Full Moon & Winter Solstice

December 20, 2018

Solstice is Friday, December 21 at 3:22pm Mountain Standard Time

☆☆☆

Full Moon is Saturday, December 22 at 10:48am Mountain Standard Time.

[POWER PATH]

Solstices are always about a powerful s gift from the old into something new. This one is no exception. They are important times to release the past and to gain some clarity and set some intentions for the future.

“As we are moving into a time where the element of earth is prevalent, this solstice offers an opportunity for grounding and anchoring this intentions with the help of Pacha Mama. On the other hand, the grounded quality can also bring up places of resistance, stubbornness and where you are still holding on to something past. Watch bones, teeth and joints during this time. In addition to our usual recommendation to do some kind of ceremony or ritual, we also recommend the you make some kind of a change in your physical environment to honor the change of season and the power of the solstice. Get rid of something, move some furniture, bring in something new that better represents who you are. The solstice is also a time of renewal. What needs to be freshened up in your life? For a ritual or ceremony, you can write down what you wish to release, burn or bury the writing, and then focus on your new intentions, writing down what is clear to you at this time. As we are moving into a year of chaos fighting structure, how you use this time of the solstice (and the full moon on Saturday) will help you to get your ducks in a row in anticipation of the times. The Solstice this year is followed closely by a Full Moon that honors the other influence of 2019, water. Water represents the emotions, fluidity, flexibility, and is a powerful agent of change. Earth and water will be working together in 2019 either harmoniously bringing fertility and balance into your life, or forcefully, creating change at inconvenient times. Use this Full Moon time in conjunction with the Solstice to check in with your intuition and emotional self to see the truth of what you need to let go of and the truth about what you truly wish to bring in to your life. It is a time where being around others of like mind and heart is helpful. As addictions will be a challenge in 2019, our sincere hope and wish for everyone is for a collective release of the addiction to suffering. Another good way to use this Full Moon/Solstice time is to contemplate all the structures in your life, all the containers you have created to support you. Are they still in resonance with you? Or do they need some adjustment in order to give you some room to change? Don’t be afraid of a little chaos as you are moving things around both physically and emotionally. Do it in bits and pieces one step at a time and as long as you keep things moving, you will be fine.”

 

Idaho Press

The State of the 4th Estate

AP

“The number of journalists killed worldwide in retaliation for their work nearly doubled this year, according to an annual report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.”

• “34 journalists were killed in retaliation for their work, … while at least 53 were killed overall. That compares to 18 retaliation killings among the 47 deaths documented by the committee in 2017.”
• “[J]ournalists have died in combat or crossfire, or on other dangerous assignments. The deadliest country for journalists this year has been Afghanistan, where 13 journalists were killed.”
• “[T]he imprisonment of journalists has [also] been on the rise.”

“Media freedom group Reporters Without Borders said … the U.S. made it into the top five deadliest countries for journalists this year for the first time, with six dying, including four who were among five people killed by a gunman who opened fire in the offices of Maryland newspaper Capital Gazette.”

The Fresno Bee and the War on Local News

December 19, 2018 9:37 AM

Local newspapers like The Fresno Bee have long been an endangered institution in America, and that was before California Rep. Devin Nunes began waging a public campaign against his hometown paper. Zach Baron spent time with the reporters fighting to keep news alive in an age when the forces they cover are working equally hard to destroy them.

“In October, the University of North Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism released a study that estimated that a full 20 percent of all local newspapers have gone out of business or merged since 2004. Since then, an additional 1,300-plus communities in the United States have found themselves without any news source about their own city, town, or county. “Our sense of community and our trust in democracy at all levels suffer when journalism is lost or diminished,” the authors of the report wrote. “In an age of fake news and divisive politics, the fate of communities across the country—and of grassroots democracy itself—is linked to the vitality of local journalism.”

https://www.gq.com/story/fresno-bee-and-war-on-local-news/amp?__twitter_impression=true

New owners of local news franchises are lest invested in local news: Industry economics have prioritized national news over local.

• A study from Duke University’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy earlier this year found that only 17% of news stories in a community are actually local, meaning they’re actually about or having taken place within a municipality.
• And less than half of the news stories (43%) provided to a community by local media outlets are original.
• This is often because holding groups are consolidating resources, forcing local reporters to focus on national stories that reach bigger audiences.

The rise of paywalls means that high quality information will funnel to elites: As the digital advertising landscape continues to evolve, it’s becoming evident that digital ad dollars will continue to flow primarily to tech platforms rather than news publishers.

• Because of this, publishers are setting up paywalls (subscriptions, members, etc.) to survive. And while more Americans say they are willing to pay for news, those with higher levels of education are more likely to do so. In all, 66% of adults with a college degree pay for news, compared to 43% of people with a high school diploma or less.

• “There is a growing gap in public knowledge between the information-rich and the information-poor,” says Rodney Benson, chair of NYU’s Department of Media.

• Benson cites other Westernized countries that have less of an information gap because of widely-available publicly-funded broadcast television. Examples include the BBC in the U.K., SVT in Sweden or ZDF/ARD in Germany.

What’s next? The death of local news in rural America is expected to accelerate.

[AXIOS]

“Increasingly, journalism serves as a powerful force for exclusion, for keeping quality information away from those who need it most, for discouraging anyone but the richest, most educated citizens from participating in the public conversation.”

— Rodney Benson, chair of NYU’s Department of Media Culture & Communication

SVI ☀️

Sun Valley Institute, “advancing economic, and social resilience in Blaine County with models and programs that are scalable and replicable nationally.”