Orgy of Outrage

You remember the old television news adage: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Sorry, but blood doesn’t do it anymore. Nor disasters, nor cute animal/kid stories. Not even cleavage. It’s OUTRAGE.

The most recent example involves the North Carolina preacher who had some really bad things to say about what should happen to gays and lesbians (which I won’t repeat here). You probably remember the Florida minister who was planning to burn the Koran. Then there was the Texas judge caught on video beating his daughter. On a larger scale, you have the reported behavior of Secret Service agents in Colombia and the overspending on the GSA on a conference. If your blood is still at its usual temperature after watching all this stuff, you’d better see you doctor.

The big question for me is, how serious is some of this in the great scheme of things? In the old days of broadcast news, would a couple of crazy clerics have even been given a millisecond on the national stage? The Secret Service thing clearly seems like a more substantial issue, but does the behavior of those agents really appear, in a larger context, all that shocking? Are all business conferences now going to be classified as hedonistic wastes, and should such meetings be held on folding chairs in a local high school gym instead, to keep us all calmed down?

Annoyance or irritation is one thing, but I think outrage should be reserved for issues that are at least worthy of it. I can think of one: Syria, where close to 13,000 people – including children -- have been killed by government troops or militias. Why isn’t there real outrage over the failure of world leaders to do anything about it, instead of their spending time coming up with brilliantly defended reasons why they can’t?

There are plenty of serious events out there that could drive almost all of us up the wall. However, I don’t know about you, but I can only do a finite amount of outrage at once before I have to recharge batteries. Admittedly, outrage is one of the few things in life that gets easier with age, but if I were you, I’d be careful about getting talked into spending it on the wrong things. Someday, your outrage is going to be needed to actually change something.