The information drawback!

A Drawback of the Information Age



>From Christian Science Monitor, February 9, 2007

By Jeffrey Shaffer

http://www.freepress.net/news/20962



I¹m thinking it might be a good idea for every major city in America to
have a guy like Joe Turner on the payroll. He¹s the fictional CIA agent
portrayed by Robert Redford in ³Three Days of the Condor,² a 1975
thriller that¹s one of my favorite spy movies.



In the film, Joe is a researcher in a clandestine agency office in New
York City. He reads books and other publications from around the globe
and picks out information that might indicate an awareness of secret
CIA operations.



In today¹s world, he¹d also be watching hours of TV, scanning for clues
to potential nefarious activities. Boston could¹ve used a guy like him
last month when reports came in about strange electronic objects
planted around the city.



I feel that Joe would¹ve turned on his police scanner, heard a
description of the blinking devices, and immediately called city hall
to say, ³Don¹t shut down the highways yet. This sounds like a promotion
for Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It¹s an offbeat animated series with a
small audience. This kind of publicity stunt is right up their alley.²



Is it possible that no one in the Boston law enforcement bureaucracy is
an avid fan of the Cartoon Network? I¹m not being sarcastic.



I¹ve mentioned in previous columns how hard it is for me to keep up
with every detail of modern culture, and obviously I¹m not alone in
battling this information gap.



The old saying that knowledge is power still holds true, but how does
anyone with a thirst for knowledge avoid being drowned by the tsunami
of information that crashes over us each day? My fear is that many
Americans are sliding into a narrow groove that includes a few topics
of personal interest, and everything outside the groove is simply
ignored.



A recent Nielsen survey of Internet users found that 12 percent of
American respondents had never heard of global warming. I¹d like to
question those people more closely and learn how they decide what
information is useful in their lives and what they don¹t care about.



It¹s a decision we all face constantly, and it never gets easier. A
recent story in The New York Times explained that 10 publications in
Washington carry a total of 14 columns focused on political gossip, up
from only three such columns a decade ago.



I wonder what Joe Turner would do if I yanked him out of that movie and
put him to work monitoring our cavalcade of modern media outlets? I
have a feeling he¹d just shake his head and opt for early retirement.



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