Dealing with turmoil requires perspective

By GRAHAM OSTEEN
Item Editor-at-Large
graham@theitem.com

The word for the week is turmoil.

When was the world not in turmoil?

It’s a matter of perspective.

There are more than 78,000 people dead in Myanmar since the cyclone hit two weeks ago. The situation remains dire.

Monday’s earthquake in China brought even more misery to people we don’t know and never will.

The confirmed death toll stood at 28,881 on Saturday. More than 10,600 people remain buried in Sichuan province. Buried. Under rubble.

At least 50,000 people are presumed to have been killed. More than 116,460 patients have made their way to hospitals, including 16,000 who are severely injured.

Like most of us, I’ve paid only slight attention to these stories while going about my so-called normal life.

Most of us find such news too unpalatable to comprehend, like the Katrina aftermath in New Orleans. If it doesn’t affect you directly in some way, then don’t worry with it. That doesn’t make us bad people, just numb realists in an age of information overload. It’s a defense mechanism.

Pray for the people of China and Myanmar and for the brave people who are arriving from all over the world to help them. From half a world away, that’s all you can do.



The Republican Party is in turmoil.

President George Bush is now publicly considered “toxic” by members of his own party.

The columnist Peggy Noonan writes in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal that the Republicans are “dying,” while the Democrats “can see daylight ahead.”

Mr. Bush has squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years. But so has the party, and so have its leaders. If they had pushed away for serious reasons, they could have separated the party’s fortunes from the president’s. This would have left a painfully broken party, but they wouldn’t be left with a ruined “brand,” as they all say, speaking the language of marketing. And they speak that language because they are marketers, not thinkers. Not serious about policy. Not serious about ideas. And not serious about leadership, only followership.

She goes on to note that the Democrats will say a McCain victory will yield nothing more than George Bush’s third term.

“That is going to be powerful,” she writes, “and it is going to get out the vote. And not for Republicans.”

So what happens next?

John McCain and Barack Obama go at it for the next 169 days in what will look like a wrestling match on a roller coaster.

We will be told that the world is in turmoil and only one man can straighten it out. Through it all we will need to take deep breaths and remember that it’s just a matter of perspective.

     

I look forward to lunch on Thursdays with my best friend, the attorney.

We started out calling it the “Swine Appreciation Society” because we ate barbecue for many straight weeks. This past Thursday we agreed that a temporary change was needed for various reasons, and went in the completely opposite direction.

We traded paper plates and flimsy napkins in a room full of men, many with astounding girths shrink-wrapped in camouflage, for the more civilized confines of one of Sumter’s newest restaurants, Special Teas on Main.

Men are welcome and there were some in there, but it isn’t a barbecue joint. It took us a moment to reconnect with our natural manliness, but we settled in to a refined Thursday lunch experience that included real place settings (just like Grandma’s) and cloth napkins. We didn’t even have to stick our ties in our shirts.

The food and service are excellent, and it’s always great to see the entrepreneurial spirit alive and well in downtown Sumter.

It is an escape from the turmoil of the world.

Don’t wear camouflage.



Graham Osteen is co-president of Osteen Publishing Co. and editor-at-large of The Item. Contact him at The Item, 20 N. Magnolia St., Sumter, SC 29150; graham@theitem.com; or 803-774-1352.