Negativity

Tens of thousands of body bags shipped to New Orleans, and predictions of six months or more to pump the new Lake New Orleans dry -- both now appear to be incredibly negative assessments of the situation. As were fervid media reports of a freezer full of dead and murdered bodies in the Superdome, and of brutal rapes happening in that buildings halls.

Gloomy assessments from Iraq, predictions of the end of the world as we know it if John Roberts is confirmed, ecological disaster if a tiny wetland is altered, global warming will burn/sink/freeze us all.

All are the result of negativity, of thinking poorly of systems and individuals, of looking at the darkest possible side of life.

What a gloomy way to look at the world! I see it often in my business of getting land development projects approved. Our opponents are, almost to a person, negative thinkers. If they show a sense of humor, it is sarcastic and depreciating of others. But mostly they frown, as if the chips they carry on their shoulders and the doubts that cloud their minds have been there a long time and get heavier and gloomier by the day.

Many such people go into the media, where their mindset helps them to root out scandal and cover-up in government, or into law enforcement, where the part of society they see most reinforces their negativity. There's good in that, but the negative mindset needs to be controlled or you get what we're getting daily in our reporting today.

That is, absurdity and silliness. It looks like the death toll from all of Katrina will not break through the low one-thousands, thank God. The NOLA Police Chief now says there was no throat-slashing or raping going on at the Superdome, after earlier thinking the worst of the situation and saying there were. News is good from New Orleans and Iraq ... still not so good from the UN ... but overall, life fares much better than assessments of it would have you think.

I left journalism because I was simply too optimistic. Thirty years later, looking back, it was the smartest thing I ever did. Not just because I got out of journalism, but more importantly, because I entered the real world, where most people think well of each other and believe in their hearts that things will just turn out all right.