News Cut: August 31, 2011 Archive

When people do good (cont'd)

Posted at 12:13 PM on August 31, 2011 by Bob Collins

I see your never-ending stories of callousness, news industry, and I raise you one of kindness and integrity.

A California man went out of his way to return priceless papers to a man who didn't even know he'd lost them.

(h/t: Steve Sundberg)

Ten things more important than 9/11

Posted at 1:07 PM on August 31, 2011 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)

What could possibly be a bigger event than 9/11? About 10 things, Foreign Policy magazine writer David Rothkopf says.

Rothkopf contends it was incorrect to compare the day to Pearl Harbor, "the beginning of a global war against enemies bent on, and at least theoretically capable of, destroying the American way of life (unlike al Qaeda, a ragtag band of extremists with limited punch). We spoke of cultural wars and a divided world. We reorganized our entire security establishment to go after a few thousand bad guys. We went mad. "

Here is his list of more important events:

10. How we responded to 9/11
"We did more damage to ourselves than did the two-bit criminals who baited us."

9) The Arab Spring
"They are a sign of deep change that has toppled more governments in the region than either al Qaeda or the United States could."

8) The rebalancing of Asia
"It's the big leagues of foreign policy compared with the Middle East, which is attention-grabbing but over the long term strictly second division."

7) The stagnation of the U.S. and other developed-world economies
"Entering an age of limitations is forcing big powers to work together differently and has put the kibosh on the momentary and misguided unilateralism of the Bush era in the United States."

6) The invention of social media
"What's more important? Knocking down the World Trade Center and killing several thousand innocents or linking half a billion people together as never before (as Facebook did)?"

5) Cell phones and handhelds
"Everyone is connected. Everyone is a witness. Everyone is part of a global news network, an instant coalition, a mob, an electorate."

4) The crash of 2008
"The resulting tens of trillions of dollars in losses sent hundreds of millions of people deeper into poverty, crushed retirement accounts, impacted the well-being of billions of people, and called into question the viability of countries and companies in ways that cannot yet be calculated. It also had political and policy implications -- from reconsidering national priorities to changing global views toward "American capitalism" -- that will dwarf those associated with 9/11."

3) The Eurozone crisis and the crash of '11-'12
If it sends the world's economies into another tailspin, "it will have an even more devastating impact on already weakened economies worldwide; and if it undoes the European experiment, which has helped ensure decades of peace on a continent previously riven by conflict, well, then it will again on totally different grounds easily trump 9/11."

2) The failure to address global warming
"While the scientific community united in its agreement that the crisis would be existential for many forms of life and coastal communities where billions of people live, while the entire planet was threatened as never before, the leaders of the world were otherwise engaged. If global temperatures rise another degree or three this century, 9/11 will be seen as a comparative footnote to an event that could remake the nature of life on Earth and lead to a toll many, many times greater than either 9/11 or the wars it triggered."

1) The rise of China, India, Brazil etc.
"The past decade has seen them emerge to the point that they are now the engines of growth that will determine whether a market crash of 2011 occurs, whether the United States and Europe can borrow to fund their ailing economies, whether the world will reach an agreement to manage greenhouse gas emissions, whether we will truly contain the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and what the real future of international institutions and agreements will look like. The BRICs rose while the United States was distracted by bin Laden's sideshow; now, America's future will depend on how quickly Americans can refocus on what's really important."

Rothkopf says this doesn't mean 9/11 was unimportant, but he says it's important for us to understand not only what it was, but what it was not.

(h/t: Two Way)

(6 Comments)

One Picture: Love among the tomatoes

Posted at 3:28 PM on August 31, 2011 by Bob Collins (2 Comments)

It's the age-old story in Spain today. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl throw tons of tomatoes. Girl kisses boy.

Today was Tomatina, the annual tomato fight in Bunol.

The Washington Post has a dozen images of Tomatina to help us feel even worse about spending the day in our beige cubicles.

(2 Comments)