The title of an AP story is "Everything seemingly is spinning out of control." The story opens with midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition, and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan, and against terrorism.
I can almost hear the writers beginning to hyperventilate. I don't get it. Why does the media feel compelled to fabricate crisis when there isn't crisis? I started to recite what would be truly crisis events, but thought better of it. I just don't need to go there. Anyone who thinks the above are singly or collectively a crisis haven't lived long enough or haven't read enough history. I'm not saying these may not be problems and bumps in the road . . . but really, "spinning out of control?!" Is this akin to "the end of life as we know it?"
I am so weary of this kind of thing. I wonder if the explanation is that people who write such things . . . and those who lap this pablum up . . . are just scared, child-like people? I didn't have the patience to read the article, but it got into the question of people losing the sense that they have control over their circumstances. That is just infantilism. You make your decisions and you live with them. If you don't like how things are, you change them. There are few who are trapped by circumstances, other than those trapped by the inelucatable consequences of their earlier decisions. A maxim of La Rochefoucauld comes to mind, which roughly translated would be rendered "There are few misfortunes from which the adroit cannot take some advantage and few boons from which the imprudent cannot take some harm." We are not fortune's fools . . . but we may still be fools.
I hate this readiness of supposedly intelligent, educated, mature people to disavow the responsibility for their circumstances. I think this is dished up by those who would like to extend the mission of government to solving all of our problems, make government the new mom and dad of each of us, craddle to grave.
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RE: Everything spinning out of control . . .
I don't think that is it all all. I do beleave the media rides the rails with everything. I don't beleave that americans want the gov to take care of everything. What is scaring the people I beleave, is the fact that the gov does have control over the wealth of our nation. They have the ability to spend and borrow all moneys that we have. This has a direct affect on the life of the people, I think alot of fear comes from this over all other things. We had a great depression once, the fear of another is real. With the average american knowing what it takes every month for him or her to survive, and having someone else at the helm to make that amount fluctuate with the worth of our currency is scary.
Things are not as bad as they could be. Hence the fear.
A lack of historical perspective combined with underlying emotional distress can be a dangerous combination for a journalist. What's worse are editors who publish this stuff.
Everything spinning out of control . . .
