The T Word Again

It was the worst mass shooting since Newtown. Fourteen dead, 17 injured as of this posting. Naturally, the news media, including the major networks and cable outlets, jumped into wall-to-wall coverage, as they were obliged to do. The only problem was that afterwards, the information about what was happening came out in sparse bursts. Some cable anchors even sounded a little whiny about why more information wasn’t being released. So, those anchors had time to fill.

Much of that time was spent discussing whether the shooting was an act of terrorism. Terrorism has been defined generally as a violent act to create fear, I think we can safely say, that was the broad motive involved, though revenge is a good one, too. The only problem with the “T” word is that it’s politically toxic. Listeners hear “terrorism” and many of them mentally fill in a word before it: “Islamic,” just because that phrase has been drummed into our heads.

Later in the evening, the news anchors were telling us that it was more likely a disgruntled employee of San Bernardino County, which would account for why a county agency holiday party was the target of the shooting.. Complicating the issue, though, is that the disgruntled one is of Middle Eastern extraction. Anyway, if it wasn’t Islamic terrorism after all, what are we supposed to feel? Relief? Of course not – so now we go back to the gun control/mental health debate. When is it all going to stop?

Some of us may be upset with the frenetic wall-to-wall coverage these things get, and the inane and sometimes inflammatory comments made while the anchors fill time. I used to think that. But now we have social media. If we didn’t have this intense coverage by the major media institutions, we would be left to the mercy of Tweeters. Do you think we’d be better off with an untempered rumor mill?

Whatever you want to call this incident, 14 people are just as dead – the definition doesn’t really matter, does it. Perhaps this is the new normal in our lives. The only thing that occurred to me was that if it takes 18 months for a Syrian refugee to be admitted to this country, why can’t we make it take that long to get a gun? Just wondering.

The Media Spotlight's Narrow Beam

I know this is going to sound a little perverse, but while the story of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls is a tragedy, why has it captured the imagination at the expense of everything else?

That’s an easy one. There’s the word “schoolgirls,” meaning children. And we have an evil Islamic militant group, Boko Haram. And a powerless government that can’t or won’t do anything about it. And, of course, celebrity re-tweets, can’t forget that. And then, throw in the charges that we’ve never paid attention to Nigeria in the past because it’s a black African country. Now we have guilt in the mix. This reminds me of the story of the crazy African gang leader of a couple of years ago – what was his name again? Similar worldwide fury.

Question 2: What are we, the U.S., going to do about the Nigerian situation, exactly? Well, we’ve sent in a tem of specialists to help the Nigerians. Good move. But no “boots on the ground.” Because we’ve been a little injudicious in the past decade or so with where we have put our boots, there’s no stomach for any large-scale military help, schoolgirls or not.

But while we’re all agonizing about the schoolgirls, where has the world been for the past three-plus years, watching Syria degenerate? A lot more than 250 children are dead, and millions of people have been displaced. The century, as I may have said before, is relatively young, but this could rank as one of its great tragedies, and it’s far from over. I’m afraid that we will end up having to pay much closer attention to this one than we’d like. And lately, there have been warnings about a major famine involving millions in South Sudan, the world’s newest country.

OK, too many fires to put out, and maybe at this moment we can’t deal with any of them. All I’m saying is, just because the beam of the media spotlight is shining on a situation that needs it, let’s not forget how narrow that beam is – and how much else stays in the dark.

Unwanted Guests

When I heard about the Islamic center proposed near Ground Zero, my first impression was: Why are people so dumb as to insist on going places they're not wanted?

My second impression was, well, with that attitude, there probably would have been no Rosa Parks, sit-ins at lunch counters, or the civil rights movement in general.

There, now I've said it.