Rex Smith

In this commentary last week, we discussed some notions of how to maintain our mental health in turbulent times for America. Not that I’m a psychologist, mind you – I’m just a journalist, who has come across some research that I consider worth passing along.

Being a guy, you know, I assumed for a long time that I was supposed to be able to fix things. For years, this led to lots of disappointment, especially early in our marriage, before my wife figured out that my skill set was limited to – well, punctuation, I guess. It took me longer than most folks to understand that it’s OK to not even try to be the fix-it guy – and that sometimes folks just want you to listen and care, not to tell them what to do. People are less eager to be confronted with an agenda than to be comforted with understanding, I finally learned.

I was always impressed with the many titles of Haile Selassie, who was the Emperor of Ethiopia for 45 years starting in 1930. I mean, he ruled! After all, who could withstand the power of a guy known as “Keeper of the Door,” and “King of Kings” and, especially, “Lion of the Tribe of Judah, His Imperial Majesty.” That’s a seriously fine job title.

I didn’t grow up in a wealthy family, and I mean no disrespect to those who did when I say that the qualities that matter in people – that is, the lessons that we hope our kids absorb – have nothing to do with earning power. People can get rich even if they are foolish or immoral or ignorant.

Some folks may assert that 70 is the new 50, but I’m a bit more of a realist than that, and so I’ll tell you that I’m an older guy who started practicing journalism more than a half-century ago – which means that I remember when network newscasts were the way most Americans got their news, and how sober and straightforward all that reporting seemed.

We all support free speech – or say we do, anyway. A poll last year found that 93 percent of Americans consider the First Amendment vital. But what do we think about misinformation and intentional disinformation – which now runs rampant, especially on social media, with potentially deadly consequences? What happens when our right to free speech runs smack up against lies that can put people and whole nations at risk, and that can alter history?

There was a telling moment in Donald Trump’s first press conference after returning to the Oval Office, when he encountered a sharp line of questioning by a network correspondent about his pardons of the January 6th rioters.

That guy Will Shakespeare gave us a lot of phrases that now come trippingly to the tongue. (Get it? That’s one of Shakespeare’s phrases.) But Shakespeare often gets credit for a line that actually was not his, namely, “All’s fair in love and war,” to which some folks now add, “and politics.” The attribution to Shakespeare is wrong – as is any countenancing of politics as a no-holds-barred brawl.

At a fire department garage in northern California, there’s a light bulb that has burned continuously for more than 120 years. So you may wonder, “Why have my bulbs at home been burning out while that one has kept shining?” It’s because a handful of powerful men decided a century ago that light bulbs should be made worse — that is, less long-lasting and dependable. And there’s a lesson in that for all of us.

At a fire department garage in northern California, there’s a light bulb that has burned continuously for more than 120 years. So you may wonder, “Why have my bulbs at home been burning out while that one has kept shining?” It’s because a handful of powerful men decided a century ago that light bulbs should be made worse — that is, less long-lasting and dependable. And there’s a lesson in that for all of us.