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How to Not Let It Get to YouBy Rick Horowitz
You're fretting again -- I can see it in your eyes. You open your daily paper and the fidgets grab hold of you. You cruise for news on the internet and you come back even more perturbed than when you left. You bounce from cable show to cable show in a never-ending search for -- what? The problem, boys and girls, isn't with the news. The problem is with your approach to the news. Why worry when there's really nothing to worry about? Why be dithery when dithery gets you nowhere? It's all in how you look at things. You need a consistent approach, a calming, all-purpose response to anything that happens, no matter how terrible. But what, you wonder, could that miracle response be? What words, what phrase, could possibly allow you to look at this or that ugly corner of the world without curling up into a tight little ball of despair, dismay or utter embarrassment? "It's Not as Bad as All That." Go ahead -- say it. Roll the sounds around in your mouth and see how they feel. It's Not as Bad as All That. It'sNotasBadasAllThat. See? You can do it! But when should you do it? A perfectly reasonable question. Allow me to demonstrate, with a few timely and topical examples drawn from the real-life adventures of the world's only superpower: The U.S. of A. Take abusing the Koran, for instance. When it comes to winning friends and influencing prisoners, abusing the Koran is a definite no-no. For months now, there have been allegations that American prison guards or American interrogators or American somebodies have been treating the Muslim holy book with something less than total respect. And then came Newsweek, with that explosive story that an upcoming military report had found at least one case where a Koran was flushed down a toilet. You remember how it played out, yes? All hell broke loose, and then Newsweek's source backtracked, and Newsweek had to retract, and apologized, and even more hell broke loose. Flushing a Koran down the toilet? It would have been an outrage! So when the Pentagon finally released the results of its own investigation, which confirmed several cases of Koran abuse -- kicking a Koran, stepping on a Koran, splashing a Koran with water (and worse) -- well, no big deal, right? After all, compared to flushing a Koran down a toilet: It's Not as Bad as All That. See how nicely it works? And it keeps working -- that's the beauty part. For instance, when I mentioned just a moment ago "splashing a Koran with water (and worse)"? You've heard what the "worse" was, haven't you? It was urine. Urine was splashed on a Koran, and on the prisoner whose Koran it was. An American prison guard had gone outside to relieve himself, the Pentagon says, and the spot he picked to do his business was right next to an air vent. Well, wouldn't you know it? Some of the urine got blown into the air vent and -- Unfortunate, sure. But compared to flushing the Koran down the toilet? All together now: It's Not as Bad as All That. Besides, it was only accidental urine, not deliberate urine. (Or so the story goes, anyway. Don't you always do your outdoor urinating right next to an air vent?) And compared to deliberate urine? It's Not as Bad as All That. The United States is running the "gulag of our times"! a human-rights group cries. It's Not as Bad as All That, you reply. Occasional prisoner abuse, perhaps, but not a gulag. Well, OK then. We're caught in the middle of an Iraqi civil war!" the Nervous Nellies shout. It's Not as Bad as All That, you reply. Thousands of dead and injured, yes, but not a civil war -- not yet. Well, OK then. Feeling better? I thought so. Posted 6/8/05. Get
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Rick Horowitz
