyable, you may be pleasantly surprised, at least if you were not expecting such pleasantness.
When situations are particularly unpleasant, you may even be shocked.
If you have particular expectations about politics, you may find your
experiences to be quite surprising when those expectations are either
not met or surpassed.
If you have particular expectations of the seasons, you may be shocked when extreme weather events occur.
What is your understanding of patterns in nature?
Perhaps you find beauty in such patterns.
What is your understanding of
agricultural cycles?
What is your acquaintance with the circadian cycle?
How do you express respect for natural cycles, including the menstrual cycle?
There are many recurring cycles in nature.
How do you reflect upon the meaning of frequency?
How do you reflect upon the meaning of wave?
How do you reflect upon the meaning of seasonality?
If you spend most of your time in a city, or various cities, and mostly fly between cities, you may not have much awareness of natural systems at all.
What is
nature?
What is a natural environment?
When do you most require news about nature?
Very Necessary News is not a periodical.
But what is it?
You may have noticed that it is not a particularly ordinary sort of news publication.
It is not a reflection of the 24-hour news cycle.
It is not a reflection of the journalistic culture associated with that cycle.
It is a reflection of
pleasant journalism.
Reasonably objective news critiques, and critiques of the news, are necessary.
Selecting items to present as news is a form of editorial critiquing in itself.
Making
decisions about the words and images through which to compose a news
item is critiquing, too, as are choices about timing and location.
Similarly, scientific critiques, and critiques of science, include
the selection of items to study, the methodology of the study itself, and
the presentation of findings in terms of content, timing, presentation
and location.
And just as a scientific paper is more likely to be
regarded as trustworthy if it is published in an academic journal with a reputation for trustworthiness, the same should, ideally, apply to
journalism.
How do you distinguish between trustworthiness, prestige and popularity?
How do you distinguish between relevance and irrelevance?
How do you distinguish between the important and the inconsequential?
Many political problems are associated with a failure to distinguish clearly between one concept and another.
Unpleasant politicians, and (other) unpleasant persons of influence through the media, disregard the truth all too frequently, including the truth of nature, and the truth of history.
Such people usually have very little respect for nature, or history, or art, or even society.
How harmoniously do you collate and curate the true state of states, cities, communities, societies and international situations?
Unpleasant journalists, like unpleasant politicians and other unpleasant
persons, have a tendency to behave aggressively when seeking to 'do
their job'.
Apparently, they believe their job is to be unpleasant, but why?
Accurately interpreting events, whether ongoing or recent, or long ago, requires the most suitable knowledge.
What is your acquaintance with sowing seeds and other aspects of plant propagation?
What do you know about social cycle theory?
What do you know about Primavera by Sandro Botticelli?
What do you know about Early Spring by Guo Xi?
What do you know about Tusculum and Stabiae and how has that knowledge influenced your attitude towards life and nature and politics?
How do you respond to allegories of spring and other seasons?
How do you assess traditions?
What were you doing last September and do you intend to act in the same way this month?
How, if at all, do you intend to act differently, and why?
Much unpleasantness arises from mental health problems. Addressing
those problems in a suitably pleasant way is everyone's
responsibility.
That is why the culture of pleasant journalism does not follow the conventions of unpleasant journalism.
Indeed,
no conventional ways of behaving should be followed if they are
detrimental to mental and/or physical health. And nor should
unconventional ways of behaving be followed if they are detrimental.
But how do you ascertain whether a detriment or benefit is likely to arise from your own actions, and for whom?
That, of course, is one of the most central and essential questions of ethics, and politics.
When are proper policies newsworthy and when are improper policies newsworthy?
When have your needs not been met appropriately when you expected otherwise?
How do you usually assess your needs, particularly when feeling distressed?
Mental health problems are associated with an inability to cope with stressful situations, including situations most people do not regard as stressful.
How do you attempt to cope with feeling of loss?
How do you attempt to cope when feeling afraid?
How do you attempt to cope when feeling confused?
How do you support coping?
When, perhaps, have you prevented someone from coping with a distressing situation?
Perhaps you have a reputation for composing quite surprising yet
highly accurate assessments of problems in one or more parts of the
world, whether in a policy context or a journalism context or an
academic context.
Only real leaders encourage the development of pleasant journalism.
Real leaders also do their best to encourage pleasant
politics and proper policies, of course.
What do you encourage, and why?
What do you discourage, and why?
What do you learn from art?
What do you learn from history?
What do you learn from news?
Expectations of appropriateness are cultural.
You may, at times, have found it quite surprising to be treated inappropriately.
You may even have found it quite surprising, in some situations, to be treated much better than you anticipated.
Political pleasantness is necessary if the provision of proper policies is to be possible.
How, if at all, do you contribute to such a necessary practice?
How do you interpret collections of facts?
How do you interpret collections of artifacts?
How do you compose policies to take both the universal and the particular into consideration?
Do you give emphasis to the universal at all times?
You may wish to demonstrate your abilities as a real leader today.
How will you do so?
How will you illustrate your leadership abilities?
Perhaps you will define proper politics in the context of mental, physical, interpersonal and environmental health.
Perhaps you will do so with syllogistic arguments rather than silly ones.
Perhaps you will present your well-informed, logically structured assessment of the meaning of life in the context of philosophical universality, metaphysical universals and human rights.
Perhaps you will start by clearly defining the universal and the particular.
Perhaps you will explain the
problem of universals and the
problem of discrimination in the context of proper policies.
How do you distinguish between the conventional and unconventional, and why?
Perhaps you have quite a conventional manner, even visually and verbally. But what does that mean in various contexts?
Real leaders respect and express the necessity to distinguish clearly
between pleasantness and flippancy. The latter befits the realm of
satire, not the realm of real politics and proper policies.
When, though, is satire most necessary?
The answer, of course, is whenever proper policies fail to be implemented with the urgency required.
Perhaps you would prefer satire this month rather than, or in addition to, news.
Or perhaps you would prefer to forget the present and future for a while and give your full attention to ancient history or later history.
All good decisions meet needs appropriately. Yet meeting needs in
difficult situations often requires appropriate assistance from various
people, whether inside or outside organisations, or both.
In any organisation or situation, whether associated with government or
business or domestic life or community experiences, proper policies are
meant to guide good decisions.
Unfortunately, improper policies and improper practices are often prevalent.
What do you know about improper approaches to months and seasons?
What do you know about inappropriate plans?
What do you know about inadequate morality?
Conventional approaches to ethics, through various societal
practices,
often fail to take account of the reality of unpleasant politics,
unpleasant journalism, improper policies, mental health problems,
differences in temperament, differences in temperature, and the urgency of needs.
Unconventional
approaches to ethics are usually ignored by the persons benefiting
most from conventional practices and improper policies.
Yet
good mental health often depends upon political pleasantness, as does
good physical health for that matter.
That is why the questions here
are not merely rhetorical questions. They require your urgent answers.
You may find that quite surprising in itself.
You may have noticed that improper policies tend to be developed and perpetuated to
support a particular type of economy, not a particular type of society.
And most economies fail to support healthy societies.
How, if at all, are your policy decisions informed by enlightened economics?
The conventional often ignores the universal but so does the
aggressively unconventional.
Neither provide appropriate responses to
urgent needs, or ongoing necessities.
What does your patronage support?
What does your philanthropy support?
How do you prefer to combine your patronage and philanthropy with your investment practices to support very necessary news, and possibly even
Very Necessary News?
What sort of news do you require now, and why, and from whom?
Pleasant journalism is peacefully unconventional.
Pleasant politics is peacefully unconventional.
Both are absolutely necessary to the development and implementation of proper policies.
Perhaps
you associate pleasantness with superficial charm. Even so, you are
unlikely to associated pleasantness with deceptiveness and gullibility,
unless you are a manipulative person.
Unfortunately, far too many people are gullible, which is why they
cannot distinguish between quality information and utter nonsense. It
is why they are much more likely to vote for grinning bullies rather than real
leaders.
And far too many people, including gullible ones, use manipulative tactics to gain advantage over other people.
Similarly, most people misguidedly associate pleasantness
with perceptions of happiness, expressions of cheerfulness and experiences of fun. They mistakenly believe a
serious-minded person is uninterested in enjoyment and is possibly even a bully and killjoy.
How are servants of democracy meant to respond, and who provides them with appropriate guidance?
Perhaps you associate spring with
tulips.
Perhaps you associate mainstream economics with tulip mania.
Without pleasant journalism, pleasant politics is unlikely to occur, and nor is pleasant economics.
How well do you serve democracy, and how do you know?
If you are not yet a servant of democracy, what are your reasons for not filling that important societal position?
How do you define democracy if not in terms of enlightened, secular suitability?
How
do you define pleasant politics and how does that definition relate to
the enlightened, secular suitability of properly democratic practices?
With which part(s) of the world are you most familiar, and how, and why?
What do you understand about the global context of life?
Do you often mistake the short-term provision of comfort for perceptions of long-term compatibility?
Where, if anywhere, have you experienced elegant egalitarianism?
If you regard egalitarianism as distasteful, why is that the case?
Why are such questions important to the assessment of whether news is very necessary, slightly necessary or not necessary at all?
How do you assess the appropriateness, or otherwise, of the ways in which news is presented?
How do you assess the appropriateness, or otherwise, of the ways in which pleasant journalism is funded?
How do you assess the appropriateness, or otherwise, of the ways in which pleasant politics is funded?
Who, if anyone, has ever attempted to provide the world with political pleasantness, and how successfully?
What has been recorded about the factual and fictional communities you admire, and how, and where?
How do you know whether the associated real or imagined cultural practices are currently part of mainstream culture?
Throughout history, political pleasantness has never been particularly well examined, even by purported philosophers.
You may find that quite surprising.
Yet most philosophers have not been servants of democracy.
Being clear about definitions is essential, especially when politics and philanthropy are rarely defined clearly enough.
Unfortunately, the general public has shown itself to be uninterested in pleasant
journalism. Most members of the ordinary public are not even interested in any sort of
journalism, including the unpleasant sort.
That very large
portion of the global public is mainly interested in being entertained,
either by popular culture and/or bigoted opinions and/or superstitious traditions, primarily as a
way to soothe itself when distressed.
Controversy is often indicative of unreasonableness, not diversity. Even within factual
communities, recording processes, of various sorts, and interpretations of records, of various sorts, have tended to
destroy authenticity and civility.
Many bigoted opinions are expressed in a tabloid way. They may even be
mistaken for real journalism, in much the same way that bigoted opinions
in governments are mistakenly and/or deceptively described as democracy.
Widespread emotional abuse happens through the mass media, through
social media, through horribly deceptive political campaigns, through various
forms of advertising, and even in people's everyday experiences. Widespread environmental harm continues to happen.
You may be aware that crudeness is usually associated with selfish assumptions about normality, and success.
To be both crude and kind is impossible.
Crudeness, like cruelty, always negates civility and compassion.
Sometimes, after being shocked to read something
unpleasant in the abusive news media or elsewhere, you may have had a pleasant surprise when learning the
truth about a particular matter.
But where is the truth usually to be found, and how do you seek it?
What do you know about political philanthropy in relation to the provision and distribution of quality news?
How do you measure the quality of news?
How do you measure the quality of art and literature?
How do you measure the quality of government policies?
How do you measure the quality of economic practices?
How have you become acquainted with enlightened moderation?
There are quite surprising things to learn every day in relation to various problems, yet that is no
reason for anyone to be emotionally abusive or otherwise unpleasant.
There
is much bullying in the world, some of which may be regarded as exceptionally newsworthy.
But how is news meant to improve the world, if at all?
How, if at all does knowledge of music improve the world?
How, if at all, does knowledge of nature improve the world?
How, if at all, does knowledge of art improve the world?
Perhaps you are acquainted with a series of violin concerti by Antonio Vivaldi called The Four Seasons.
Perhaps you are acquainted with
various operatic works, other artistic works and various
anachronisms associated with the story of
Orpheus.
What is your acquaintance with the story of Orpheus and Eurydice?
What is your acquaintance with Persephone and other vegetation deities?
Most people do not appreciate the pleasures of the mind
and the intellectual joy arising from it. Nor do they understand and
respect the policies most proper to the provision of pleasantness in and
towards a peaceful, prosperous society.
Most people are also
unaware than superficially serious individuals are charlatans, hiding
aggressive tendencies by masquerading as respectably intelligent and
caring persons when they are nothing of the sort.
What sort of person are you?Perhaps you change for the worse from one month and season to the next.
Or perhaps you change for the better.
What do you find quite surprising in relation to politics and policies, and why?
How have you examined various perceptions of September?
How do you assess the development and implementation of proper policies in the contexts of political pleasantness and political unpleasantness?
How do you assess the development and implementation of proper policies in the contexts of environmental pleasantness and environmental unpleasantness?
Who is laughing at the possibility for political pleasantness as if it is a joke, and why? One person's idea of political pleasantness, and/or environmental pleasantness, is likely to differ considerably from that of someone in a different socioeconomic position, and from someone with a different set of moral and aesthetic values.
Whether you are mainly involved in democracy directly as a citizen and/or politician or
indirectly as a journalist and/or voter, how do you usually try to present yourself
as pleasantly surprising rather than unpleasantly shocking?
How do you critique the unpleasantly shocking?
How do you critique the pleasantly surprising?
Perhaps you regard authentic pleasantness as something quite odd.
You may not have met many authentically pleasant persons in a world so
often inhabited by the selfishly ambitious, the cruel, the mildly
exploited and the seriously harmed.
You may even believe that a well-informed approach to journalistic patronage is impossible.
Do you usually associate trustworthiness with pleasantness and/or seriousness?There is a considerable difference between perceptions of happiness and genuine contentment, of course.
Similarly, there is a considerable difference between perceptions of trustworthiness and actual trustworthiness.
Political pleasantness is not a game.
Environmental pleasantness is not guaranteed.
How have you been investing in life over the past year, and what have been the results?
How have you been investing in justice over the past year, and what have been the results?
How do you define 'local content' and 'local context' when assessing news and culture?How do you define newsworthiness on a day-to-day basis?
How do you define necessary ethics on a daily basis, and on a seasonal basis?
Where do you usually locate trustworthy local, national and international information, whether it is newsworthy or not? How do you identify local appropriateness?
Where do you usually locate credible warnings?
What do you do when your warnings are unheeded?
What do you do when your needs are disregarded?
What is public interest journalism in relation to necessary social research practices, and where is that journalism expressed?
Where in the world is it reasonably safe and straightforward to
express values and practices in the public interest, and how do you
know?
Where in the world is it relatively unsafe to express those values and practices, and why?
Freedom of "the press" is the right of everyone, everywhere, to acquire
and share necessary information in the public interest.
That is why defining the
public interest accurately is so important, everywhere.
It is also why defining each new month and season accurately, in the local context, is also necessary.
Which sorts of work and study and volunteering do you do you intend to do over the next few weeks, and why?
Which sorts of comparisons will you be making, and why?
Perhaps you will be comparing the 1630s with the 1880s.
What does an image tell you about comparing one event with another?
Perhaps you will be comparing the 1930s with the late 2000s.
Perhaps you will be comparing the 1660s with the 2020s.
How will you be comparing this month with the same month last year?
How do you intend to be involved in preventing corruption this month, and where?
How do you intend to be involved in examining art this month, and where?
How do you intend to be involved in examining civility this month, and where?
How do you intend to explore ideas about nationality, citizenship and legal status this month, and where?
How will you attempt to solve mysteries this month, and where?
Where do you intend to locate a few enlightening references, and why?
Where do you intend to seek answers to a few enlightening questions?
What has been the typical cycle of the labours of the months in your life, and why?
And what do you believe will become your typical cycle of labours in the future, and why?
What have you been learning from the history of agricultural illustrations?
