Don't Be Afraid to Panic

The news is hard to stomach, but oblivion is no fun, either.

There are a number of ways to treat the daily news these days to keep yourself from blind panic.

One is the ostrich approach: simply burying your head in the sand to insulate yourself from the stress of grim reality. The downsides of this behavior are that 1) you are left uninformed about the encroaching threat; and 2) you are surrendering your civic obligation and some of your very humanity.

On the plus side, ostriches have excellent blood pressure.

Another option is to stay ultra informed, devouring and internalizing every last detail of the lawlessness, perversity and menace that are spiriting us back to the fascist 1930s. Such is the prerequisite for fighting for what is right, true, just, honorable and humane.

The complication is that the price of principle, apart from the risk of being personally targeted, is facing the horrible reality that roughly half of your countrymen, in varying degrees, embrace the evil. Neighbors, coworkers, friends, relatives. Some of them may live in your house. Your psyche might not be up to that inconvenient truth.

Then there is the third approach: an Atkins media diet that permits you to consume an acceptable variety of menu items so long as you avoid the national-politics carbs that would do you in. News-aggregation apps are excellent for this. You can be fed what you like and literally keep MAGA out of reach. Or at least, you can try.

Today I was scrolling one called SmartNews, and sure enough I was greeted with item after item that had nothing to do with abusing power; terrorizing minorities; flouting the Constitution; blackmailing law firms, universities, media companies and other sovereign nations; and installing slimy zealots to run the judiciary and executive agencies of government.

LAUREN SANCHEZ’S NIPPLES PROTRUDE OUT OF HER SHIRT DURING GLAM BOAT RIDE WITH HUSBAND JEFF BEZOS IN EUROPE

REBECCA DE MORNAY REVEALS WHY STEPHEN KING HATED SHELLEY DUVALL’S ‘THE SHINING’ PERFORMANCE

PLANE THAT CRASHED, KILLING EX-ALASKA REP. MARY PELTOLA, HAD TOO MUCH MOOSE MEAT AND WAS DRAGGED BY ANTLERS, NTSB SAYS

Well! That’s a breath of fresh air! But then, I stumbled upon this:

IN A LANDMARK OPINION, WORLD COURT SAYS COUNTRIES MUST ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE

Oh, yeah, that. The biggest and most important story in the history of the world: the ongoing destruction of our planet. Specifically, the court held the world’s biggest polluters, such as the United States of America, face monetary damages to small countries with minimal carbon footprint but who nonetheless face existential threat of destruction from rising sea levels and unlivable heat. Industrialized countries were ordered to abide by the 2015 Paris Agreement and other international agreements as a basic matter of human rights.

According to Reuters:

“States must cooperate to achieve concrete emission reduction targets,” Judge Yuji Iwasawa said, adding that failure by countries to comply with the ‘stringent obligations’ placed on them by climate treaties was a breach of international law… . Failure to rein in fossil fuel production and subsidies could result in “full reparations to injured states in the form of restitution, compensation and satisfaction provided that the general conditions of the law of state responsibility are met.”

But, alas, as Reuters reported — and as you know if you have not had your head in the sand — increasingly right-wing governments are spewing history’s Biggest Lie that climate change is not the result of fossil fuels or other human activity. They call planetary doom “fake news” or “a liberal hoax.” Because they are loathsome beyond imagination.

As Reuters framed the catastrophe upon catastrophe:

While the decision was stronger than most expected, its impact may be limited by the fact that the United States, the world’s biggest historical greenhouse gas emitter, and second biggest current emitter behind China, has moved under President Donald Trump to undo all climate regulations.

So if traumatic news bedevils, perhaps the answer is not to calm yourself down. These are perilous times, more than at any other time in the existence of life on earth. Sure, you could try to filter out the unpleasantness, but my advice is this:

Don’t be afraid to panic.