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| Washington, Illinois November 18th, 2013 |
I came to the
realization that today is a very sad day. It’s sad for a number of reasons, all
of them calamitous, some for many, some for few. Years ago, I recall reading
the riot act to a young RCMP constable I worked with, who blew off a young boy
who had come in to report that his bike had been stolen. The boy was about 8. A
stolen bike is not a career-making case for a police officer but that doesn’t
mean it isn’t a tragedy to the child.
I remember being
barked at by a nurse in the hospital one day when I was very pregnant for the
first time. I reminded the doctor when he chimed in that while he might deliver
babies every day, I didn’t, and it would be nice if he could remember that. I
also reminded him that I took car accident reports every day, but never once
did I minimalize his trauma when he was in a fender bender. That same doctor,
several years later, held my hands and cried when he told me that while he had
delivered the news to someone about a diagnosis of cancer, he never really
understood what those words meant to the patient, until he heard them himself.
He thanked me for helping remind him from time to time about perspective.
When I was a telephone
operator, we were taught to cut in to a call in case of an emergency, but that
we had to confirm it was a real emergency. The problem is, as our supervisor
was careful to point out, emergencies are not always what we think they are.
Her experience had been that she cut into a call for an emergency call to be
put through to that number. As required by the phone company, she stayed on the
line to ensure it was, in fact, an emergency. The caller who requested her to
interrupt the current call was in tears, but her emergency when she finally got
through was to beg for someone to bring her some curlers for her hair. An
emergency? Well, maybe not in our everyday worlds, but it was definitely one
for the caller. It was her wedding day, she had one hour to get ready, and her
steam rollers had died. Her hair was a disaster on the most important day of
her life. Even emergencies, I suppose, can be relative.
The point about all of
this is that all of these stories are about perspective and priorities. Each story, each
situation, has several perspectives and each has to be looked at according to priorities. Why is that so hard for us to remember or
respect these two facts? Why is our judgment of what is important so skewed?
Last night, in
Washington, Illinois, disaster struck. It blew into town, hell bent on
destruction. Homes were ruined, livelihoods were destroyed, some lives were
taken. It happened in winter, where night temperatures, even in what I might
consider a southern climate, can be brutal, especially when you have absolutely
nothing left. Unfortunately, instead of talking about this disaster, the story
fell in line after twenty minutes of Rob Ford, the infantile over-indulgent
mayor of Toronto in his mid-life Justin Beiber wannabe crisis.
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| Tacloban, Philippines Nov 18, 2013 |
Last week, there was a
typhoon of epic proportions in the Philippines. Bodies are still being
uncovered. Aide is still desperately needed. Entire communities are lost, and
the prospects, like in Illinois, are not promising for the families touched by
these storms. It will take weeks, years in fact, before life can possibly turn
to something sort of resembling normal for these people, who will forever be haunted
by what can happen in the fury of a storm in the blink of an eye. Instead of
telling us how to help, what organizations actually move the aide forward
instead of using it to line their own pockets or to pay for their high
corporate first class flights and five star executive offices, we have to hear
more about... Rob Ford and his lunatic ravings.
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| Radioactive sea water from Fukushima Nov 2013 |
Last year, there was
an earthquake and tsunami in Fukushima, Japan, that caused extensive damage to
the nuclear reactors there. Ten days ago, they started work to try to get the
reactive cores out of the plants, a task that is so fraught with danger, one
slip of one fraction of an inch could result in an explosion many times that of
the bombing of Hiroshima. While this is going on, though, radioactive
contamination is spilling into the pacific at about the same speed as a BP oil
leak. The nuclear contamination is spreading hundreds of thousands of square
miles into the ocean, already almost on the shores of that ecological gem,
Hawaii. It is less than a year away from the shores of North America. There is
no contingency plans, no assistance being accepted, no protocol for dealing
with what is happening in our water, something that could destroy the majority
of ocean life on half of the globe. What is the news covering? Rob Ford, his
crack and his wife's bountiful attributes.
Today, the Center for
Global Development released their statistics, stating that Canada was at the
bottom of the barrel – the very bottom of the barrel – in their commitment to
providing aide, in various forms, to the poor of the world and in our
commitment to protect the environment. Our Environment Minister also stood up
today and knowingly, unabashedly lied about Canada’s commitment to the UN
Climate Change Conference, stating that we are making progress that even
documents from her own department show are false. One has to wonder at the sad
irony of these news stories all playing out right now, where climate change and
record-breaking weather anomalies, caused by climate change, are destroying
lives by the tens of thousands. What did we hear on the news today about this
story? Nothing. We were watching Rob Ford knock down fellow city council
members and proclaiming his Jesus moment that made him turn over a new leaf
(however temporarily that leaf may be turned).
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| No Mo Ro Fo -- Rob Ford, Mayor of Toronto |
I readily acknowledge
that the claims made against the mayor of Toronto are news, and do need to be
taken seriously. It is abhorrent to think that a public official at such a high
level in the largest municipality in Canada has opened the doors, putting his
family, his council and his co-workers at what could be immense peril because of
his criminal connection and business. He has opened his children up to
ridicule, and to danger. He is dealing with a criminal element, by his own
admission, on more than once occasion, in a manner that is absolutely not
acceptable. He can play his word games, he can thunder around and bully,
because that is what we seem to reward in politics and business these days, but
it doesn’t change the fact that because of his actions, people could have been
killed, kidnapped, extorted, injured, or illegally financially rewarded. Yes,
this is news, but it is not 20 minutes at the top of every news show for days
on end. We know what he has done, we are aware of the allegations. Let the city
council now do their job to mitigate the damage this moron and his brother can
do, and relegate them to where they belong in the news cycle – after the
serious, new news. The people of Toronto deserve better. The people who live
off the ocean, or eat the fish, or swim in the water deserve better. God knows,
the people of Washington, Illinois and those in the Philippines definitely
deserve better. It’s time for the media to step up to the plate, own their
share in this mess, and get back to being reporters of news.
