Why I wouldn’t read this web log, and what you could do about it:
I never was that enthusiastic of a reader of the news. There is a line from Lost Horizon in which one of the guests asks one of the elders of Shangri La how they manage without newspapers. He said they did indeed get news of the outside world after a few years’ delay, but nothing of importance happens that is not foreseeable ten years before nor anything that will not be better understood ten years later. For me anything of importance would sooner or later wind up on the comic page.
Now I spend an inordinate amount of time looking at the news from mainstream sources. And I do troll the less mainstream following clues I get from blog hopping. Recently I learned that in an English town called Rotherham there had been at least ten years of human trafficking in underage English girls but that the police did nothing for fear of being called “racist;” the criminals are not English. Sweden used to be the most idyllic place I had ever been, but now there appears to be a rash of sexual assaults perpetrated by non Swedish male immigrants. The American ambassador to Libya was not only killed, but his body was desecrated. (Now I wonder where they got that idea; the mob that did it is reported to have al quada ties.) I can vouch for none of the above. They are not reported in the very respectable news sources I depend on.
But even if they are only rumors, the very fact of the rumors would be more important than a lot of things I do read about. And if they are not true, a little professional footwork should lay them to rest. If they are true, I think we have a right to know.
None of the above is my own field of interest of course. But having found out beyond doubt that rumors are out there and that they get ignored by the journalists I trust for so much put me in a very unhappy frame of mind.
Yes, these are problems if true, and yes there appears to be no apparent cure. And that’s before you take demographic issues into account. So what is the chance that demography and its cause will ever get explained to the whole population? Zilch, I would say. I was so unhappy that I decided never to tread again the steps that took me to the allegations.
But I worked up my courage, ranted and raved to a few friends, and found I could manage after all.
It’s natural to avoid utterly dismal news.
So what about my own work here? It’s worse, isn’t it? After all it’s global. It may have no more of a cure than those other things.
But it might. I have a serious question as to whether it is too late for any action to save us. And judging from experience that action is about as likely as winning the lottery. That’s not to say it’s hopeless. It is to say it’s very hard. And driving off ones friends with doom and gloom isn’t going to make it any easier.
So here is what you do. Rant and rave like I did. But be careful. Either choose a friend so loyal you aren’t going to lose him or her or else just a harmless person who doesn’t like you anyway. You’ll feel better.
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