The Answer, Ashbey, Is Yes

 

 

“Aren’t you guys tired of this?” Those were the words of Ashbey Beasley to reporters following the shooting that left six people dead, including three children, at a private religious school in Nashville. An Illinois resident, Beasley and her son, both mass shooting survivors themselves, were on vacation in Nashville to visit family when the shooting occurred not far away.

The media are indeed tired of covering these, and we consumers of news are equally tired of seeing the same pattern of coverage after each incident.  Unfortunately, though, the media are participants in this drama. It could be argued that they have paved a road to attention for the shooters, who know that attacking a school will provide maximum exposure for them and whatever cause motivates them. Many outlets, at least, are starting to avoid mentioning shooters’ names for that very reason, and that’s a bit of good news.

The bad news is, we have all been conditioned now to expect continuous coverage of these tragedies. Sometimes, the facts only dribble out, and in between dribbles, the anchors and experts fill the time with speculative babble. Gone are the days of a quick bulletin followed by, “We now return you to our regularly scheduled program.” I remember that when the Jonestown mass suicide in Guyana hit the news on a Saturday night in 1978, CBS broke into a movie to report what information it had, then sent us back to the movie, which was, as I recall, “The Demon Seed,” in which a computer wanted to have sex with  Julie Christie. That kind of come-and-go coverage couldn’t pass muster today, but I don’t know what the alternative is now.

That said, the wall-to-walls on mass shootings are the 2x4s repeatedly hitting us over the head to remind us of our gun problem here in America. I was thinking, if we didn’t have these things, would we be paying any attention at all to the gun violence, or gun accidents, occurring around us daily?

We all know that when an individual shows up at a school site with an assault weapon, it’s already too late. We think, and we pray, and we talk about all this, but nothing  much happens.

President Biden has issued executive orders aimed at implementing reasonable gun measures, including a ban on assault weapons, but concedes that his authority is limited and that not much can be done without Congressional action. So how many more times do we have to see THAT movie?

Bank Shots

 

I am no economist, and if I offer you financial advice, you’d be wise NOT to take it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But like many of you, I’m still trying to get my head around this banking crisis, if that’s what we have here.

After depositors started pulling money out of the Silicon Valley Bank and collapse was imminent, the federal government stepped in to backstop the depositors. Some critics have called this a bailout, while the government insists this was different from 2008, because the bank executives and stockholders this time were not protected. The executives had made some bad investment calls, and stockholders are considered risk-takers, and they lost.

The bank had invested a lot of money in long-term Treasury bonds, which seemed like a safe idea when interest rates were low, but thanks to the Federal Reserve’s raising them to fight inflation, the bonds, purchased at the time they were, have lost much of their value. And SVB catered to the tech industry and startups. As for banks catering to niche industries, though, haven’t banks in agricultural areas had to handle many farm accounts?

I personally hate high interest rates. It’s like having to pay extra for air. There are other causes of inflation besides high prices, spenders willing to pay them, and workers demanding more money. The pandemic and supply chain problems were no help. The Fed has only one tool to control inflation, though. It’s like using a huge sledge hammer to drive a nail, but the nail still has to be driven.

It’s no accident that banks traditionally have occupied imposing buildings, often the tallest in town, with marble floors and ornate fixtures that oozed “stability.” We say things like, “You can take that to the bank!” But it’s not the rock-solid building, or even the money in the vault, that provides stability, it’s depositors’ trust. Potential account-holders may shop around for a friendly bank that doesn’t beat them up with fees, but if an institution calls itself a “bank,” folks don’t usually have to ask, “Is my money safe here?” If trust disappears and everyone wants all their money out at the same time, however, most any bank would collapse.

The finger-pointing festival is in full swing, but the truth is, regulations, or the lack thereof, are only part of the problem. Many in both government and the private sector missed their share of red flags here. I do believe that the system is safe,  but it’s up to the powers-that-be now to keep depositors from going to the mattresses, so to speak.

Chernobyl, Ohio

That may be a bit of an exaggeration right now, but so far, it appears, we don’t have all the answers as to how much damage was done by the train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, that spilled a particularly nasty chemical called vinyl chloride. Thousands of fish and numerous animals have died in that area. Government officials have tried to convince residents that they can drink their water and live safely in their homes, but quite a few still smell something in the air and water and are complaining about various ailments, like skin rashes and bronchitis, and some are worried about the long-term effects on their health.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was blamed for not visiting East Palestine soon enough and was beaten to the punch by Donald Trump, who was handing water bottles with his name on them out to beleaguered residents (no paper towel rolls, though). The Democrats blamed Trump for relaxing rules governing railroads while he was president. Whistleblowers blamed the Norfolk Southern railroad for overloading its cars. Environmental crusader Erin Brockovich blamed everyone for not taking the residents’ worries seriously. Will the area have to be declared an uninhabitable wasteland, and residents relocated and paid for their lost houses? We don’t know yet. That might fall to Norfolk Southern.

In the early stages of a disaster, it's less about why these things happen and the demographics of those affected than it is about how we respond, because accidents are going to happen once in a while, no matter what regulations or penalties for noncompliance are in place. It’s amazing how much DOESN’T happen, considering all the toxic stuff that travels on rail cars or in freeway tanker trucks daily without our even knowing about it. Do we really WANT to know? Dangerous materials that are necessary to make ordinary bits of our modern life work are whizzing by us all the time.

The first priority after such accidents is not determining who’s at fault or who has possession of the political football. It’s about responding to the emergency, listening to the people in the area and believing them, without trying to minimize anything to make them feel better. In the end, people CAN handle the truth.

In radio news, I had a saying: If you give people what they really need when they need it, they will never forget you for it – and if you fail to do that, they will never forgive you for it.