191–200 of 346 posts
I got to know, do the pro nuclear crowd really want to live down wind of a nuclear power plant when they will be run by the same business processes and deregulation that lead to this disaster, Fukushima, the BP oil rig disaster, etc?
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I think jingoistic China bashing pays better than putting the spotlight on America's various problems and shortcomings. They did it in the 1970s and aside from brilliant Hollywood movies it wasn't a good decade for America. The less introspection the better as far as the media and political interests are concerned.
How is it jingoistic when China is flying warplanes over Taiwan and their media is now making claims the US has flown 10 balloons over their territory and supposedly were about to shoot down one of them and feign ignorance about the ones they sent over to us? Or are you saying both sides are being jingoistic?
April 2022 a locomotive engineer wrote an open letter to the STB about the dangers of Precision Scheduled Railroad trains that are so long radio communication doesn’t even reach both ends. A lot of armchair experts on here wrote him off when it was posted to hn. I worked with a former locomotive engineer at the time who echoed the concerns reported here. He left the industry after about 10 years because of the grueli…
It's not just purely length. A long train can easily have mountains in between the ends.
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The previous HN comments were also filled with “the media is not covering this!”. With the HN post linking to the Guardian and the top comment I saw at the time being a link to the NYTimes. There may be legitimate arguments about whether it should get more coverage relative to other news, but it isn’t a conspiracy. It’s simple. People don’t want read/hear about this stuff in the US and US news, unfortunately, is a co…
I would argue this is getting covered exactly the amount it should. Because everyone seems to know about it, and no one who thinks it should be covered more seems to have anything to add to it.
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Also add on that the rail workers tried to strike over the issues and Biden was like "lol nope" It's just capitalism being capitalism in the end For all of you who down vote: https://time.com/6238361/joe-biden-rail-strike-illegal/
> Biden decided the broader economy was a bigger priority than 100,000 freight rail workers having any paid sick leave in their next contract. After campaigning as the most pro-union presidential candidate in history, Biden signed into law a measure that makes a rail strike illegal. Forcing it like that is not capitalism.
Sure be a pity if you couldn't find enough people to hire to do all that train work needing to be done. Not a strike if everyone just says "Fuck it" and leaves.
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Trains derail all the time. It’s dog bites man, not man bites dog.
It isn't always "Chernobyl in Ohio", as locals are calling it. Although, that is becoming more common. If only the rail industry were regulated... maybe we need to dig up Teddy Roosevelt?
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I searched for this. There are 4 pieces in the NYTimes alone. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/04/us/train-derailment-fire-... https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000008756189/ohio-train-... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/06/us/ohio-derailment-chemic... https://www.nytimes.com/article/ohio-train-derailment.html?s...
So people keep pointing to NYTimes stories, but I go on the Time's site at least 2-3 times daily, spread throughout the day, and I still have not seen a single story on the Time's main page. I'm not going to call it "front page" now because there are around ~130 stories there. Not one of those 130 stories there currently cover this. Ctr-F "train", "Ohio", "Palestine" etc. In those 130 articles there are the Wirecutte…
I've heard about this, but it is surprising how little coverage it gets compared to other things. If you were to tally up how much airtime each news story gets, plotted against the general tone of the coverage, you'd probably come up with something resembling the news room agenda (you'd also have to weigh it against other stories developing at around the same time). I have to wonder why a story of environmental disas…
I've often wished for something that I'm calling (in my fiction) The Ministry of Indices. It would be their job to rank things. Things like media coverage. We could turn to the MoI and see that this chemical spill got a 4 and then compare with other events. Sure, it's subjective all the way down. People will always quibble about the outputs of services like that. But having a number that some expert (statistician?) o…
I've heard about this, but it is surprising how little coverage it gets compared to other things. If you were to tally up how much airtime each news story gets, plotted against the general tone of the coverage, you'd probably come up with something resembling the news room agenda (you'd also have to weigh it against other stories developing at around the same time). I have to wonder why a story of environmental disas…
Probably because the most current, most related story is about how Biden + Congress just recently killed a rail worker strike. And the complicit media isn't going anywhere near that: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/02/1140265413/rail-workers-biden...
They're covering it as "averting a strike" as if that's a good thing to make striking illegal.
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I am intrigued by your outrage (seriously). I'm curious to know what you are hoping the world's media will accomplish there? On the one hand train derailment, chemical fire, environmental damage - it makes for a story but really not a terribly interesting one (to me). It's certainly an unwelcome event, but there doesn't seem to be anything deeper than what you see on the surface. Is there a deeper story here? Is ther…
A few questions: 1) Do you think that a town getting poisoned is not "special"? 2) Do you think that the 5000 people that lived on said town are out of life-threatening danger? 3) Do you think it's only said town and said 5000 people that are threatened by this? 4) Don't you think that working conditions need to be regulated in order to be safe? 5) Don't you think that this disaster could help us prevent other ones?
1) alas, in the US context its not really "special". There seems to be an article every 5 minutes about some business prioritising profit over the environment. I agree that its terrible, but unfortunately not special.
2) probably not. But media attention won't change their danger status.
3) absolutely not. Environmentalism, climate change, the ills of profits before environment are well documented and we'll understood. Politically the nation seems divided on thus topic. In an absurd way this event adds very little to the conversation. I think that's bonkers, but I don't think this event will change too many minds.
4) working conditions are already regulated. There are people in favour of more regulation, and some in favour of less. The US has some of the weakest labour regulation in the world (in some respects.) So yes, I think better regulation would be a desirable outcome. Then again that fire is already burning well. This event does little to fan the flames.
5) short answer is, unfortunately no. The root cause of this is profit over environment, profit over people. That's a particular US condition and it is intrinsic to the American psyche. Media attention of this event won't change that, and there's certainly no shortage of upcoming preventable ecological or human disasters waiting to happen.
I'm not saying I'm happy with the status quo, but it's not like this is surprising, or frankly even newsworthy.
It's life-changing to those folk affected, but the rest of the country don't really care. Which is whacked.