It is remarkable how often, after the fact, everybody knows what should have been done to avoid the latest national disaster.
You have to wonder if they really thought about the matter at all beforehand.
Consider how many Americans following the Boston Marathon bombing thought Chechens were from Czechoslovakia.
Petr Gandalovič, Ambassador to the United States from the Czech Republic, had to inform the “social media” that “the Czech Republic is a Central European country; Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation.”
What we don’t know, we all need to know so that we can make informed policy decisions.
To make matters worse, our modern political “dialogue” consists principally of public disinformation focused on banal distractions and not what really matters.
We are a culture that poses with equanimity but that incites its citizens against immigrants, racial minorities, welfare mothers, feminists, gays and lesbians.
In the shadow of Earth Day, I’d like to underscore one of those issues that prompts a sadly anorexic dialogue about how we can safely breathe the air and drink the water.