popular thinking

A TALE OF TWO CITIES: Twelve days after Hurricane Katrina roared across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and still, we're not getting the big picture. So much misinformation getting bandied about -- who will sift through it all to make sure we really know what happened and what's happening?

Example: CNN shows neighborhoods in New Orleans, from the French Quarter to the Garden District, that remain relatively unscathed. The Sheraton has had its power back on for almost a week. And yet, flip the channel to another multi-network telethon and you hear Ellen DeGeneres tell us that her city of New Orleans is lost and completely destroyed.

Example: Almost everyone in the mainstream media has been quick to play up any death estimates by the New Orleans mayor, when all of these estimates are nothing more than speculation. Just because the military has 10,000 body bags at the ready does not mean that there will be 10,000 fatalities. Reminds me of how, in the early fallout from Sept. 11, 2001, New York City officials were bracing us for casualties upward of 35,000, since that's how many people could have been in the Twin Towers. Sometimes it's better not to try to do the math until you know the equation.

We need to stop focusing so much on the few images we've seen over and over and over again, and remember the people and places who haven't gotten any airtime. Where are they now? How are they doing? What can we do to help?