Check out the backgrounds.  They can be informative, entertaining, affirming – and unpredictable.

It may have originated with TV weather forecasters.  Remember when the guy or woman (always exceptionally attractive) would stand there and, with a pointer, turn to a weather map on display behind them.  That’s when we first learned about cold fronts, Canadian air masses, high pressure areas, fast moving bands of thunder storms, shifting jet streams and wind chill factors.  These background maps became even more sophisticated over the years and no doubt helped us to realize how complicated were weather dynamics, but also how entertaining their presentation could be.

Talking heads once just talked, with scant attention paid to what was behind them.  That has changed.  Organizations they represented or those presenting the facilities for interviews came to recognize the value of inserting a plug, advertising their brand.  So speakers now will nearly always be backed up by highly visible signage that proclaims affiliation.  Should a scientist be holding forth, a university banner will likely be placed behind him.  If a think tank researcher is being interviewed you will discover a wallpaper-like background screen with, e.g., “Heritage Foundation” printed all across the surface.   Beyond these fabricated backgrounds, natural and eye catching, iconic scenes are also regularly employed.  Watch  reporters in Washington, D.C. talking to us and you’ll surely spot the Capitol or the Washington Monument behind them to lend gravitas to their accounts.  An interview with a diplomat in New York City is likely decorated with a panoramic shot of the City’s skyline.  On the other hand, exchanges with professors are not complete unless shelves of serious looking books fill the background.

Politicians and government officials have become acutely aware that background messages can register as effectively as the speeches they deliver.  For many years now most all have recognized that serious ideas cannot be presented unless delivered amidst a sea of American flags.  Their handlers also understand the value of introducing campaign slogans into background displays.  “It’s Time for a Change”, “Yes, We Can”, “On to Victory”, “This is Our Time” – those are the messages to drive home in the event interest in the candidates’ words  fade.

More recently live human beings have been installed as background props for politicians.  People are specially selected and aligned behind a candidate to reinforce the messages he or she wishes to convey.  It may be a racially mixed group to demonstrate commitment to diversity.  Or military folks are arrayed behind to certify toughness, patriotism, the importance of defense or because uniforms make attractive backgrounds.  At times, you’ll discover young people placed on stage, or police or first responders, or just serious looking “average” citizens.  Human props no doubt enjoy  being on camera and positioned  up close to a major public personality.  On the other hand, there’s pressure.  They must appear attentive, smile a lot, applaud frequently and respond enthusiastically when significant policy statements are uttered.  At some point, many probably conclude they may have been better off seated in the audience out in front.

That’s probably also the case at State of the Union addresses.  The President delivers the speech with the background always the same, though not entirely.  Seated behind the President is the Vice President ( as President of the Senate) and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.  The speech traditionally is lengthy and not always compelling, so to those two public officials, it’s a challenge to appear interested or even stay awake.  The President and Vice President always belong to the same political party, but the Speaker may not.  (Think Biden -Boehner)  At such times, what we see is a study in contrasts, the Vice President, supportive and enthusiastic, the Speaker looking bored and not the least impressed with the Presidential agenda.  There the background speaks eloquently about our nation’s partisan divide.

TV reporters on the scene, where there’s “breaking news” and where the situation is fluid and unpredictable, are never certain what to expect behind them.  Simply by “setting up” they attract throngs, some people content merely to observe, others notably more demonstrative and eager to be noticed.  And so viewers will observe folks running back and forth, waving their hands, doing all they can to attract attention.  Others will hoist banners, hoping thereby that their messages reach large audiences.  There may be shouting and noise making sufficient to nearly drown out reports.

Even more dramatic are those instances where reporters hover at the edge of huge public demonstrations, riots or police actions or actually along battlefronts.  They attempt to distance themselves and to report calmly and objectively, hoping to remain safely above the fray, presumably secure in their role as detached observers.  But of course reality can intrude or be invited in.  Reporters, for example attempted to get as close as they could to the Tahrir Square demonstrations in Cairo, but were, on occasion engulfed and rudely jostled by the crowds or had to run for cover.  At times those being reported upon, energized by the presence of correspondents prefer presenting their own point of view directly, shouting into microphones to underscore their demands.  Here the background has burst in to the forefront.

So, next time you’re watching TV interviews or reportage, look beyond and behind who’s talking.  There’s much that can be seen and learned back there.

We humans, though mired in the present, long to know what the future has in store for us.  The present is ordinary and routine, proceeds one day at a time.  By contrast, the future is a tableau onto which we can project our hopes and fufill our dreams.  Eager for a preview of what lies ahead, we have for centuries scanned tarot cards and consulted with soothsayers, palm readers and astrologers.  Without the future, the present would be duller and short on purpose.  The future energizes the present, enables us to accept its challenges and establishes the foundations for subsequent rewards.  Those who live in the past are generally regarded as narrow minded and misguided; praise goes to those who believe in and look toward the future.

The United States, never much wedded to tradition, has always kept the future very much in focus (a large percentage of the current crop of “futurists” are no doubt Americans.)  Most everyone arriving from overseas had concluded they had no future back there.  But America, they understood, was all about the future and they could become part of it.  They could cast off ancient arrangements and join a fluid forward-looking society in which they could rise and prosper.  And if in the short run their prospects didn’t much improve, it would not be so for the next generation and beyond.   In a country of rapid change, how could one not look to the future?  In a land where technological advances seemed virtually guaranteed, It was hard to imagine anything but progress up ahead?

So much of our personal lives involve preparing for the future.  We undergo years and years of schooling so that we can enter the future prepared and confident.  Along the way we’re questioned repeatedly about our future intentions.  How do we intend to earn a living?  Most of us plan to get married and so expend considerable time and energy engaged in serial relationships and mating rituals in an effort to discover someone best suited to help create a durable family and to nurture future offspring.

Even in the here and now, the future’s but a thought away.  We look forward most all the time.  Beginning Monday we’re already gazing ahead to Friday, the end of the work week and start of the weekend.  In the spring, students think about little else than the end of the school year and to summer vacations ahead.  What avid fan can’t help but count the days before the baseball, football or basketball seasons begin?  And for family members there are the holidays and special occasions – Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, graduation, weddings; preparations for, and anticipation of, these upcoming celebrations begin well in advance.  In all these instances present and future are fused, time is eclipsed, pleasure extended.

The future also imposes obligations on the present.  Just as the squirrels need gather and store nuts for consumption in winter, we must put money aside for future needs – rainy days, college tuition, retirement years.  Less welcome, but necessary, are preparations for a future that involves long-term care, power-of-attorney, living wills, last wills and cemetery plots.  Far too often individual procrastination overrides systematic preparation.  Our nation stands equally guilty.  Beyond acknowledging their urgency, the U.S. has nonetheless done little to address such growing problems as Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, its crumbling infrastructure or long-term energy needs.

Most worrisome of late is the notable erosion of faith in the future among a majority of Americans.  Negative feedback about the future has unsettled the present.  America’s storyline regarding the future, long the basis of our optimism, seems less persuasive than ever.  The foundations for a sound and secure future viz. stable home prices, affordable health care, job availability, college affordability pension sufficiency and American competitiveness are no longer guaranteed.  Meanwhile, America’s political system is deadlocked and the continued world leadership of the United States is in some doubt.  Because our prospects have been so uncertain, pessimism has spread, thereby presenting a monumental challenge to the culture of optimism which has long sustained our people and our nation.  Orphan Annie assures us that “the sun will come out tomorrow”, but youthful optimism, though most welcome, cannot alone displace the clouds of uncertainty that have of late cast long shadows over the land.

Just ask Baby Boomers what’s changed over the course of their lives.  They’ve got plenty to say beginning typically with the technological marvels that have come their way, like color television, microwaves, power steering, smart phones, pacemakers, computers, the internet, etc.  Prompt them further and in no time they’re telling you about the bewildering social changes they’ve witnessed.  “Everything is different today.”

What’s different?  One way or another they’ll talk about women, senior citizens, African Americans, Latinos, gays, the disabled and how all of them have gained recognition and are entering the mainstream.  They’ll mention that women went off to work in droves, parents and children left the cities for the suburbs, and how families fragmented because so many Americans headed off to such places as Florida, Texas, Arizona and California.  You’ll hear about men and women living longer, using birth control, marrying later and divorcing sooner.  If they stayed married, both had jobs, leaving kids in the hands of others.  If they didn’t marry, both were more likely than ever before to live by themselves.  Church attendance headed lower, incarceration levels rose sharply and both prescription and hard drug usage soared as did out-of-wedlock birth, and the numbers of illegal immigrants in the country.  In the media sex and violence became ever present and markedly more explicit.  You get the point.  It has become, as they say, “a whole new ballgame,” arguably the most rapid pace of social changes ever experienced by a society.

Most of us have managed to roll with the punches, welcomed, or learned to live with all these developments.  Large numbers of Americans, however, find this altered landscape and many of these “rule” changes both confusing and painful.  As they see it, the traditional moorings of society have become unhinged.  We’ve lost our way.  Demoralizing and disastrous – that’s how they’d characterize what’s happened.  It all must stop, better still, rolled back.  Traditional families must be reconstructed.  Gays should be counseled and encouraged to return to normal heterosexual relationships,  Illegal immigration must end and the undocumented currently in the U.S. sent back.  Women must be denied abortions, discouraged from living in sin.  The war on drugs must continue unabated until supplies dry up.  Advancing secularism needs to be countered with prayer, support for faith-based organizations, and a return to religious observance.  A lid has to be placed on uninhibited sexuality and persistent violence.

Is that at all possible?  Can we turn the clock back?  Has that ever happened?  Or does social change, once critical mass is achieved, become irreversible?  Remember many of the sources of traditional authority and restraint have been weakened and put on the defensive, whether it be the schools, the family, the church or civil authorities.  Besides which, while certain social changes have surely been unwelcome and wrenching, many have enhanced individual choices and promoted freedoms rarely exercised before on such a large scale.

Predictably the debate will not end for it reflects both the dynamism and doubts of modern societies.  The demand that curbs or cures be applied will continue even as the engines of change disrupt and transform our society.

At first glance it looks like any other early morning police roll call.  “There’s a parade on Elmore Street.  Doesn’t figure to be a problem, but check it out.  Also, we’ve had some car break-ins around here, so stay alert.”  But then Sergeant Al Pattison (not his real name) adds something strangely baffling.  “The hawk’s up in the Northeast sector, so shout out if we got any work for him.”  What’s he talking about?  I have no clue except I do notice three guys in the group in front of Pattison who seem out of place.  Their uniforms fit poorly; they’re slouching and physically – they’d be hard pressed scaring a little old lady.

I want to ask Pattison about them but it’s delicate.  Fortunately he bails me out.  “I guess you want to know about the birds.  And who these fellows are?”  You read my mind,” I say.  “They’re working good,” he assures me.  “Great, but what are we talking about?”

Launching right in he informs me that “It’s a gift from the Feds.  We’re testing it out for them.”  Picking up on my blank look, he continues, “We’re talking drones here, mister, or if you’re into fancy, unmanned Aerial Vehicles.  We got two and at least one is up there all the time.”

Now I’m thinking about who those “misfits” might be.  Sure enough he lets me know that those three operate the hawks on eight-hour shifts.  “They’re no cops,” he says, “but they like wearing the uniform.  They don’t work out of here.  They got their own place.”

This certainly wasn’t the story I’d come for.  I had figured on a no-brainer – a typical day on the beat piece – but you don’t pass up something like this, not with Pattison talking.

“You heard of drones, right?” he says.  We’re using them all over – Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, even Somalia, wherever the hell that is.  They’re working really good.  They never know what hits them.  Imagine, you’re driving along or sitting down for dinner and – BOOM!”

I knew all about the drones overseas, but here in the United States?  “What’s going on?” I ask.  “You are looking at the future of law enforcement right here.  Those three,” he lets me know, “are really getting into it.  Video games – that’s pretty much what qualified them.”

“Don’t tell me you guys are going around blowing up people?”  “This is America,” he assures me, “so we don’t do much of that.  Besides, we use something here they don’t do over there.  We got these things hooked up with tasers.  How it works is classified, but let’s just say that when they come down on them – they’re out of commission.”

Would he reveal specific operations, I wondered.  Why not ask.  “I can’t say too much, but take it from me the birds are flying high.  You wouldn’t believe how much marijuana we blasted to hell.  Then there were those truckers carrying a load of illegals God knows where.  Well, we waited for it to stop at a railroad crossing and dropped our load on the cab.  It stopped those guys cold.  We had our squad car out there in no time.  Last month the Feds let us know there was some crazy terrorist dude collecting explosives in this house.  We waited until one day we saw him leave.  We hit it good.  It blew apart.”  “Couldn’t you have just gone in there?”  Pattison paused for a moment.  “I guess we could, but remember we’re testing this stuff out.  And we had our alibi.  We let out that this terrorist had messed with the stuff and it blew.  This way people figure the creep’s dead, and the Feds have time to get him talking and see who he’s working with.”

Pattison’s telling me stuff I shouldn’t be hearing, but I also want to check out those guys playing these nasty games.  But they’re already pulling away when I get outside.  And when I head back in, I’m told that Pattison’s now in a meeting.  No matter.  I’d already seen and heard enough to send my head spinning.