Broken News

As I wrote in Victim Overload, the news wake caused by Hurricane Katrina leaves me highly suspicious of claims made by victims. It is not that I lack compassion, as I said. It is because of the political climate in this country, and around the world, that I am suspicious.

Now, nearly a month later, we learn three things. First, we learn that the dead in the Superdome did not amount to hundreds, even dozens. Only six people died there (out of tens of thousands), and not one of the six was murdered (as had been widely rumored).

Second, we learn that teary, maudlin appeals made by a Louisiana official on Meet The Press, in which a story was related of a mother abandoned by federal officials whose failure to come to her rescue led to her drowning in a nursing home, also was so much exploitation. It simply did not happen.

Not to be excluded from the long list of journalistic sins committed in the storm's wake, the New York Times has had to deal with a columnist's fabrication of events surrounding Fox News' Geraldo Rivera allegedly shoving a rescuer out of his way so that he, Geraldo, could appear heroic in assisting a victim. Again, such a thing did not happen.

In response to my last post, reader Luke urged me to seek the counsel of the beautiful and lovely instead of wallowing in the cesspool of news and political debate that is my wont. His letter is indeed one of the lovely things, and his heart is indeed in the right place. Perhaps we should all turn our backs on what is offered to us as truth from the media. Perhaps we should all take a break and go sit on a tire swing for a few days; or skip stones along the seashore.

I don't know. To Luke I offer this from G. K. Chesterton:

A cloud was on the mind of men
And wailing went the weather,
Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul
When we were boys together.
Science announced nonentity
And art admired decay;
The world was old and ended
But you and I were gay;
Round us in antic order
Their crippled vices came—
Lust that had lost its laughter,
Fear that had lost its shame.
Like the white lock of Whistler,
That lit our aimless gloom,
Men showed their own white feather
As proudly as a plume.
Life was a fly that faded,
And death a drone that stung;
The world was very old indeed
When you and I were young.
They twisted even decent sin
To shapes not to be named:
Men were ashamed of honour;
But we were not ashamed.
Weak if we were and foolish,
Not thus we failed, not thus;
When that black Baal blocked the heavens
He had no hymns from us
Children we were—our forts of sand
Were even as weak as we,
High as they went we piled them up
To break that bitter sea.

Chesterton's poem (and this is only part of it), written as a gift for his dear friend E. C. Bentley, is nearly 100 years old. Indeed the struggles we face today are the struggles of old. Chesterton and Pascal and More and Aquinas and Joan of Arc and Augustine and Solomon; each of these built forts of sand, forts as strong as stone.

The tide is coming. Quick! Grab your buckets and shovels, your stones and seashells and water-logged sticks! An adventure draweth nigh!

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.