jet set hair

The Hoax / smear story against a U-S-D-A employee (Shirley Sherrod) made me think about several things:

1. a Phenomenon in Today's Society: a tendency to react and overreact, without checking facts;
2. "networks"; cable channels; and "news";
3. "jet-set hair" and the fear which politicians live under
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1.
There's a trend toward
a) operating on Reaction, and
b) overreacting, and
c) not checking facts (because "if someone said it then it's true!!!!"), and
d) thinking that we have to DoEverythingReallyReallyFast.

Perspective:

If we operate based on Reacting to things, are we leading, or following?

Pres. Obama, what were you & Mr. Vilsack thinking? Who was checking facts for you, my friend? Are you letting the self-interested maniacs on cable television pull your strings? Are you letting them "jerk your chain"? Your strings and your chain should be utterly unavailable to them. They are entertainers of dubious qualification; you are the leader of the free world. Stay on business.

It looks to me like Operating In Reaction to Whatever Anyone Says leads to bad stuff.
(I'm going to say, I was there when this trend crept into politics. In the late 90s in our state politics another lobbyist started saying the phrase, "Perception is reality." I picked up on it at the time & knew it wasn't good.

"Perception is reality."

No, it isn't.)

-- Overreacting: simply the next step in Operating In Reaction to things -- and part of the trend toward thinking we have to talk and do stuff reallyreallyfast -- maybe that comes from computers and internet and instantaneous nature of a lot of elements we work with now. But we can control that; we can choose how we behave, and how we live, and what we choose to believe. We can check facts. We can do things in a measured way, with common sense.

If all we ever do is react and overreact, then it's as if Life is one long series of tantrums.
Is that what we want?
When we see people behave in this manner, are we going to believe everything, or anything, they say?
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2.
A lot of stuff on TV which has the word "news" near it is not news. Some of it's advertising; some of it's propaganda; some of it's certain "stars" who SAY they are giving us news, when they're not; they're just having public tantrums and getting paid a lot of money to do it. (They're going to claim that "sells." Well, not to me, it doesn't. I'm not buying.)

When some people in the media talk about "news" channels (which, as I say, are NOT news) they call them "networks."

Excuse me. The Networks are CBS, ABC, and NBC.
Cable channels are NOT networks; they are cable channels.
Some of them are trying to call themselves networks now, to make themselves sound like they have credibility. Because they truly have no credibility. Which is why they must try to sound like they do.

A cable channel is just that -- a cable channel.
It is not a network.

(The state legislature here passed a bill, back in the 80s, changing the name of every state college: they took out the word "college" and plugged in the word "university." All the state colleges were then called universities, at the stroke of a pen! [This was back before the DWI laws really kicked in, and people still drank a lot when they went out to the capital...don't know if that influenced this brilliant decision...!]

A college is still a college; it doesn't become a "university" because you change the name.
And a cable channel is "cable"; it's not a network.
have a nice day
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3.
And, while I do think internet and computer-fast instant-ness is having its influence in the current trend toward reaction, overreaction, and the naturally resulting insane behavior, in some cases, I also had to admit I thought of another scenario which came about long before there was any internet:
when politicians (presidents, and others) seem to overreact to situations, and to "how things are going to Look" -- it's because they get criticized about a lot of stupid stuff. Partly because of party politics and competition, and partly just because they are under a sort of microscope because of their position.

There's a story in Barbara Leaming's biography, "Mrs. Kennedy" where President and Mrs. Kennedy were preparing to go someplace and when the president went upstairs to the family quarters to meet his wife and walk down with her, he kind of blew up because of her hair-do.

A hairstylist had done an arrangement of the First Lady's hair that was a little different from the usual -- according to the book, Kennedy exploded, saying the press was going to report it as a "jet set hairstyle," or as "too jet-set" -- something like that.

Pres. Kennedy was reacting (there's that word -- reacting) to criticism and sniping in the press which had evolved from observations of Jacqueline Kennedy's famous "style." Her popularity was a two-sided record. Side "A" was -- Great! People like his wife, more votes for him in next election; however, Side "B" was -- yes, she's too classy, too international, too la-di-da...whatever....

What he was trying to do was catch any little detail which might draw criticism and play into any evolving "narrative" of his wife having "fancy" tastes -- he probably thought he was "protecting" them both from needless media heat. (And all this with no Internet!)
But in reality what you end up doing in situations like that is,
React,
and Over-react.

What we need now: A Return to Skepticism!

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