On Cognitive Dissonance...

So, thinking about Bush's 'everything is wonderful but awful' choice of backdrop for his speech last night—

Oh, have to throw this in...best summary I've seen yet

So, faced with a catastrophic disaster of unimaginable proportions, the GOP has come up with -- The New Deal! Somewhere up in political heaven, FDR just rose up out of his wheelchair, strolled over, and bitch-slapped Ronald Reagan. Then Eleanor pointed and laughed.

anyways—the backdrop just seemed to be one more case of the bizarre splitscreen nature of reality v. spin that's permeated the Katrina response in general. In this case, the media did an ok (not wonderful, in either direction) job of covering the reality...mainly because they actually had people there. The problem with any review system for media is that the referees aren't going to be there...which I think will be understood by the more academic side of the audience, but I'm afraid it will create a credibility gap with Joe User. Not quite sure how to deal with this...or if I should. One of the major motivations here is increasing the accessibility of academia to a society which has never really valued academics...but I'm afraid I'll lose the academics if it actually works.