Dear Tipsters, Another teachable moment about press coverage might be obtained by drawing student attention to the amount of news space devoted to what Sandy did in the Caribbean. There was some mention of Cuba, but the storm was so huge that it cause widespread devastation in other countries, particularly Haiti - only adding to the woes of these poor people.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/02/hurricane-sandy-hit-caribbean-media http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-20151178 Sincerely, Stuart ___________________________________________________________________________ "Floreat Labore" "Recti cultus pectora roborant" Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D., Phone: 819 822 9600 x 2402 Department of Psychology, Fax: 819 822 9661 Bishop's University, 2600 rue College, Sherbrooke, Québec J1M 1Z7, Canada. E-mail: [email protected] (or [email protected]) Bishop's University Psychology Department Web Page: http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy Floreat Labore" ___________________________________________________________________________ -----Original Message----- From: Michael Palij [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: November 4, 2012 9:22 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Michael Palij Subject: Re: [tips] I disagree with Mayor Bloomberg Perhaps it is best to think of this as a teachable moment instead of a thoughtless troll. One way to look at the original post is to see it as divorced from reality, made by someone whose knowledge of a situation is not based on experience but on filtered media reports that have only a limited amount of time to present what is actually happening somewhere. It is like talking about schizophrenia and never having met someone with schizophrenia, one's knowledge is abstract, detached from reality, and dehumanizing. I call this situation "virgins talking about sex syndrome", that is, persons with no real experience talking about things that they have only learned about indirectly, from valid and invalid sources. Or, in the worst case, just allowing their pre-existing biases govern how they talk about something while engaging in the confirmation bias. As a Manhattanite who only got electrical power back on Friday night (in Manhattan, below 39th street, all power was out except for those locations that had their own power generation capability, places like NYU, the business Goldman Sachs, and similar situations that only allowed the privileged few in their area to have access to heat, light, and water; it should be noted that in Manhattan, building that are 6 storeys or less, the natural water pressure allows them to get water while buildings taller than this have to use pumps to get the water moving up into the building -- NYU residences for students and faculty are all high rise but these are off NYU's power grid so they were all without light, heat, and water -- all of the other high rise buildings, from public housing "projects" to luxury apartment towers were in similar situations. Fortunately, power in lower Manhattan has mostly returned (there are still pockets with outages) which means that stores can re-open, especially food stores, and simple things like reliable cell phone service, cable TV, Wifi (all public Wifi services disappeared shortly after the blackout started at 8:30pm on Monday night). This also means that people in lower Manhattan no longer have to go above 39th street to find food stores, hot food and coffee, diapers and baby food, and some respite from the conditions downtown. And I won't even get started on how NYU medical center had to be evacuated followed by the evacuation of Bellevue hospital when their back-up generators failed. For more details, the interested reader is directed to read the following: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/nyregion/bellevue-hospital-evacuates-patients-after-backup-power-fails.html?_r=0 But there is a point that I want to emphasize: what I have said above is the "good news". The "bad news" is that places like Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens got hit much worse, indeed Staten Island has the greatest number of deaths associated with Sandy; see: http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/11/five_more_deaths_push_sandys_s.html These areas may not get electricity back for another week or two. And that on top of having houses either destroyed or seriously damaged. Since pictures can have a greater impact than words, consider these images: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/hurricane-sandy-strikes-east-coast-gallery-1.1194577 And for those seeking a NYC perspective on events, see the website for the local cable news channel NY!: http://www.ny1.com/ And the weather has turned cold, 30 degrees F at night and 40-50 degrees F during the day. It is becoming harder for recovery efforts and we expect another severe storm to come by around Wednesday. So, perhaps people have good reason not to want to have the marathon run now. To be fair, there are reasons to hold the marathon; some of these are presented here: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-02/marathoners-wonder-whether-storm-battered-new-yorkers-will-cheer.html Quoting from the article: |About 47,000 participants had registered for the race, including about | 20,000 from overseas, according to NYRR spokesman Richard Finn. |The event accounts for 40,000 more hotel rooms than usual per day for |at least five days, said NYC & Co., the city's tourism office. | |'I'm Angry' | |Toni Chaplin-Armer, an executive assistant for University of Cumbria |Vice Chancellor Peter Strike in Carlisle, England, spent about $3,500 |and arrived in New York on Nov. 1 eager to run the race for the first time. | |"I'm angry," Chaplin-Armer, 48, said in a telephone interview after |learning of the cancellation. "To cancel at this late stage, it has a |negative effect for people that came from outside New York. I can |appreciate how the locals feel, but I don't appreciate the fact that I |flew all the way out here and then this happened." | |An economic study done for the NYRR estimated the city reaps a |$340 million economic impact from the marathon, not including promotion |of the city in televised coverage. And so it goes. Just to change the subject slightly, I have focused on NYC but New Jersey also got hit really badly. I hope that Miguel Roig and other Tipsters who might have been affected by Sandy are doing well. My best wishes to them and others affected by Sandy. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] On Sat, 03 Nov 2012 20:41:09 -0700, David T. Wasieleski wrote: At the risk of giving this post more attention that it deserves... My sister lives in Staten Island, and her brother in law was killed during the storm. The school at which she teaches has families without homes, and the marathon would have been run through neighborhoods right near where people lost homes, and where some perished. Assuming the track wouldn't have been restructured, it would have been tacky to run the marathon on its traditional route. My sister and her neighbors thought it should have been cancelled sooner,the people of Staten Island did not want it run, and I think they know better than any of us living outside that area. David Wasieleski ,Sent from my iPad On Nov 3, 2012, at 11:38 PM, "michael sylvester" wrote: > >for canceling the NYC marathon. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13510.2cc18398df2e6692fffc29a610cb72e3&n=T&l=tips&o=21473 or send a blank email to leave-21473-13510.2cc18398df2e6692fffc29a610cb7...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. 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