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       D A V E ' S   R A V E S
           by Dave Moorman


    I am writing this on November 12,
2001. An airliner bound for the
Dominican Republic fell out of the sky
only minutes after leaving Kennedy
International airport. Some 260 people
lost their lives. I am sad.
Heartbroken.

    However, I refuse to be stampeded
into fear. Ever since September 11,
the news has been a constant fear-
ridden babble. And I, for one, am
quite tired of it.

    I do not think I am a particularly
heartless person. I do feel for the
thousands of lives, the hundreds of
thousands of lives, torn asunder by
the vicious attack. And I do cheer at
the resolve of police, firefighters,
the military personel, and millions of
ordinary Americans who have responded
with heroism and grace.

    What I object to is the treasonous
response by our news media. [Yes!]
Treasonous! For bin Ladin himself
could not have hoped for the reporting
we have suffered these two months. I
realize that many people are upset by
the sudden emotional feeling of being
out of control. But we are being told
that this emotional response is the
one and only way to respond to the
tragedies.

    Normally, the media likes to
report events that lead to feelings of
being "out of control." They do this
because the advertisements will then
show us how to once again be in
control -- by buying the goods or
services shown. But when a hugely
tragic event happens, we get it all in
spades!

    Pandering to our emotions has
become the "bread and butter" of what
we now call television news. Everyone
wants to be a Walter Cronkite, taking
off his glasses to wipe tears from his
eyes as he reported the death of the
President. But Cronkite did that
exactly once. He did it at a point of
personal emotion that reflected the
feelings of a stunned nation.

    Now we are urged, invited, cajoled
to become emotionally involved with
the misery of anyone in the country
who has suffered bad news. It is not
enough to simply share the news. We
have to have it served with feeling.

    Worse yet -- our media is not
satisfied with reporting the facts and
gouging the emotions. They must also
sit around and tell us what [will]
happen next. They delight in
entertaining us with an infinite array
of horrid scenarios that "could
happen."

    And in this, they play right into
the hands of terrorists. Osama bin
Ladin has not had to say one word.
Heck, if [he] were to carry on about
what might happen next, we might be
able to laugh at him. But he knows
better. He knows we believe our anchor
persons.

    The terrorists placed their strike
right in the front yard of those who
make decisions about what we will or
will not see on the media. They
pitched their strike to terrify
executives at CBS, NBC, and ABC.

    And it worked. Never before in the
history of broadcasting has every
network stopped all other programming
and produced six days of 24 hour news
-- presented without commercial
interruption (or revenue).

    Our country has gone through 69032
days without an attack on our
mainland. Three jets slammed into
fiery ruin -- out of 40,000 that would
have lifted off that day as they had
every day day before. And for
thousands of days in a row, not one of
those flights resulted in a fatality.

    Count the actual infections and
deaths by anthrax. The [actual]
numbers are so small, they would not
have produced the slightest wiggle in
the national "Give a Heck" meter --
except we were already primed and
ready to awful news. (I may be
completely wrong, but there seems to
be a chance that a certain number of
anthrax cases have constantly occured
unnoticed.)

    Do you want the really awful
news? Over three times the number of
people lost at the WTC die [each]
[year] in auto accidents. Are you
afraid to get into a car? Why not?

    I am convinced that the fact that
automobile manufacturers are a major
source of income to the media has a
direct effect on the reporting of
auto deaths. You might hear about a
wreck in your own media market -- but
only on a day when we don't have the
crumbling WTC Towers or a crashing
airplane to fill the news time.

    So how should we do to win the
Terror War?

    Several years ago, Sheri and I
traveled to Romania on a short-term
preaching mission. Romanian cars have
two speeds: full throttle and dead
stop. They think nothing of zipping
around a car in front of them, no
matter what is coming the other way.

    While riding with a Romanian
pastor, we approached an ox cart on
our side of the road. Coming the
other way was a dump truck. The
pastor, who was driving, turned to me
and asked, with a wry grin, "Are you
saved?" Then we zoomed around the ox
cart and hardly left any paint on the
truck!

    I won't take this to a full
sermon. That would be unfair. But the
question remains. Who do you believe?
What do you fear? Is the fear
realistic? Do you really trust
everything going right all the time?
Or do you put your trust in something
larger?

    And if you do put your trust in
something larger, maybe it is time to
stand up and act like it.

 DMM