Otterblog

I apologize for the extended absence. Friday was a blur, with tornado coverage, and yesterday I was sick.  I know there are people who blog in their pajamas, but I am not one of them.

So where are we. Where were we?

One of the things I’ve been trying to wrap my head around recently is what I will call “disaster equivalency.” It is the horrid calculus of newspaper editors everywhere, in trying to equate tragedies at home with tragedies abroad. Now we have three. First is the damage from our May tornadoes in the Triad. Second is the tsunami disaster in Myanmar. Third is the earthquake in China. On a human scale, what happened here is a drop in the bucket compared to the unfolding tragedy in Asia. But as far as newsworthiness goes, it is a much bigger story, and one that people are still talking about. The high winds here yesterday kept the conversation going.

I know this: There is not enough time in the day nor column inches in the paper nor screens on the Web site to account for and take stock of all the suffering in the world from war and weather. So we pick and choose each day. This is not a cry for help or to yell “enough!). It’s simply a recognition that as our world shrinks, and more and more things become “local” stories, it is incredibly hard to find places for it all, in our hearts and minds and in our pages and Web sites. It’s not a desire to tune it out, either. Just a wish that there was less of it to worry about.