[sciguy125]

One word: documentaries.

I just saw the second half of a documentary about Katrina. I'm not sure how they churned it out so fast, but they did. It was a wealth of information that was about as unbiased as you can get before you start simply putting up charts. It did answer a few of the questions I had.

One in particular was how often a categroy 5 comes around. Some scientists are of the opinion that we have entered an active phase for hurricanes. We are likely to see more of this magnitude in the near future. The reason I am willing to accept this information more than other "opinions" I have heard is that they have evidence. One guy had core samples showing that we are at the tail end of a 1500 year low period for hurricanes. Others had historical data showing a shorter term pattern in which we are entering an active period. This is a lot stronger than the guy that wanted to upgrade the levee system simply because it was only designed for a category 3. Well, he may have had this scientific evidence, but CNN (and the other networks) didn't bring it up.

The documentary also covered the human factor in this disaster. Something I was wondering about was triage. Why were there sick people that were not evacuated? Apparently, the sickest were taken out. I guess the rescue workers couldn't keep up. Unlike CNN that focused on the lack of help rather than the help that was being recieved, this documenatry showed both with equal opportunity. I was also a little irritated about the reporters running around showing the devistation without doing anything. I don't know whether the CNN reporters do anything off camera, but the documentary showed themselves helping people. In particular, he gave water to a sick man that was lying down in the triage area.

I only saw the last half of it, so I don't know what was in the beginning, but it seems that I found the medium that I was looking for. I watch a lot of documentaries, so I'm surprised that I didn't realize it before. I think we need more documentaries though. In general, I'm only interested in the evidence so that I can form my own opinion, but I guess that presenting substantiated opinions is alright.

I don't want to hear people complaining about the slow aid response unless they can back it up. If they can show me that things could have moved faster, within reason of course (we could spend $500 billion and recall our entire military to make anything happen), then I'll listen. If their only reason for complaining is that people haven't eaten for 4 days, then I don't care.

I really only want the facts. However, in light of what I have realized in the last hour, I guess you can present your opinions as long as you can back them up with reasonable evidence. "The media" seems to only present people's opinions without a real explanation of why they feel that way. I don't know whether this is because they are talking to people that don't have a real explanation or they just don't want to air it, but the problem exists. Unless the media changes its ways, we, the viewers, need to be careful of how we interpret the information that is presented to us.