Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Those Ricin Letters
It turned out to not be an angry gun rights advocate, but a woman angry at her soon to be ex-husband. And here is a detailed account of the investigation: the woman was apparently a gun control advocate, trying to kill two birds with one stone: make gun advocates look bad; get her husband sent to prison.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Called it!
ReplyDeleteThe human mind, or American mind at least, becomes more and more capable of fully analyzing and interpreting a story from the most fragmentary of facts. We don't even need facts to finalize our conclusions.
ReplyDeleteIt comes from being swamped with sound-bytes at an ever-increasing rate. The talking head says "ricin" and "letter rants from right-wing nut", and we've already been to the voting booth before the newscast over. Shannon was correct in assuming that all would leap without thinking.
Anyone who was affected by the story is unlikely to reverse their emotionally arrived at stance now in the face of more details.
Truth is we don't like complications. Keep the story simple, don't come in later with more nuance. America's over nuance. It doesn't fit between the pop tart and eggo.