Thank you. We will live to rant another day.
August 20 // August 6, 2017
North Korea threatens the world. Remember that?
For everyone who needs a brief reminder, here’s what we set out to do here at Two Weeks Ago News, about six months ago:
“Our goal here is to do little more than recall that news story, that headline, that sound bite…whatever it was that had all of us lamenting the end of days, the coming apocalypse or the approach of something truly malevolent, like a new HGTV millennial couple, showing us how they live independently and with endless joie de vivre in a 312-square-foot Tiny house they park on family property.
Make no mistake. This isn’t about history or learning from history. The web is littered with brilliant people writing brilliantly about the events of our past – recent and ancient – and what we might take away from them as thinking, evolved, compassionate people. If that’s your thing, you won’t find it here.
No, this is simply one repository for all the antics, every bit of mayhem, the interminable injustice, the relentless chaos and the formidable challenges that outraged all of us on facebook and twitter just two weeks ago.”
In the spirit of our mission, we offer a bit of a departure for this particular piece. And before we go further here, yes, some of the headlines that dominate the news should get out attention and or evoke some outrage. It’s not all specious nonsense. The standoff with North Korea is arguably one of the legitimate stories that many felt strongly about as they expressed their fears and concerns.
So let's start with the headlines – simply those – culled from our local newspaper. Some were AP stories; some were Tribune stories (Tribune owns our local newspaper) and others were locally developed. We chose not to reference national newspapers or the broadcast or cable networks here since many people across the country count on their own local papers daily to get the facts of about a national story.
Then we’ll try to recapture a very small sample of some of the outrage and despair that was posted, tweeted or broadcast relentlessly as the situation unfolded. Reminder: Our topic is escalating possibilities of nuclear war with North Korea. Remember that? It was happening just two weeks ago.
Then we’ll pose a question or two or three. Ready? Here we go with the headlines – and only the headlines:
North Korea threatens the world. Remember that?
For everyone who needs a brief reminder, here’s what we set out to do here at Two Weeks Ago News, about six months ago:
“Our goal here is to do little more than recall that news story, that headline, that sound bite…whatever it was that had all of us lamenting the end of days, the coming apocalypse or the approach of something truly malevolent, like a new HGTV millennial couple, showing us how they live independently and with endless joie de vivre in a 312-square-foot Tiny house they park on family property.
Make no mistake. This isn’t about history or learning from history. The web is littered with brilliant people writing brilliantly about the events of our past – recent and ancient – and what we might take away from them as thinking, evolved, compassionate people. If that’s your thing, you won’t find it here.
No, this is simply one repository for all the antics, every bit of mayhem, the interminable injustice, the relentless chaos and the formidable challenges that outraged all of us on facebook and twitter just two weeks ago.”
In the spirit of our mission, we offer a bit of a departure for this particular piece. And before we go further here, yes, some of the headlines that dominate the news should get out attention and or evoke some outrage. It’s not all specious nonsense. The standoff with North Korea is arguably one of the legitimate stories that many felt strongly about as they expressed their fears and concerns.
So let's start with the headlines – simply those – culled from our local newspaper. Some were AP stories; some were Tribune stories (Tribune owns our local newspaper) and others were locally developed. We chose not to reference national newspapers or the broadcast or cable networks here since many people across the country count on their own local papers daily to get the facts of about a national story.
Then we’ll try to recapture a very small sample of some of the outrage and despair that was posted, tweeted or broadcast relentlessly as the situation unfolded. Reminder: Our topic is escalating possibilities of nuclear war with North Korea. Remember that? It was happening just two weeks ago.
Then we’ll pose a question or two or three. Ready? Here we go with the headlines – and only the headlines:
DATE |
SOURCE |
HEADLINE |
LOCATION |
Sunday, August 6, 2017 |
AP story by Edith Lederer |
U.S. imposes tough new sanctions on N. Korea |
Page 20 |
Wednesday, August 9, 2017 |
Washington Bureau, The Morning Call (Tribune), by W.J. Hennigan, David S. Clous, Noah Bierman |
Trump warns of 'fire and fury' |
Front page, top |
Friday, August 11, 2017 |
Washington Bureau, The Morning Call (Tribune), by Noah Bierman |
President ratchets up war of words |
Front page, middle |
Saturday, August 12, 2017 |
Washington Bureau, The Morning Call (Tribune), by Noah Bierman and W. J. shenanigan |
Military 'locked and loaded' |
Front page, upper right |
Sat., Aug. 12, 2017 |
The Morning Call (Tribune), Laura Olson and Michelle Merlin |
Questions, answers about conflict |
Front page, below the fold |
Sat., Aug. 12, 2017 |
Graphic elements: Missile Map source, AP, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Martht Miller, The Morning Call (Tribune) |
Graphic: North Korea Showdown: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW |
Front page, upper lieft |
Wednesday, August 16, 2017 |
Washington Bureau, The Morning Call (Tribune), W.J. shenanigan and Tracy Wilkinson |
U.S., N. Korea pull back for now |
Page 12 |
Friday, August 18, 2017 |
AP Story by Matthew Pennington |
U.S. Officials: North Korea still risks armed response |
Page 14 |
Frid., Aug. 18, 2017 |
Los Angeles Times (Tribune) columnist Doyle McManus |
The trio that pulled U.S. back from the nuclear brink |
Page 10 |
From various facebook posts and tweets: We aren't supporting nor condemning any source, merely identifying them here:
And now, a few questions or points of discussion:
Given how the end of the world was imminent, and then seemingly went away at least for the present time, why aren’t we responding with relief, gratitude and a general good feeling of pride in the efforts our government officials and others around the world made to keep us all safe? Regardless of how you felt about the tenor and the content of the President's response - and it was a response, to North Korea successfully testing an intercontinental ballistic missile and a plan in which they were "carefully examining" an attack on Guam, a U.S. territory using medium and long-range missile - the outcome of this week of threats, tweets, headlines and fear was a military stand-down.
As a side note: Remember the outrage about transgender individuals perhaps being barred from serving in the military? As we were all petrified about nuclear war, we didn’t read one word about the gender of the soldiers and service people who would protect the interests of our country and our allies. The headlines detailed our country’s possible military response, not our military response from the troops that didn’t include transgender soldiers and officers. In other words: this is basically a non-issue that became an issue because – well, that’s thing now.
All of this was eclipsed (you should forgive the expression) by our own home-grown outrage about Charlottesville. The world might well be on the brink of destruction, but we had a more pressing topic to take our attention off the Pacific Rim. More on that in about a week.
The question is this: For everyone who posted about the end of days, a nuclear catastrophe completely orchestrated and executed by a president they despise, and how we would even begin to survive such an attack, was there a follow-up flurry of posts and tweets that illustrated in words or pictures (because we like those – pictures that help us understand something complicated like world aggression, enemies, dictators and nuclear arms) how the threat was averted? Anyone? Anything?
Nope. But we are SO WILLING to be proven wrong about this! Please, please post the memes, tweets, posts and other ways we as a people shared our gratitude that cooler heads prevailed and enacted a hybrid of diplomacy + collaboration + steadfast determination that brought this latest episode to a death-free close.
Final thought: It continues to astound us that so many people who know so very little about the outrage du jour feel comfortable and justified in making their viewpoints known and condemning those who may have a different perspective. We don’t know much at Two Weeks Ago News (some would say we don’t know anything) but we do know this:
In the current administration alone, these people know more about the situation in North Korea than we do:
President Donald Trump
Vice President Mike Pence
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
Secretary of Defense James Mattis
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley
Director of the program on U.S. – Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations Scott Snyder
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert
U.S. diplomat in East Asia Susan Thornton
Former Pentagon advisor on North Korea Frank Aum
The U.S. National Security Council
From around the world, these people know more:
Chinese President Xi Jinping
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera
South Korean President Moon Jae-in
North Korean President Kim Jung Un
North Korean General Kim Rak Gyom
Plus scores of people who work with these individuals. And we haven’t even begun to list the people from previous administrations, starting with President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or other world leaders at large who know a whole lot more than we do.
Look, we need to hold our leaders accountable for their actions and words. (See Bradlee, Ben for more on how to do that appropriately.) And we’re not saying we should be ignorant of the news; or not feel comfortable sharing our opinions or choosing to voice concerns with the decisions and activities that emerge from Washington or the world stage. It’s the American Way, after all. We may be uninformed about the details but we never let that stop us from launching into a good rant.
Not at all. We are saying that a little restraint – and thoughtful consideration of various points of view – could go a long way to reducing the hysteria that confronts us daily. We can dream.
- This president is terrifying me. (facebook individual)
- I’ve never lived in fear…until now. (facebook individual)
- “desperate times …” (facebook individual)
- “… humanity ceases to exist.” (facebook individual)
- Tweet from President Donald Trump: “Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!”
- From The Other 98%: In North Korea, people are forced to listen to propaganda. In the USA people do it willingly. (graphic of Fox News logo)
- From Occupy Democrats: “When the apocalypse starts, I would like it noted that I voted for the cool black guy and the chick who made Putin piss himself.” (Photo of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton)
- This is exactly what everyone who voted for Trump WANTED to happen. (facebook individual)
- From WorldPolitics.com: Japan sends surprise to US fleet in massive show of support for President Trump
- “This is the first time the dangerous, apocalyptic statements by the North Korean regime have been met with dangerous, apocalyptic statements by the President of the United States.” Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC, The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
- “Be crazier than the crazy guy trick…We know that North Korea does crazy better than anybody. But so does Donald Trump, which is good.” Greg Gutfeld, FOX News, The Five
And now, a few questions or points of discussion:
Given how the end of the world was imminent, and then seemingly went away at least for the present time, why aren’t we responding with relief, gratitude and a general good feeling of pride in the efforts our government officials and others around the world made to keep us all safe? Regardless of how you felt about the tenor and the content of the President's response - and it was a response, to North Korea successfully testing an intercontinental ballistic missile and a plan in which they were "carefully examining" an attack on Guam, a U.S. territory using medium and long-range missile - the outcome of this week of threats, tweets, headlines and fear was a military stand-down.
As a side note: Remember the outrage about transgender individuals perhaps being barred from serving in the military? As we were all petrified about nuclear war, we didn’t read one word about the gender of the soldiers and service people who would protect the interests of our country and our allies. The headlines detailed our country’s possible military response, not our military response from the troops that didn’t include transgender soldiers and officers. In other words: this is basically a non-issue that became an issue because – well, that’s thing now.
All of this was eclipsed (you should forgive the expression) by our own home-grown outrage about Charlottesville. The world might well be on the brink of destruction, but we had a more pressing topic to take our attention off the Pacific Rim. More on that in about a week.
The question is this: For everyone who posted about the end of days, a nuclear catastrophe completely orchestrated and executed by a president they despise, and how we would even begin to survive such an attack, was there a follow-up flurry of posts and tweets that illustrated in words or pictures (because we like those – pictures that help us understand something complicated like world aggression, enemies, dictators and nuclear arms) how the threat was averted? Anyone? Anything?
Nope. But we are SO WILLING to be proven wrong about this! Please, please post the memes, tweets, posts and other ways we as a people shared our gratitude that cooler heads prevailed and enacted a hybrid of diplomacy + collaboration + steadfast determination that brought this latest episode to a death-free close.
Final thought: It continues to astound us that so many people who know so very little about the outrage du jour feel comfortable and justified in making their viewpoints known and condemning those who may have a different perspective. We don’t know much at Two Weeks Ago News (some would say we don’t know anything) but we do know this:
In the current administration alone, these people know more about the situation in North Korea than we do:
President Donald Trump
Vice President Mike Pence
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
Secretary of Defense James Mattis
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley
Director of the program on U.S. – Korea policy at the Council on Foreign Relations Scott Snyder
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert
U.S. diplomat in East Asia Susan Thornton
Former Pentagon advisor on North Korea Frank Aum
The U.S. National Security Council
From around the world, these people know more:
Chinese President Xi Jinping
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera
South Korean President Moon Jae-in
North Korean President Kim Jung Un
North Korean General Kim Rak Gyom
Plus scores of people who work with these individuals. And we haven’t even begun to list the people from previous administrations, starting with President Obama, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or other world leaders at large who know a whole lot more than we do.
Look, we need to hold our leaders accountable for their actions and words. (See Bradlee, Ben for more on how to do that appropriately.) And we’re not saying we should be ignorant of the news; or not feel comfortable sharing our opinions or choosing to voice concerns with the decisions and activities that emerge from Washington or the world stage. It’s the American Way, after all. We may be uninformed about the details but we never let that stop us from launching into a good rant.
Not at all. We are saying that a little restraint – and thoughtful consideration of various points of view – could go a long way to reducing the hysteria that confronts us daily. We can dream.