Akkam’s Razor

There are one of two situations to consider: They were (1.) incorrect because a scandal hungry media disseminated the most hysterical news or (2.) it was meant to be that way. If you’ve read this blog before, you most likely know which way I’m going to take this.

The reports coming out of New Orleans were heartbreaking in their intensity, and the first hand experiences by the victims tore this country to its heart, exposing badly scarred wounds scarcely healed from the Civil War and Slavery through Civil Rights and Rodney King, with the mind-numbing poverty of some of our fellow Americans being embarassing to admit.

In the interest of being fair and balanced, the media, in their usual lazy fashion, was not very eager to check some of the most eggregious rumors, like black cannibals, raped 7-year olds in the Superdome, or helicopters and rescuers under fire. Compound this by a city under lockdown with a government mandated news blackout, and one can easily see why there was such distortion.

The question we are left to ask is whether this was accidental or intentional. I have some concerns suggesting that the rumors were not the results of a deliberate effort, but rather that they are a symptom of a deliberate effort to manage the press coverage of “the Battle of New Orleans”.

There’s a division of the military called Civil Affairs…I’d suggest looking into it and the role they play in domestic disasters…