Is America Thinking Clearly?

I just learned that in America, hanging wet clothes on clotheslines is a banned activity in many communities. Most condo associations and subdivision groups apparently refuse to allow people to air dry their clothes as an alternative to energy wasting machines. The associations banning this activity say the clothes are unsightly and bring down property values. The fluttering linens look messy and who knows, maybe a pantie will become loose, fly in the air and cause a national emergency.

Does this sound like balanced thinking to you?

At a local school, the yearly Halloween decoration consisting of a big inflatable pumpkin and a witch will not be put up this year because someone called the school saying that in one particular culture witches were associated with bad things. With one call the whole display was scraped. I’m not sure, but I think most people would say that witches are usually associated with something mystical and perhaps forbidden. Just take fairy tales for example. Many of these tales include a witch who is up to mischievous antics, or ones who want to cause a whole bunch of trouble. These witches of course do not include the witches of good, like the pretty white dressed woman who tried to save the land of the munchkins.

Recently the President wanted to make a speech to the American children regarding education and some parents raised their voices up and protested. These parents claimed the President’s speech would irreparably harm their children’s brains with political propaganda. Some threatened to remove their children from the schools. Principals scrambled trying to decide which course of action to take and many pulled the plug. They felt it wasn’t worth the wrath of a few parents who obviously didn’t vote for Obama.

The H1N1 is making its way around the country and the world. The new vaccine is hot off the production line and the constant word is that if you have children you must give them the vaccine or they will face uncertain death. The media has been talking and scaring us like this for months, and now despite all the talk, the vaccine produced does not cover the demand. Everyone is now led to believe that this flu will kill them or their kids, despite the fact that yearly flues always kill both young and old people.

A recent news report focused on a man who saw a coyote running through his rich Midwest suburbia backyard. The man captured the animal’s picture on his cell phone. A news team rushed to the scene and exclaimed that this coyote had entered into a populated area and that everyone should be on alert, especially those with small pets. The reporter didn’t understand how this coyote could live in this area, despite the fact that coyotes have been living in cities and suburbia for years now. They painted the coyote as something dangerous and foreboding.

As you hear these stories, and others, you begin to realize that as a nation we have lost something vital. We have lost balance. We have lost our ability to decipher what is hype, what is real, and what is just plain nonsense.

We get information from all different sources these days. Television news, radio and the Internet all slam us with constant reports on the bad, the worse and the miserable. It has begun to steer our thinking into frightening patterns. Instead of weighing issues logically, we focus on one item and dwell on it until it is like a water balloon. We start to believe what we want and ignore the rest whether factual or not. We fill ourselves up until the balloon bursts and then we are soaked with hysteria and dismay.

Issues that should be receiving national concern like the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are often overshadowed by the constant reminders of an emerging disease or a freak murder. This is not to say that murder or health concern is a subject to be discarded. On the contrary. We do need to know if our neighbors have been gunned down, or that a potential illness is preventable, but to constantly hear how one grisly incident has occurred over and over again, takes our brains into a loop pattern. We become so focused on the images, words and descriptions of one story that we begin to lose our ability to decide what is a real threat and what isn’t.

Our society places a big emphasis on accommodating everyone. While this is a good thing, it is also an impossible thing. There will always be something someone doesn’t like or takes offense over. You could hate the color pink because you once had a mean kid wearing pink push you down in a school playground. From that moment on you hate and despise that color and every time you see it you get offended. Or, you might think that eating out at a restaurant is sacrilege. You may think that anyone eating in such an establishment will be doomed to an eternal hot life. But should restaurants close because one person deems them bad?

Balance is a continuing tightrope. We get up and have to try to decide what truth is, what is overblown and what is just a simple fact. It can get very overwhelming at times. But one thing we can do is try to assess the information we are getting, decide if it’s really truly harmful, and then made a decision as to how to proceed. Looking for the middle is a good place to start.