2025 June 10 Perspective instead of headlines

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Perspective: Looking Beyond the Headlines

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me today to talk about perspective.

You might be thinking, What, perspective again, Jim? And I'll answer yes—because on this day, June 10th, 2025, we need some perspective on some of the recent headlines and news stories. This is quite different from the recent series on SMART goals and general life improvement, but it's at least as important for living a peaceful life. It's something we should not lose track of: staying aware of what's going on around us.

If you're watching this as a replay, today is about the third day of the riots in Los Angeles. Los Angeles, as a friend of mine reminded me—he lives there—is actually a collection of many areas working together under the direction of the County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors. They run this whole huge area. I think he said it's the third or fourth largest metropolitan area in the U.S., or the largest county.

Just for perspective, the city of Los Angeles alone has 15 separate districts. So when people talk about Los Angeles, it's actually a huge, sprawling region. But what's being shown on the news these past couple of days are continual images from one small area of one section of Los Angeles. There are numerous peaceful demonstrations happening all throughout Los Angeles County, but even though those are peaceful, they're not being shown.

And even that one—the one you keep seeing pictures of—that was peaceful until it was escalated.

So how do I know this? I have multiple friends who live out there, and they have friends who were involved in the early peaceful marches. They have pictures and videos of them, and there was not all this drama. Even if you look at some of the local news reports, there are more interesting things going on. But a peaceful march doesn't grab attention, make headlines, or justify calling out the U.S. Marine Corps in opposition to the local government. For that, you need a riot—and that is what you'll get in all the headlines and on social media.

There are multiple marches going on for the same cause, and it's demanding that constitutionally guaranteed access to due process be followed. It's not a mystery. It's been in the news all over the place for a long time. And it should be followed for any crime. There are no special crimes that bypass that—except in very specific exceptions.

These protests are happening in Boston, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, and elsewhere. Most of them are generally peaceful. But again, they aren't especially being covered—because who wants to hear about a peaceful demonstration?

The Reality Behind the Headlines

This is where perspective comes in. Try to look past the headlines and the hype. Instead, try imagining going out to look for a job—some side work or a day job—hanging out at a Home Depot or something, and being arrested, handcuffed, and threatened with being immediately deported to another country, even though you're a citizen. And you're picked up simply because you're speaking Spanish.

That's happening without due process—for people who speak Spanish, including those who have valid, active asylum orders.

Some of these people being picked up are citizens of the United States—handcuffed, given no chance to explain anything. Taken down, booked, and finally, after some period of time—sometimes days—cleared and released. We're also deporting thousands of Indians back to India. It's becoming a major issue for India's President, Modi, because people there are seeing all these pictures of handcuffed Indian parents being immediately deported—and again, without due process.

Please keep the issues—and not just the headlines—in perspective. Once again, we have to stay focused and keep perspective. TV and the media are magicians at generating deceptive film and images. There have been many incidents where huge crowds were shown on TV, but they actually turned out to be relatively small crowds, filmed up close or from unusual angles.

Two Critical Questions

Question number one you should always ask yourself: Does this even make sense? All the early news pictures and videos showed the same burning car from multiple angles—but just one car. If disorder was so widespread, why was only one car being filmed?

Question number two is similar: Who stands to gain from what's going on? It's commonplace now—if there's any unrest, bad people often show up to start looting. That's a sad commentary on many things, but it's not limited to this one episode. Still, if people weren't breaking things to begin with and were trying to justify why they shouldn't get kicked out, why would they start causing trouble? That's a well-known automatic escort out of the country. It works against their own cause.

It makes no sense.

That's when you have to pause and consider—the next time you hear some breathless report or blaring headline—ask yourself: does this actually make sense?

Your Assignment

So to wrap it up—even if it's not a riot or a major incident—whenever you read the news, especially if it's a big breaking news story, the more breathless it is, the more you should do this: immediately start searching for perspective about the whole situation. Ask yourself two simple questions: Does this make sense? Who stands to gain?

If it doesn't make sense and the actions clearly harm the cause, that's probably a pretty good hint that you should start to reevaluate what's being claimed and form some of your own opinions. Then start looking for reasons that do make sense.

Your homework tonight is simply to think about any news headlines you might have seen—recent ones are a good example—after some breaking news story. It could be weather-related, or anything. Then think about how things actually evolved once the facts became known.

Often, you'll find a significant difference between what was initially claimed and what was eventually found to be the truth.

Ways to Help

Thanks very much for joining me. Please remember the many wars and political hotspots throughout the world. Things are just not good in a lot of areas.

UKR7.com is where we have links to ways you can support Ukraine. WCK.org is World Central Kitchen—those are the people who go in after disasters, often natural disasters like hurricanes, landslides, or mudslides. Both are great organizations.

But as we always talk about—you have people doing work locally. Any of these people can always use help—donations of time, donations of money, whatever you're able to give. And if you're not in a situation where you can afford to or don't want to donate time or money, you still have the ability to make life around you a little bit better.

See someone on the street? Smile. Just make their day a little brighter. That ripple effect can help make things a little nicer for everyone.

So: UKR7.com, WCK.org, or any local organization. Just be pleasant to people. Do a tiny bit to make the world a better place.

As always, thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along. Please subscribe, hit that like button. If not, please drop me a comment as to what you'd like to hear.

Have a great week. Remember to live the life that you dream of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com. Thank you.