Secrets and Liars

 

 

Among our recent news stories has been the apparent theft of highly classified material by a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman in Massachusetts, who then allegedly shared it with his video-gaming buddies. The young man was arrested almost immediately.

He is said to be one of more than a MILLION with legal access to such information. Many of us have trouble keeping secrets among our co-workers or family members. How do we expect to trust a million people to do so?

There’s a scene from the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! about the events leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. If I’m recalling the story correctly, two military intelligence officers, one from the Army and another from the Navy, are staying alert for signs of an attack, as it will fall to them to put out the warning to a special group of top officials, including the President. The two go into a room where there is a locked cabinet on the wall, and one of them opens it with a key. This reveals a small blackboard containing the names of only a dozen or so authorized to receive the highest-level secret information. How quaint was that?

Breaches of secrecy are almost common now. Some folks think that people like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are heroes for revealing information they thought the public should know. I still haven’t made up my mind about that. But over-classification is indeed a problem.

Some information goes back such a long way in history that it’s hard to see how making it public would harm anyone. I saw a PBS American Experience episode recently about Elizabeth Friedman, an Illinois woman who basically created the US codebreaking program used during two World Wars. Her work saved many thousands of servicemembers’ lives, but the details of it were kept secret for decades, and in the meantime, no less a figure than J. Edgar Hoover took credit for much of what she had done.

Perhaps the most famous secrets revolve around the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, of which this year is the 60th anniversary. Most related classified materials have been released now, but not without redactions. The conspiracy theories on this event turned into a genuine industry, and for some, it all may never end.

We often hear it said that if you or I were found to have even one classified piece of paper or digital file in our possession illegally, we would be in jail the next day. Well, most of us, anyway.

 

1-800-You Don't Have to Do That

 

I know, too many letters there. But I want to talk about crisis hotlines. There are 1-800 numbers to call (and other means of contact) for rape victims or those contemplating suicide or having a mental breakdown, among many other reasons. But what about those who are just very angry and want to do a bad thing, especially with a gun? Is a general crisis line good enough? Might a number they could call safely, anonymously, and for free, to talk with a counselor trained specifically to deal with them, be useful? If there isn’t already something exactly like that, maybe there should be.

The risk, of course, is that without some physical intervention, the caller may go out and shoot someone anyway. But if there were one last base to touch, might they be talked down from their plans?

I am 100 percent supportive of reasonable nationwide gun laws, such as background checks, waiting periods, and an assault weapons ban. Red flag laws are great too, but sometimes, nobody sees the flags, and maybe there simply are none. People with perfectly clean records are suddenly moved to get a gun, which they can do legally and often too easily. Then, how many times have we heard people say after an incident that they had no idea the person they thought they knew was capable of such a terrible act? How many dormant volcanoes are there out there – people with lava boiling inside? We don’t always know when they might erupt.

I get that many shootings are motivated by revenge, as in the case of workers fired from their jobs or those whose significant others just dumped them. But why do shooters attack schools, churches, shopping malls, and theaters? Most are not political terrorists. Maybe they just feel powerless or ignored and want to make a statement, to be somebody, to count. I am all in favor of not mentioning the names of or glorifying shooters, but I do think we have to know something about their motives. Clearly, a mass murder is a response way out of proportion to what’s bothering them, but could someone on the other end of a phone line or chat box convince them of that?

We are constantly hearing pleas to help the underserved, but it would do us well to provide some safe outlet for the dangerously underHEARD. As I have said, by the time somebody shows up at a school with an assault weapon, it’s way too late.

 

 

 

 

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.