ASU announces its plan for massive enrollment in the tens of millions. Quite a shocking USA Today headline! It certainly caught my attention in the age of splintered and tribalized media.
Plus, at ASU, we’ll find the Cronkite School of Journalism. Good luck trying to export that to “Third-World” countries” (ole-school football, ole-school journalism and ole– school, well, WASP, MAGA? and MOOC – Massive Open Online Courses). Currently ASU has about 13,500 Chinese students – out of a quarter of a million in the US. Many are attending UT – in Texas, where an effort to drive them out to get votes by a former manicurist turned congressional candidate is underway.
President Biden devotes at least 5 minutes of his Press Briefing to how media coverage has morphed since the days he started out in politics. He perhaps alluded to those days when Cronkite and two competitive networks closed out their Evening News , his with “That’s the way it is” (“just the facts, mam”).
Ted Koppel , formerly of Nightline, went on the defense of Donald J Trump, stating that Opinion is not News.
We all know we watch and read anything just to confirm our bias. Heck, it’s all in the demographics and psychographics (WASP’s feel at home when hearing a Chaplain’s prayer: ” All–knowing, all–seeing God, look upon us this day. Nothing is hidden from Your sight. All that we are is laid bare before You,” in Congress or at the Cathedral – albeit our founders fled from similar State Church to begin with).
We are creatures of habits. Make the past great again. More machine, less human?. Card-board cut-outs of past great White Presidents. “Hang Mike Pence!” – A time to kill and a time to be born – as urged on by the Pope (who has the time to bear and raise children given the ticking down of the Atomic Clock? Both in China and America… the slogan should be “Make love, not war” – Cold War 2.0).
Instead, just fight it over in the Olympics. Watch the show of force, of discipline and of strength exhibited: “I am invincible” (against the Omicron). Best way to have the cake and eat it too, is to throw other-than-Chinese-overseas students into the mix, killing two birds with one stone. Voila, more STEM students, more revenues (overseas), and still keeps a Lilly-white football stadium (Chinese can watch via delay broadcast, from, where else? Cronkite School of Journalism).
More Chinese students, more Chinese restaurants in Tempe, AZ and Texas. But it’s not a guaranteed increase in enrollment at its Journalism School. We might have some Chinese journalists trained for the Epoch Times, the Washington Times…and other tribalized social media (preaching to the choir), since the money (ad revenue) no longer spread just between the 3 major networks as in the times of young Biden.
Climate and immigration, all swept under the rug (Did they ask about Afghanistan at Biden Press Briefing yesterday? Only Ukraine and an uptick in military funding – without the “squeezing” for opponent’s dirt, got mentioned). “Push them back, push them back, way back…outside of our physical borders, our firewalls, but let the tuition flow in”. Immigration problems? what problem? Worst case, we’ll ease up on inter-racial marriages, provided they are baptized, sprinkled or immersed. British Invasion? Welcome. Others’ invasion? No way.
Cronkite once put on combat fatigue, helmet unhooked, for a stand-up from Nam: “the best we can hope for is a stalemate”….that got President Johnson’s attention, and in turn, cost him a re-election. “Whoever lost Cronkite, lost Middle America”. That’s the way it is . Today, we’ve got Bannon replacing Limbaugh, and soon, Wallace for Cuomo. Like an IMAX theater sound fade-in and increase in volume “the audience is listening”…but nobody is watching or believing.
We’re just here to do time, to confirm our bias and to foot the bills. If White Christian America can’t grow its homogeneous Nationalist base, we’ll have to go off-shore – labors overseas, in-shoring techs (brain gain) and with Massive Overseas Online Courses (those card-board cut-outs – better be with masks – an equivalent of late-night laugh tracks, just to show of a hockey-stick growth in Chinese student enrollment…until and unless Cold War 2.0 forces our hand.
Then we might have to put them in internment camps just like the Japs before them… : follow the money and the ole script, Olympics or Omicron. “The best we can hope for is….a stalemate,” due to both countries’ demographics decline. a prolong phase prejudice-prone Japs have had to reckon with for decades – just ask the Filipinos short-term guest-workers of Tokyo.
I wonder if Cronkite himself can recognize today’s journalism on the internet and cable news…President Biden certainly could but still feels engulfed. A three-hour treat yesterday is quite rare – given today’s attention span – of a gold fish. That’s the way it is.
Thang Nguyen 555 