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Have Jody Roaster, will travel.
I am now a little more than 72 hours into a news blackout and the results have been marvelous.
The decision to quarantine my mind, and spare my soul the slings and arrows of fear-based journalism and morale-sucking stupidity, was actually compelled by a mistake. See, I was in the kitchen making a sandwich for dinner, which I occasionally do because I like sandwiches for dinner, and flipped on the little television we keep in there because my bride likes to watch the Poverty Brothers ransack houses while she’s cooking up her world class chili.
At any rate, I was slathering some toasted bread with a marvelous horse-radish sauce we get from Tule Lake, California, when the NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt appeared on the screen. It was so instantly and egregiously bad that I dropped my sammich and drew my cell phone – in what would have been an admirable transition drill on the shooting range — to snap a quick photo of what the bright lights at NBC had decided to broadcast to the entire country.
If you can imagine the woman in this photo sobbing in manufactured terror – or maybe it was real, it’s so hard to tell with the Chicken Littles — and bemoaning the imminent collapse of civilization, you’ll get a better picture of what they were trying to accomplish.
When they were done exploiting this woman – apparently in a concerted effort to terrify old people and dimwits — they cut smoothly back to Lester Holt, made up to look stern and steady, like Captain Picard in outer space sizing up the Borg from the bridge of the Enterprise. But instead of sizing anything up and instilling confidence in the crew Holt just began heaping more terror and fear on his audience while highlighting and underscoring the laundry list of real or imagined inefficiencies and problems in our national response to a horrible pandemic.
It was relentless. And bad. And irresponsible. Worst of all it was utterly devoid of solutions. It was a long, dark tunnel of doomsaying and misery leading the audience to the eye-rolling and now utterly predictable editorial conclusion: The Evil Landlord Donald Trump is killing everyone.
Which is neither true nor helpful. It’s precisely the kind of mindless bullshit Roosevelt meant when he talked about the critic versus the man in the arena. American journalists have been so busy ginning up phony crises that when a real one strikes they have lost all sense of responsibility for the manner in which they report it. So far what we have seen is just whinging and finger-wagging and self-righteous condemnation.
As if that’s good enough to win a war.
But here’s some truth to chew on: we aren’t going to suddenly and rapidly reverse the decades of off-shoring our manufacturing – an epic strategic fail made in the blind pursuit of cheap sneakers and iPhones — which has led directly to the deficiencies in supply and logistics we are now enduring.
Whose fault is that, exactly? Ours, that’s who. Us. All of us. The American consumer. Every swinging dick, and every time we buy something made in a nation full of people who eat pangolins and bats in wet markets, injecting killer viruses into the human population, and who now also enjoy the manufacturing power — and the leverage that comes with it — that we stupidly handed over to them so we could fill our shelves with cheap Chinese shit and the fantasy of a flat earth.
Pangolin. It’s what’s for dinner.
But Lester Holt won’t touch that because he thinks its racist and also because it’s a lot easier to pump the fear machine — its sells more dish soap and heart medication between terror segments.
The nation’s bad journalists have gone so quickly internal – which is a phrase of derision Marines use for non-hackers who dissemble when things get rough – they are essentially combat ineffective. They aren’t helping us cut through friction and find solutions, which would be one role they might adopt. They ARE the friction.
There are occasionally some, and one thinks mostly accidental, positives in the universally lame national coverage. Lt. General Todd Semonite, from the US Army Corps of Engineers, is one such story. Semonite is tasked with building field hospitals and his turn on 60 Minutes last Sunday evening was both brilliant and inspirational — and largely because his personality bulldozed Leslie Stahl’s lame attempts to bait him with politics. She ended up looking very small.
Clearly a warfighter, General Semonite was in his element, employing Clausewitz’ well-known strategic proverb: the greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a great plan while explaining where and how he’s going to turn Seattle’s football stadium into a hospital. The General eats nails, and it was clear from his attitude that he lives and breathes another valuable leadership mantra: don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions. Semonite is leaning forward into the fight, and clearly ready to crush the mincing Leslie Stahls of the world under the wheels of his chariot.
Roosevelt would have loved Semonite, and in a shirts vs skins pickup game I’m picking the good general in the first round.
Anyway, my 72 hour mental health sequester was driven, in part, by an inescapable contrast. The World War 2 generation was blessed with giants of journalism like Ernie Pyle, Eric Sevareid, George Weller and Alan Moorehead. These were enormous figures, brave men whose stories helped lift entire nations up in the darkest hours. These were men who were strafed, machine-gunned, bailed out of airplanes into the arms of Burmese headhunters, rode on tanks across North Africa, and got shelled on the beaches of Anzio and Normandy. They wrote great stories and were made of iron and that iron instilled confidence and confidence always matters in a war effort.
We get Don Lemon.
Among the 20 survivors who jumped for their lives from a damaged ATC plane over a Burma jungle were left to right; John Davie’s State Department Liaison Officer with Lt. Gen. Stilwell’s Headquarters; William T. Stanton of the Board of Economic Warfare, and Eric Sevareid of CBS.
So, after observing NBCs contribution to the war effort, and because police work taught me to stop tilting at the windmills of stupidity, I turned the television off and resolved that I would eschew any kind of news — television, print, or digital — for a minimum of 72 hours. That was a hard call because I love the Wall Street Journal, where they still do journalism and rake the political coals with equal, adult, measure. Of an evening, I like to sit in my study with a cup of decaf tea and snap the paper open and read the intelligent stories written by intelligent people who just continue delivering thoughtful pieces at a steady and reassuring pace.
But alas, I gave them all up.
*
There is an old adage in sailing that runs something like this: “Below 50° south there is no law. Below 60° south there is no God.” We can find versions of that same sentiment elsewhere: “There is No God west of Pueblo” being another famous expression of the same idea from the 1890s, but here in 2020, in the middle of this pandemic, we seem to have lost our sense of proportion and scale. The people shaving off their eyebrows over the appearance of portable morgues in New York City don’t seem to realize that condition has been the reality in Los Angeles for decades. So many people die every day in LA they have yards full of refrigerated trucks that are crammed with dead bodies. Now, suddenly, such a thing is uproarious.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t take this virus lightly. I embrace it as a true horror. But we seem to be spending too much time focused in the wrong direction, and a lot of that is driven by the media and how very bad and apocalyptic their coverage has been. The time for sorting out whose at fault and who needs blaming for what comes well after we beat the wind and the waves, not in the middle of a storm in the roaring forties.
But perspective is a thing easily lost.
Here in Sisters our local scolds have hijacked a community forum on Facebook. While its original intent was to raise awareness — a loathsome modern phrase — about criminal behavior in the community, in the pandemic it has rapidly devolved into a space for the stumping righteous, angry scolds, closeted bureaucrats, and just plain rats.
A space like that is always an open mic night for crazies, naturally, but it turns out the crazies multiply like gremlins under Stay at Home orders. Why is the bicycle shop open?! the scolds demand to know, implying that some brownshirts or jackboots should go seal the proprietors in or have them arrested.
And on and on it goes.
It’s unnerving to see how quickly and easily Americans have been knocked off their center of gravity and gone stumbling around shouting their entitlement to the heavens: “I’m an American, I can’t get a virus!” But, dear friends, you can. You can actually get the virus. And you might even die from it. Being mad at some politician you hate won’t change that one little bit, but washing your hands might.
I don’t know how long I’ll stay away from the news. There haven’t been many super valuable takeaways offered up by the industry three months into this thing, and I doubt there will be anytime soon. If there is, by some miracle, I’ll probably miss it. And anyway it’s spring which means I’ve got to dust off the horses and plant my garden and square away the beehives and finish burning pine needles before the scowling Fire Chiefs descend on me with writs and torts and orders to quash.
In the meantime, here’s hoping you stay in the fight, and keep your nerve and your focus on victory despite the Zulus coming over the wall. Which is not an easy thing to do in the way we have to do it…by merely sitting on our asses.
Steve Erickson says
I haven’t watched network news in 4 years. You’re not missing much and probably in the beginning of a good trend.
There is some tactical disadvantage to operating in the dark. So it’s a tradeoff. But for my long term sanity i’d rather do without the Chicken Littles and the doomsayers. This phenomenon isn’t confined to network news…it’s virtually everywhere. One significant place it isn’t is in the Nugget Newspaper, where Jim has done an admirable job of keeping the news valuable and relevant and of impact in our community — which needs that voice in particular to stay strong and positive. They could do that on the national level — what they are doing instead is a choice. And a poor one that reveals much about who they are.
Steve says
I’d offer this, while I don’t watch network news I do endeavor to stay informed via the electronic string of tin cans. But it says volumes, I think, when I have to exercise more energy in trying to verify the validity of the source versus deciphering the point of the article.
For sure. And even “the source” material is often dubious. My experience running informants comes in handy…question everything they say and why they are saying it. then question it again. and then one more time for good measure. informants are abundant and easy to get. reliable informants are like rare earth metals. 🙂
Jim says
I don’t like censorship, but a lot of today’s media need put on a leash.
Matthew says
There was a bit in a few episodes of South Park where there’s a superhero who flies to disasters and then tells everyone what they should have done to prevent the disaster and then flies off. They were of course making fun of the media figures who always criticize after the incident. South Park (for all it’s gross out humor) can be pretty spot on.
I’ve been doing my best to keep from going stir crazy (which I’m prone to) by doing a lot of reading (really rereading), writing, and so on. Stir craziness might explain a lot of people on the internet. Humans need to get out! Last time I had to stay at home long periods of time, I really got unhinged. I’m doing better this time. (Also it helps me when you and Jim post.)
There is little doubt that cabin fever has struck large percentages of the population. The discipline is channeling that into something productive. So far this has been a cakewalk. America needs to buck up and fill some sandbags. Hang in there, we will do our part to keep posting and making a positive contribution. Stay healthy. That’s how we all win.
Matthew says
Channeling into something positive, yeah that’s important.
Self defense blog I follow had post about the emotional and psychological issues related
https://www.wimsblog.com/2020/04/podcast-episode-48-interview-with-tammy-yard-mccracken/
Breaker Morant (David Wrolson) says
My personal favorite part of this is that people who a short time ago would have ridiculed anybody who (at the personal level) was making preparations to handle disruptions like this are suddenly, with the benefit of hindsight, all about pandemic preparations that should have been done.
I also note that very few of these people have yet taken it to the personal level, they still want somebody else (the government) to do it for them.
I avoid the news, ma’am, cause it feels like you’re locked in a cage
With hand-raised wolverines
— Tom Russell
lane batot says
That quote makes it sound like being in a cage with hand-raised wolverines is a BAD thing? They are actually a LOT of fun, a lot like giant ferrets, and quite affectionate to people they know! Just sayin’.….
RL Schaefer says
My Dear Neighbor,
Was wondering how you were doing. So glad to read your message as it not only posits a solution , it is the answer. You brightened my day with humor. Yes, the media is simply following a script, journalism gone out the window. I do appreciate local weather reports though, so I know when to plant, when to sow and when to enjoy the beauty of taking a brisk walk in our forest.
It’s a great ride, may as well have fun. Thanks for sending out your tongue-in-cheek joy!
Thanks Ruth. Stay healthy, and let me know if you need anything.
Valarie J Anderson says
Every night when I turn on “Newsy”, the only broadcast station I watch, I say to my dog, “Let’s see who’s pissed off at Trump today.” I appreciate a President who listens to and acts upon the advice of experts. I’d bury myself in my veggie garden if Pelosi was running the show. History is a great teacher.
The levers of political advantage are always being pulled by someone. But the nakedly aggressive way its happening in the middle of a legitimate emergency is disappointing. History could be a great teacher but…stay healthy and safe and thanks for being here.
Traven Torsvan says
Andrew Yang just suggested that soldiers and veterans be be voluntarily infected to “maintain readiness, provide an immune workforce, and research antibodies”
hmm…
Is that before or after free everything?
Whenever I’ve had enough news, I think back to when I was a kid. As far as television went — three times per day was all we got. Morning, lunch, and the evening news. And most people only watched the evening news regularly.
The reporters and stories had more meaning. I don’t know for fact but I hazard an interpretation that they had more time to investigate and distill what mattered before they went on air.
Ever since cable went 24/7 news it’s been a dung ball rolling downhill. They aren’t reporting–they are filling airtime with theories, and opinions, and advertisers. There is little news in 24/7 ‘news’ coverage.
Another genie we probably can’t stuff back into the lamp, but oh, how I wish we could.
I wish we could too. When I was a kid we had one channel because we lived in the middle of nowhere. Mostly it snowy and someone had to stand there adjusting the rabbit ears on the gigantic television. We would sometimes get the newspaper from Reno, which was a good small city paper before it was bought out by a conglomerate and turned into utter garbage. Sometimes the San Francisco Chronicle would make it over the Sierras into our place — back when they still ran the green sheet. At school the library had Newsweek and Time and such. But all this was before the world forgot Gandhi’s wisdom about there being more to life than increasing its speed. The lesson for us is that we have to sail the sea we’ve got, with the winds it gives us, and not the one we’d rather have. Stay healthy, friend.
I agree with both of you guys. I don’t watch the news much anymore unless it’s local, and that’s usually just the weather. Now if i could only get my wife to turn it off…
Craig, you’ve said what needs to be said, and I want to thank you for that. It’s nice to know not everyone has lost their minds.
Jim says
Well, you struck another nerve! This virus does not have me concerned one bit. But I am infuriated by the 24 seven cycle of doomsaying.
Like so many other people I have become addicted to the phone. I hear that chirp and I know it’s just a news headline. 20 seconds later I have to pick up my phone. Breaking that habit is like breaking any addiction but if anything can do it, it will be how the news is presented for this event.
Beyond the fact that all reporting is projected through the lens of “Orange Man Bad”, it appears the woke culture has simply converted from micro-aggression based outrage to a fear-based outrage. This seems completely rational when one thinks that micro-aggression outrage is born out of a phobic fear of fear. Now that we have a ”pandemic” being driven largely by a doomsaying and fear mongering media, they simply changed the source of fear. Can you imagine getting the apocalyptic flu from a calming goat in the college safe room.
Never fear, as soon as this starts to subside they will need to convert back. Someone caused this and it probably was angry patriarchal white dudes. Somehow. They haven’t worked out the details. When that occurs, the media and their progressive cadre of coastal university elites will be there to provide a meaningful interpretation for us.
Then they’ll demand a huge, expansive and all encompassing government to solve everyone of your problems. $30-$40 trillion. Afterwhile it’s just a word.
Depending on where this goes, my vote for the guillotine during the next revolution will be the national news media.
David Marsh says
When the News Media focuses soley on one issue (Pandemic) and only one issue .What happens to the rest of the pertinent news that should be reported? I would rather watch cartoons than to watch the CNN people the MsNBC crew and also many on the Fox network. NBC,ABC and CBS are just awful and the majority are all anti Trump. Now Trump can piss off people with his behavior but I thank the lord every day that he is our commander in chief . Can you imagine the pain we would have with any of the leftys that are opposing him.
Stay strong Mr. President
Chuck says
As always a great bit of reading and follow up commentary. Thank you Craig.
I chuckle having recently broken my own Facebook rule of not wrestling with pigs when a Do Gooder declared the HOA should shut down the basketball court, swings and children’s playgrounds in our small development. I commented that they should be left open to give some already stressed parents and cooped up kids a respite and some exercise. Perhaps with signs requesting 1 family at a time on the court and acknowledgement that the playground was not sanitized and they are playing at their own risk.
As expected that was thoroughly rejected as a danger to those who may come in contact with these young kids. “But “play at your own risk” isn’t being responsible in stopping to whomever they spread it to as well. I think we’ve reached the point in time that decisions need to be made for people.” Was her response.
Fortunately my wife took away my phone at that time before I made a reply and ended up truly in the mud. Instead I cracked a Ginger Beer and listened to Dan Crenshaw discuss his book and the tide of moral outrage in society on a Jocko podcast.
Thanks as always for providing entertainment and thoughtful insights.
John Gomez says
A hiatus can usually be healthy, burying one’s head in the sand is foolish. Like with anything, quality requires diligence. But, I know you understand this.
For any persons that think flattening the curve is bullshit, I’m asking you to reconsider. As I’m about to leave work, I enter the number of masks my crew and I use throughout the shift into a spreadsheet. The total count on hand is dwindling. That cell in the spreadsheet has a real significance for us. Once it hits zero, the men and women I am responsible for, my family, and I are in a bad way. As is, approximately twenty percent of our operation’s personnel are currently in quarantine. Fellow Americans, we need you. Join the fight. Do your part. With some luck, we can bicker about systematic and personal shortcomings in the future, but for now there is work to be done. If this isn’t for you, stand the fuck aside and keep quiet. Thanks.
On a related note, here is an article that made me question a few things I thought I had a reasonably firm opinion on, like good reporting does.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2020/04/03/if-you-imagine-that-a-local-business-making-surgical-face-masks-is-working-247-guess-again/
Ugly Hombre says
“Can you imagine the pain we would have with any of the leftys that are opposing him.
Stay strong Mr. President”
+1
Amazing that the American Socialist/Communist block can’t see what their cult really is all about.
Its poison plan and simple the- Chicom’s hold the record in this century for mass murder, slavery, torture, and hellish oppression- if the regular Chinese people had weapons right now there would be hell to pay. I am sure of it. Doubt it? investigate how the Honkies fought back with bare hands for less. The common decent Chinese people were and are the major victims of the Wuhan virus. They are enraged.
But in America, you see CNN, and the other main stream media jive @$$ propagandists, the W.H.O. etc.shrilling for the Communists who unleashed this disaster on the world. Tens of thousands killed by them in 2020 not 1949.
How you like Mao now?
We can wise up understand the threat and bring manufacturing home stop exporting tech, and allowing them to steal us blind, real world train and equip our armed forces the same as it was during the cold war under Reagan with the understanding that we face a threat much worse than the Soviet Union. A smarter more deadly and ruthless potential foe.
If not, we may well become vassals to the new world super power, Red China- a new version of the National Socialist disease mutated and much more powerful and difficult to cure.
https://poormansrarebooks.com/12227.jpg
The Democrats gave them the keys to the kingdom, and the G.D. Rino’s are guilty to.
We have a chance to back track and regroup- I hope to hell we take it.
Trump is the only political that took action to level the economics and stop the Chicom’s from robbing us blind in 30 years.
Biden, Clinton etc took their silver.
Tighten down your helmet straps.
Jim says
Well said Ugly…
We need to to be the capitalist entrepreneurs that forced the Soviets to race us to bankruptcy.
lane batot says
I’m not exactly sure, but I think perhaps it has been an act of God, but for whatever reason, no matter where I have lived(since leaving my parental home in the 70’s), I have NEVER lived anywhere where I could see any NBC stations on TV. True, there was a 20 year gap where I got ZERO TV or radio reception(including my truck, which was a cheap demo model with no radio), but I have received other channels of peasant TV since–CBS, ABC, etc. Which I watch occasionally(and my present truck, also a cheap demo model, does at least have a radio!). Even so, it is not unusual for me to go far more than 72 hours without seeing any “News”, and hardly notice. I have tried to keep up a bit better since the Pandemic, but again, no NBC or CNN, so I don’t have any idea what the controversy regarding them is about. As for the “Orange Man Bad” commentary, I don’t tend to take much stock in criticism of ANY politician that I can’t verify or haven’t witnessed myself. I mean, when have ANY politics been very reliable for the commoners? HOWEVER, it doesn’t take too many times for a politician to blatantly lie in public and on camera, which our present “Beloved Leader” has, which I have witnessed for myself repeatedly. for me to no longer trust or respect them. And I have NEVER seen the phenomenon of devoted followers making excuses for and denying, denying, denying what is there, over and over, for anyone with eyes to see, and ears to hear. quite like in present times. Nixon got ousted after being caught in just ONE lie(although it was a biggie!) Of course GETTING CAUGHT is the key phrase here. But not anymore–a politician can just make things up as he/she goes, tell people what they want to hear(regardless of FACTS)and it will be accepted by their cult following. Well, NOT for some of us(and I HOPE there are a lot more out there that feel the same).….