Blame Game, Round Three: I Give Up, For Now
The problems erupting on the Gulf Coast are multiplying in a staggering manner. Water-borne disease tops the list. The amount of punditry combined with actual reporting is creating a media soup that I find to be nearly as diseased. I am switching it off and turning to three areas in which I know I can get a more realistic handle; news other than the Gulf Coast, helping the Katrinan's now in my city's rescue centers and finding out who, what, when, where and how my local city and state's plans for disaster operations affect me, should the worst case scenario come to pass locally.
I am making the choice to turn directly from the reporting for three reasons, one obvious, two are not-so-obvious. The obvious reason is the noise volume on political accusations. It is way too high, way too soon. Anyone can see that passions are running so far out on overdrive that it is impossible for the accusations to be founded on real discovery; hence it is mostly noise and as much as I like "Noise" as a musical genre, I hate it as a political atmosphere. Hence, I am waiting until enough time passes for calmer minds to reign in the hysteria.
The second reason goes to the first: now is a great time for Republicans and Democrats to strike each other with accusations of mismanagement. Any good strategist understands the weaknesses of human nature and how easy it is to lace a hysterical mind with fallacies that will later seem to the recipient as "common sense" conclusions. And that is the second reason I am turning off the noise--I am not submitting to that brain-washing technique--from either party. If I want to be able to come to my own conclusions based on whatever evidence is presented, I need a fairly clean slate-of-mind on which to do the calculations.
And here's the third: human minds do not handle this much crises easily or well. I hear people dragging three catastrophies--9/11, Iraq and Katrina (picking and choosing what were complicated enough positions based on religion, personal responsibility and economics, either for or against a policy position)--into one huge, cumbersome argument. I see the reasoning fallacies multiplying and the tempers rising. As tempers rise, reasoning becomes even more impaired and like it or not, the political brain-washing coming from media and party sources will be modified to take advanatage of that impairment. I already read blog comments from either party side seriously discussing the "end-times"; as if! It's a fact of cognitive science that when the human capacity to manage chaos dissolves into explantions by supernatural forces, people make really bad choices (witness Bush's election on the fear of terrorism). Now how afraid of terrorists are you?
So I'm going to take a tack that leads away from madness. I am turning off the noise and giving my brain and body a big dose of stress-reducing reality. I'm going to get back to what any therapist would suggest—do what I can, practically and effectively, for myself and by myself. Satisfy both my need to act (by helping local rescue ops) and my need to feel safe (by finding out my local government's preparations)--and when I know the local plan (or lack of) I'm going to get involved in improving what I can, for both the local area and my family.
So from here on out, except for items I find particularly outstanding regarding the Gulf Coast disaster (and an occasional opine on the same of my own) this site will return to the relative normalcy of 'dissing' Republican party (mis)doings, liberal news and items of weird interest.
Now, don't you feel better already?
I am making the choice to turn directly from the reporting for three reasons, one obvious, two are not-so-obvious. The obvious reason is the noise volume on political accusations. It is way too high, way too soon. Anyone can see that passions are running so far out on overdrive that it is impossible for the accusations to be founded on real discovery; hence it is mostly noise and as much as I like "Noise" as a musical genre, I hate it as a political atmosphere. Hence, I am waiting until enough time passes for calmer minds to reign in the hysteria.
The second reason goes to the first: now is a great time for Republicans and Democrats to strike each other with accusations of mismanagement. Any good strategist understands the weaknesses of human nature and how easy it is to lace a hysterical mind with fallacies that will later seem to the recipient as "common sense" conclusions. And that is the second reason I am turning off the noise--I am not submitting to that brain-washing technique--from either party. If I want to be able to come to my own conclusions based on whatever evidence is presented, I need a fairly clean slate-of-mind on which to do the calculations.
And here's the third: human minds do not handle this much crises easily or well. I hear people dragging three catastrophies--9/11, Iraq and Katrina (picking and choosing what were complicated enough positions based on religion, personal responsibility and economics, either for or against a policy position)--into one huge, cumbersome argument. I see the reasoning fallacies multiplying and the tempers rising. As tempers rise, reasoning becomes even more impaired and like it or not, the political brain-washing coming from media and party sources will be modified to take advanatage of that impairment. I already read blog comments from either party side seriously discussing the "end-times"; as if! It's a fact of cognitive science that when the human capacity to manage chaos dissolves into explantions by supernatural forces, people make really bad choices (witness Bush's election on the fear of terrorism). Now how afraid of terrorists are you?
So I'm going to take a tack that leads away from madness. I am turning off the noise and giving my brain and body a big dose of stress-reducing reality. I'm going to get back to what any therapist would suggest—do what I can, practically and effectively, for myself and by myself. Satisfy both my need to act (by helping local rescue ops) and my need to feel safe (by finding out my local government's preparations)--and when I know the local plan (or lack of) I'm going to get involved in improving what I can, for both the local area and my family.
So from here on out, except for items I find particularly outstanding regarding the Gulf Coast disaster (and an occasional opine on the same of my own) this site will return to the relative normalcy of 'dissing' Republican party (mis)doings, liberal news and items of weird interest.
Now, don't you feel better already?
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