I am always looking for how to put the power of media technologies to work to make the world a better place. Wouldn't it be great if we didn't need to use so much energy hating some other person, group or country? If our lives are essentially the expenditure of energy over time, think about how much energy that would leave left over for stuff we wanted to do! The following is a great example. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is a civil rights watch group. CAIR has thanked Matt Groenig of Fox's "The Simpsons" for an episode that challenges negative stereotypes. Shows like this can do a great service because they start to normalize more accepting beliefs. Often efforts to do the right thing are so grim and heavy-handed that they end up preaching to the choir, as the expression goes. If you directly assault someone's beliefs, it is more likely to close their ears than open their eyes. I like to think of effective education as, to quote novelist Nancy Mitford, as … [Read more...]