So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous - - yes.
The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and proceeded to pour the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
"Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - - your family, your partner, your health, your children, your friends, your favorite passions - - things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else - - the small stuff."
"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out dancing. Play another 18. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal."
"Take care of the golf balls first - - the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.
The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers."
I said pretty much nil. It is just people grandstanding to please media. Here is part of a story from the Washington Post.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted Thursday to
overturn parts of a Federal Communications Commission
decision freeing media companies from decades-old
ownership limits and allowing them to buy more
outlets and merge in new ways.
The proposal, which faces an uncertain future in the
full Senate and a tough road in the House, would roll
back changes that allowed individual companies to own
television stations reaching nearly half the nation's
viewers and combinations of newspapers and broadcast
stations in the same city.
"I would like the FCC to start all over," said Sen.
Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who opposes the
changed rules. She said they are "potentially
dangerous to media diversity in this country.”
This is just noise making. The senate committee passed it the senate may but the house will do nothing. The new rules adopted will stand. Prior to now the networks have had a lot of power over local stations. Stations could do as the network said, or lose the right to carry the networks programs.
Now several companies will acquire stations until they have significant number of stations on one of the networks. Then a group perhaps owning twenty five or more percent of the stations carrying the network, could say, take DAn Rather off and put an unbiased reporter in his place or we will drop CBS on all of our stations. CBS would lose a huge percent of its revenue. It would have to fold.
CBS will have to buy local stations or lose control of its own format. It will in effect have to please its customers. CBS does not want to do that.
These senators of both the left and the right who are on the communications committee get big donations from the media. They are doing what the media wants. But the media does not have the right people bought.
What this says of the major media, is we bought senators and it didn't work.