The air is hot and sticky and there’s a palm tree outside my window. I had jollof rice and fried plantain for dinner and waiting for my luggage at the airport, I was a dot of white in a sea of beautiful black bodies. As Dorothy noted to Toto, “I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Welcome to Ghana.
Meeting some of the lovely people who have convened here for our 5th Orff-Afrique course, we were happily eating dinner under a TV set that was showing the same-old same-old. That was a deep cognitive dissonance and got me thinking about the news.
The dictionary definition of “new” is: Produced, introduced, or discovered recently or now for the first time; not existing before.
In light of that definition, why do we call it the “news?” Pick any day and you’ll see that there is nothing new whatsoever about people thinking bombs solve problems, that politicians lie and cheat, that a traumatized population is addicted to drugs, violence, alcohol, chronic abuse, depression. The news is nothing new at all, just the endless sad list of human failing and folly replayed over and over and over again. What would really qualify as news?
• The President admitted that he has lied repeatedly to the people, is supremely unqualified to meet the requirements of this esteemed office and hurt innocent people. Showing deep remorse, he resigned from his office, fired JD Vance and Mike Johnson, appointed Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to take over and assigned Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, replaced Clarence Thomas with Barack Obama, Brett Kavanaugh with Stacey Abrams, Amy Coney Barret with my SF School alum lawyer David Edeli.
• Israel, Palestine and Iran have convened a cabinet of mothers with young babies to meet and watch their children play together before making any decisions about sharing land, resources and laws that protect human rights. All men previously in power are sent to a rehabilitation camp to care for young children and learn the lessons they’ve refused.
• FOX news has announced it will be off the air and deeply apologized to the American people for filling their minds with fear, disinformation, misinformation, truly fake news and overall brainwashing of a population clinging to an identity formed by a white supremacy and patriarchal narrative. They will pay back all the money they earned to invest in free health care, free college tuition, arts programs and trauma healing centers.
• Hollywood has agreed to stop making its relentless movies with macho men, sexy women, mindless plots and guns, guns, guns to help lead viewers to better versions of themselves.
• The NRA disbanded, stopped the manufacture of assault rifles, lobbied for strict gun control laws, apologized to families of school shooting massacres and signed up for perpetual community service.
• Dr. Kofi Gbolonyo has been appointed by both Canada and the U.S. to be the Minister of Art and Culture. He is currently training 35 music teachers from around the world in the fifth Orff-Afrique Course as ambassadors to their respective shithole countries to show how playing, singing and dancing help create a genuine and joyful community.
Now that would qualify as news!
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