Ego Centrism

As I write this it is Tuesday morning May 27. The day after the Memorial Day weekend.

The headline on the internet is: “Storms to Drench, slow Tuesday Commute NYC to Chicago.”

Being a 49-year resident of the Chicago metro area I grasped the error of the headline immediately.  Did anyone else catch it?

If not, let me spell it out for you kind readers: nearly all weather in the USA moves from west to east. There are regional disturbances and shifts in the jet stream that alters this general rule temporarily, but weather moves across the continent from west to east.  So the headline should have read: ‘Tuesday commute to be slowed by storms from Chicago to NYC.’

Further reading of the weather bulletins claimed the most serious storms to be centered just west of Chicago and moving east to include Cleveland. Rain was forecast for the broader region from west of the Mississippi to the east coast.

Now that is the full weather story. The problem is non scientists wrote the story. Ego centrist boobs wrote the story. In New York. It is all about NYC to those folks. The world, you know, is centered in New York. Those of us living in the boring Midwest get this. New York news staffers continually look at the world from their geographic locus. If it’s snowing and sleeting in Chicago it must mean nasty business for NYC in 24 hours or so, so that becomes the story. Not the story in the Midwest and what those folks are enduring; no it’s about what NYC might expect to happen to them.

And because they are writing the national news then the story is about NYC. Not the nation. It’s been that way for generations.

So much for the objectivity and world view perspective of the American news profession.

Many years ago I recall a phone conversation with my dad then living in Phoenix. Although Arizona was experiencing major droughts (surprise!), but dad was certain the problem would be fixed by the state when they arranged purchase of water supplies from the Great Lakes.  Of course I defended our Great Lakes Region by claiming we would never agree to selling water to the western area of the United States. Why would we give up the one resource that marked our region? After all the rust belt was the Midwest not the southwest. The southwest was burgeoning with education and jobs because regionally water supplies were imported to the region to make that happen. But what happened to those areas from whence the water came?

I told my dad that the Midwest remained the manufacturing capital of the USA but at great cost and without any help from any other region. We also have the largest amalgam of educational resources anywhere in the USA and I wondered how that would fare if a lot of our water resources were diverted to other regions. What would happen to the Great Lakes overall and the region surrounding that relies on the massive store of water?

He was a bit speechless.  Remember that our family spent many years together in southern California. My sister and I were born there in fact. We grew up understanding the value and role of water in the lives of Californians, and the future development of the region. It was crucial. We were taught to conserve water at all costs. We were taught to respect natural resources: forests, streams, rivers, lakes, oceans, soils and air. Water led the list of resources to be valued most highly. We were grateful and reliant on water supplies.

Later American greed took over. It wasn't about the health and self sufficiency of a region, it was always about where the next mother lode of wealth would be found. With a little more public infrastructure, a little more water, a region could thrive. So the arid desert was made to bloom while the rust belt lay in ruins.

Never mind that federal tax dollars flow inexorably from the Midwest to Washington DC, the rest of the disembowelment of the Midwest was given up to the southwest and the southeast. Resources flowed there to boost their futures and fortunes. The Midwest was left to fend for itself.

Ego centrism and greed. Selfishness. These are unwelcome personality traits of the American psyche that still rule the day in America.

All you need do to bring this message home is add the term “energy supplies” to the discussion. And then the centrism and greed becomes more evident.

When will our nation grow up and realize its problems and deal with them honestly?

A slow commute from NYC to Chicago? Well ain’t that something? Who’d a thunk it?

May 29, 2014

PS: The storms never came. The dawn was beautifully clear. The entire morning was the same. I don’t know who had a slow commute but it wasn't anywhere near Chicago. Maybe NYC experienced it in the evening?  I guess it depends what Paris’ commute was like.