A Tale of Three Heroes

Journalism, as we are often told, can be dangerous work. The latest reminder has come in the beheading of Jim Foley, held by ISIS in Syria. While it’s sad that some military personnel have to die in combat, we expect that consequence in war. But when it happens to a reporter, especially in the form portrayed in an awful video designed to send a message, we are shocked, because it’s not supposed to happen to journalists, whose only weapons are newsgathering equipment. It’s safe to say, though, that Foley was no stranger to the risk he was taking, a risk that hundreds of journalists around the world take on a daily basis.

The U.S. rejected a huge ransom demand and put “boots on the ground” to rescue Foley and other hostages held by ISIS in Syria -- another great risk, not only physically, but politically. The mission failed, because the hostages had been moved. I’m reminded of the failed attempt to rescue hostages in Iran back in the 1970s. I’ve always believed that Jimmy Carter would have been re-elected President had that attempt succeeded.

Whether we like it or not, we are now at war with ISIS. The only sensible response is for us to “behead” the organization. We know who many of the leaders are, and we may have to send elite military teams in to get them. Simple bombing, droning, and even a massive invasion won’t work, but a targeted effort just might.

On a considerably happier note, there are two other heroes to celebrate: the American doctors who are said to have recovered from a disease that has heretofore been almost exclusively fatal: Ebola. Like Foley, Drs. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol knew the risk they would be taking on the ground in Africa to help deal with an epidemic. They had to take a second risk: submitting to the use of a largely experimental drug. The favorable outcome holds promise for its future use.

When bad things happen to such people, maybe we shouldn’t be too shocked. The perils they face come with their respective territories. They are no less heroes of war than those who carry guns. We do need reminding, though, that wars of many kinds go on all the time, and the warriors involved aren’t always wearing the uniforms and carrying the weapons we expect.

"Failyuh...to Communicate"

You may remember the words of actor Strother Martin, who played a sadistic Southern prison warden in the movie “Cool Hand Luke.” They apply very well to the situation in Ferguson, MO, where an unpleasant bit of Kabuki continues to unfold. It didn’t have to be that way.

It started earlier in the month, when a young, unarmed black man was shot to death by a white police officer in that St. Louis suburb -- a tragedy, but not the first time such a thing has happened in this country, nor will it be the last. It’s all about what happens immediately after such an incident that can either keep things calm (if tense), or devolve into a Ferguson.

Police shootings happen often enough that Police Chief Magazine has a whole section on how to handle these incidents, and a couple of paragraphs on communication, “48-Hour Release Policy,” spoke to me:

“With any law enforcement shooting comes intense media scrutiny. The best policy for all parties involved in a shooting is a 48-hour release policy. Neither the officer’s name nor the name of the individual shot should be released for 48 hours. This gives the involved officers time to notify their families and arrange for temporary secure accommodations if they fear threats or retaliation may follow. The 48-hour release policy also provides the department sufficient time to properly notify the family of the individual who was shot. A professional, timely media release issued by the head of the agency sends the message that this is a serious incident that will be handled with expertise and professionalism.

It will further benefit the law enforcement agency to send personalized copies of this release to stakeholders in the community to avoid dissemination of misinformation, and to provide the community the names and phone numbers of contact persons for questions or concerns.”

You might debate the propriety of a 48-hour time frame in a modern news cycle. But do you think any of this was followed in Ferguson?  The police chief, Col. Thomas Jackson, after about a week, finally released the name of the officer involved, along with a curious video showing that the shooting victim had just stolen items from a convenience store. The chief did not coordinate this release with the Missouri state police captain who had been put in charge of security in town. And the only messages that were sent to the community involved a militarized police presence, stun grenades, and tear gas. The state’s governor did not ease any tension by calling out the National Guard, either.

Certainly, there are realistic issues that must be considered. While the family of the victim is demanding that the shooting officer be arrested, police do have a special status in our society. They are allowed to carry, and fire, their weapons under certain circumstances. They are also entitled to due process, and there are procedures in place for investigating such incidents. The community, though, must be persuaded that such investigations are impartial – which many argue is a rare occurrence.

Second, the authorities do have to maintain order. There was no excuse for stores being looted or burned or livelihoods destroyed. Those who take advantage of these situations should have books thrown at them.

Third: Yes, there are “outside agitators” who show up at these scenes because of the media attention – people who have no stake in the local community or who are under the illusion that violent protest will bring justice.

And fourth, there are long-range issues involving the racial balance of the police department in the city it’s serving, and the culture of that department.

But I think Ferguson would be just another town in Missouri dealing with a tragedy today if the simple communications strategies listed above were followed. I have always believed that effective communication calms almost any situation – in families, at work, in domestic politics, or even in international relations. Communication is the oil that makes things run better.

I would be happy to send Col. Jackson a gift subscription to Police Chief Magazine. Hopefully, though, he will be asked to “retire” soon, and may not need it.

Chickens, Eggs, and a Robin

It’s been days now since Robin Williams’ suicide, and we’re still talking about it. I think this is my third post on this – and if you pull the plug here, I’ll certainly understand – but it’s a clear indication that many of us have been affected at a very deep level. This fellow was not a head of state or a religious leader or a military hero. He was a comedian and a movie star. Are we overdoing it? Some of us still have to talk about it.

Not all the talk, IMHO, has been useful. The other day, one of the cable channels had some expert on with two graphics: one of a “normal” brain and the other of an addict, showing the areas of damage in the addict’s brain. No, the news anchor hastened to add, the damaged-brain graphic was not Robin’s.

Still others have posted Robin’s astrological chart to show why this was a rough time for him. Now, his widow has revealed that he was in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease, and the docs are on TV again, telling us about the statistical relationship between Parkinson’s and depression. If someone diagnosed me with that, I think I might be a little depressed. Even the medical expert said that while there is a relationship, we don’t quite know exactly what it is, which is the chicken and which the egg.

The one that bothers me most is the attempt to link genius or extraordinary artistic talent with mental illness. We know what genius is when we encounter it. “Mental illness” is something we have to define, with experts telling us what’s normal and abnormal and whether we need to take pills for it. Yes, clinical depression and bipolarity are real things, but reducing genius to a chemical imbalance is offensive, at least to me.

Is Williams’ suicide a wake-up call about the prevalence of mental illness? One former actress actually called on Congress to do something about it. Ah, now THERE’S a bastion of sanity for you. And don’t we always say the same thing after a wacko shoots up a school?

It’s interesting that we refer to artistic talents as “gifts” – maybe a bad word, since they usually come with a price, and for whatever reason you want to plug in here, Robin Williams just couldn’t pay it. Should it be left there?

I guess, though, we have to cut ourselves a little slack. Trying to arrive at a conclusion won’t make us feel much better about Robin Williams’ death, but it’s our coping mechanism to avoid feeling too much grief. Are we learning something about the human experience from all this discussion? Yes, but explanation’s chief benefit is that it allows us eventually to put this tragedy on the shelf so we can go on with our own lives. It’s that awful word “closure.”

At some point, however, we’re going to have to admit to ourselves that we’re just not qualified to dissect souls.

The S Word

A friend who used to listen to me on the radio reminded me that there was once a code in the broadcast business to the effect that when people committed suicide, you didn’t mention that particular cause of death on the air. My friend wished we could go back to it. I disagree. The facts, even the unpleasant ones, have the virtue of ending speculation, at least most of the time.

The practice of never saying the S word wasn’t a question of just being “nice.” Suicide has had a long tradition of being unspeakable. If you offed yourself, you were not entitled to burial in the consecrated part of the cemetery. It was a mortal sin, and you were going to hell. You slammed the door on the way out, a major no-no.

Suicide is just one of several things that we once had a tradition, or a convention, of not discussing. Sex, of course, is another. Now, it seems, we discuss everything. Dr. Oz did a whole segment about human waste products on a daytime show not long ago. On his daily nationwide radio program, Dr. Dean Edell used to talk about every physical condition imaginable. You would be surprised (or would have been in the early days of the show) at the subjects people raised.

Talking or not talking, showing or not showing, may actually be cultural. News stations in this country generally did not show the bodies falling out of the burning World Trade Center towers on 9/11, but many foreign news outlets had no such compunction.

As a reporter, I used to have to interview people after disasters. I began to notice a pattern. When white people’s houses burned down, the last thing they wanted to do was talk to the media. But it seemed that homeowners from other ethnic groups actually sought us out to talk to us. I hated to do this particular part of my job – but maybe my own reluctance was cultural. I simply thought I was feeling “respectful.”

While we are more open-minded now, we remain sensitive to the notion that there is an appropriate time and place for raising certain issues. In the case of death, we of course have to be mindful in some measure of the departed’s survivors.

But making nice all the time, or categorically shutting down the discussion of any form of human experience, in the end accomplishes nothing beyond prettifying the scenery. All kinds of things happen to us all the time, pleasant and unpleasant, and the more we learn about them by discussion, the better we can process them – and find out about how Human Being 1.0 actually works.

Robin et al

I really didn’t need to hear this today about Robin Williams committing suicide (or so it is suspected at this writing). It was only a few days ago that I was asked to read a blog draft for a former colleague before she posted about the suicide of one of her closest friends. So I have been thinking about this topic.

One of these things happens, and we tend to fall into two camps: Judgers or Explainers. The Judgers go on about how offing yourself is giving up, that it’s the ultimate act of selfishness, that it’s unfair to those left behind. The Explainers review the departed’s life, the events leading up to the act, or start talking about chemical imbalances or clinical depression or bipolarism. I talked very glibly about a sense of humor requiring the sense of its opposite, and how that applied in Robin Williams’ case. Shouldn't a sense of humor be the very antidote to depression that keeps comedians alive, we might ask.

But what do you do about this feeling in the pit of your stomach that won't go away after the shock?

Suicide comes in many forms. It could be from a sudden feeling of despair. In the case of my friend’s friend, a debilitating disease caused many circumstances to go south in her life over time, Antartically so. She stepped in front of a train. Not an “approved” method of self-destruction, as it traumatized others, including, of course, the train engineer, as you might hear from the Judgers.

A distant relative committed suicide because he didn’t think other family members could take care of themselves financially. He couldn’t do it alive, so he figured his life insurance policy would do it for him. He left no note, so the family will never know. Still another, a woman I know, left town, went to a dumpy hotel in another city, and took an overdose of pills. She did leave a goodbye note. In it, she said she was dying of cancer and didn’t want to be a burden on her family.

Is there anyone among us who has never considered suicide? I was raised Catholic, and suicide is a mortal sin in that faith. Even after "lapsing," I often joked that I would never kill myself, simply because the Catholics might be right about what might come after, and I didn’t want to take the risk. I guess I figured whatever doo-doo I was in here would be a lot deeper on the other side. That’s only half a joke, because it’s a powerful argument when you’re a child, and it lingers. We don’t know what’s on the other side, and of all the decisions we make, this is the one absolutely that cannot be undone, so we better get it right.

And then there is the discussion about whether suicide should be legalized and facilitated by the medical profession.

But all that’s for another day. We can neither judge nor explain these events satisfactorily, at least not immediately -- and perhaps never. But we try anyway, because otherwise, we might have to fully embrace that pain in the pit of the stomach that many of us are feeling at this moment.