The Shape of Today

Trust No One

I try to shove the world away from me when it's writing-time; the five minutes or whatever are my time, to be claimed by no one or nothing. This, I think, is important for each of us.

For the most part this works, but there are times when the world simply won't be denied, and yesterday was one of those days. I woke up to a horror story out of Las Vegas that dominated the day. Like many other Americans I am still struggling to understand why this morning and am no closer to an answer. Then, toward the end of the day, there was the sorrowful and perplexing matter of Tom Petty's passing.

I won't go into details on either story since the news sites are full of them. I touch on them because they illustrate one of the less endearing side effects of modern communications technology...the speed at which inaccurate news can spread. As of this writing we still don't know what motivated the jerk in Vegas, only that he clearly planned his act with the intention of inflicting as much harm as possible on a crowd of innocents. He fits into no known subset of people who commit such atrocities. But that hasn't stopped people from spreading every wild tale imaginable online. Crazed right winger, crazed left winger. Manchurian Candidate. Innocent American brainwashed by foreign agents. Heavy gambler who lost too much. Or, simply, a madman. Of all the posited explanations, I'm inclined to agree with that last because nothing else seems to make sense at this stage. Ultimately, time will tell. But the speed at which various parties were ready to put their own spin on the story (to lend credence to this agenda or that, you understand) is disconcerting. Getting to the actual facts is going to be a challenge...but if I were a cop, I absolutely would want to know them asap. Who knows how many other ticking human time bombs like this guy are walking around?

Then we have the matter of Tom Petty. Word began to spread of his suffering a massive heart attack around the middle of the afternoon. Then came a series of conflicting reports...he was on life support, he had been taken off life support, he was brain dead, no he wasn't brain dead, etc. His own daughter lit into Rolling Stone for prematurely reporting his death. I assume that his family wanted the time to spend with him and wanted to keep the press away. Understandable, but it was clumsily handled. And, of course, social media was rife with rumors and people repeating stories without checking them first for validity. That, alone, makes me wish social media didn't exist even though I use it myself. Be suspicious of everything, folks...everything. Even somebody who genuinely believes they are passing on credible information may just be passing a baseless rumor. Trust no one.

There! That entry took quite a lot longer than five minutes to put together, but I feel it's important.