[HN Gopher] Mendon, Missouri
___________________________________________________________________
Mendon, Missouri
Author : h2odragon
Score : 396 points
Date : 2022-07-04 14:03 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (seandietrich.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (seandietrich.com)
| hansword wrote:
| Is a good story, but I am not sure what use it has for
| YChackernews....?
|
| Also want to second @mcphage
| buchoo wrote:
| Reminds me of the American TV show "What Would You Do?", of which
| there are many videos on YouTube:
| https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatWouldYouDo
|
| It tends heavily to revisit certain themes, but overall it drives
| home the point that regardless of the social acrimony and
| political polarization that dominate social media and seem to
| divide Americans into inexorably inimical tribes, when it comes
| to everyday interactions, most Americans seem to be pretty decent
| and kind people.
| davidro80 wrote:
| Stories like this are extremely motivating to me after seeing
| non-stop streams of pure social negativity or bad events
| unfolding in the news.
|
| Unrelated, but it did make me think of 9/11 and "The Man in the
| Red Bandana":
|
| https://youtu.be/S77KYbkmjwc
|
| The opening question sets the stage for the context:
|
| "What would you do, in the last hour of your life?"
|
| I love humans even with all of our negatives. Everyone has the
| potential to "rise to the occasion" in their own way big or
| small.
|
| Happy 4th of July to my US HN friends!
| [deleted]
| ketanmaheshwari wrote:
| Tangent but I have observed in the US that often the red lights
| at the train crossing start very late and give less than a minute
| for a vehicle to stop.
| mycpuorg wrote:
| <3
| chronotis wrote:
| It may not have made national news, but here (I only live a
| couple hours from Mendon) some of this made its way into local
| awareness. It was mostly focused on the efforts of the boy scouts
| in the area, though.
| tigeba wrote:
| The Scouts who responded to this incident were passengers on
| the train that derailed. They were returning from Philmont
| Scout Ranch in New Mexico. It is traditional for Scouts to take
| the trip to and from Philmont on a train.
| jxcole wrote:
| kweingar wrote:
| I see your point, but helping people at the scene of an
| accident is not incompatible with bad views on social issues.
|
| Almost all of the heroes of the Titanic, or the Allied soldiers
| in WWII, would share all of these views. Many of the first
| responders at 9/11 shared most or all of these views.
|
| Not endorsing or excusing these views, just pointing out that
| the idea that this is hypocritical is very new
| Miner49er wrote:
| You know the political views of everyone in Mendon, MO? You
| live there or something?
| bsuvc wrote:
| So you read a story of people helping people and all you can
| think of is "how do I make this reflect poorly on my political
| enemies"?
| mlyle wrote:
| The story is a commentary on how wonderful the people living
| in small towns are.
|
| And, well, I disagree with the premise--- because it seems to
| deny that most people are wonderful everywhere, not just in
| small towns. Most people are also capable of terrible things
| in groups, too.
|
| A whole lot of people have had to flee small towns to avoid
| the kind of disgrace and judgment that only a really small
| community can give. And, yes, small town America is, for the
| most part, politically regressive.
| xbar wrote:
| >The story is a commentary on how wonderful the people
| living in small towns are.
|
| I don't think so, but I see how you got there.
|
| I think it is a story about empathy for others in a crisis,
| and the author argues that this is universal in America--
| including New York, Chicago, Mobile, Detroit, Los Angeles,
| Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Seattle, Indianapolis, Honolulu,
| and Charlotte.
| mlyle wrote:
| This was the sentence that convinced me it's talking
| about something being special about small towns: And the
| most unusual thing about all this is: None of this is
| unusual. At least not within the national tapestry that
| is The Great American Small Town.
|
| The author blogs pretty much exclusively on the cultural
| tapestry of the South.
|
| > and the author argues that this is universal in
| America-
|
| I see a comment arguing that, but not by the author.
| jessaustin wrote:
| _...the cultural tapestry of the South._
|
| This is sort of a "stolen valor" situation, because
| Mendon MO is certainly _not_ the South. One could make
| that argument for parts of Missouri, but this ain 't the
| Ozarks. Mendon is on the same latitude as Dayton OH, so
| only JD Vance types would pretend to be confused about
| this.
| krapp wrote:
| Any state that was a slave state and member of the
| Confederacy is part of the South.
| jessaustin wrote:
| _Any state that was a slave state and member of the
| Confederacy is part of the South._
|
| Missouri was never a member of the Confederacy. Slavery
| was in force before the Civil War, but do you really
| propose a rule that would also see _Delaware_ considered
| part of the South? It 's dumb to use state lines anyway.
| For example, Branson MO has a lot stronger claim to be
| part of the South than Sedalia MO, a town of which some
| people have actually ever heard, is _60 miles_ south of
| Mendon. Try visiting some of these places before
| pronouncing on them!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_states_(American_Civ
| il_...
| stonogo wrote:
| Missouri never joined it, but it was admitted to the
| Confederacy in 1861. It and Kentucky share this "admitted
| but never joined" status -- had the war gone the other
| way, the Missourian government-in-exile would have been
| legitimized (and in fact, the elected Governor of
| Missouri was pro-Confederate; the only reason there was a
| Union-sympathizing Governor was because a Union general
| chased all the rebels out of the capital).
|
| "Missouri was never a member of the Confederacy" is a
| technicality rather than an honest assessment of
| sympathies and prevailing politics in the state.
| krapp wrote:
| I'd be willing to admit Delaware on a technicality. To me
| "the South" doesn't refer to geography so much as the
| common referent of slavery in American culture. Maybe
| states like Deleware can be called "South adjacent."
| jessaustin wrote:
| The idea of defining the South in this way is appealing,
| not least because it will annoy people who like the "Sean
| of the South" website. If we do this, however, we won't
| be able to stop at Delaware. [0] Maybe thread parent
| could have said, "The author blogs pretty much
| exclusively on the cultural tapestry of USA", and I
| wouldn't have complained.
|
| Communication is seldom improved by more vagueness,
| however. Sean Dietrich has apparently honed an _oeuvre_
| that makes a certain sort of American feel better about
| things, which is explicitly related to a particular
| understanding of the South. He doesn 't hesitate to
| invoke Maine or Colorado or wherever while layering on
| more saccharine banalities, but his audience doesn't love
| precision the way HN does. (An example of the fuzziness
| of his POV: the fact that the train illustration includes
| tall pine trees amid steep slopes rather than the gently
| rolling farmland with deciduous forest and scattered
| cedars around Mendon.) Presumably this benefits his
| project of assuring us that everything is just fine and
| we shouldn't think too hard about possible improvements.
| I oppose that project, so I think we should continue
| excluding him from various locales until he is completely
| fenced into a tiny Alabamian postage stamp. So, I don't
| agree that Mendon is more Southern than it is Midwestern
| or even what Colin Woodard would call "Midlands".
|
| [0] https://legacyofslavery.harvard.edu/report
| bsuvc wrote:
| Over twice as many Missourians fought for the Union than
| the confederacy.
|
| > By the end of the war in 1865, nearly 110,000
| Missourians had served in the Union Army and at least
| 40,000 in the Confederate Army https://en.m.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/Missouri_in_the_American_Civ...
|
| It is likely that many of today's Missouri residents had
| ancestors who fought, and possibly even died, in the
| fight to end slavery.
| bsuvc wrote:
| There are people who read every story they encounter
| through a political lens and judge every person based on
| how likely they are to be a political ally or enemy
| (without even knowing for sure... just stereotyping them).
|
| It's a form of intellectual dishonesty, where the only
| thing that matters is someone's political beliefs and
| simply switching the paticipants would yield a different
| opinion.
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| It's similar to religious fundamentalism if you ask me.
| mlyle wrote:
| OK.
|
| I grew up in a pseudo-rural, medium sized town.
|
| There's a lot of good things that I could tell you about
| the people -- but I don't think they're qualitatively
| that different from people in most cities.
|
| But I can also tell you that they're regressive,
| judgmental places. If someone thinks you screwed up or
| did something that is in their eyes wrong, everyone
| knows.
|
| I can't disentangle the assertion that small town culture
| is somehow special (and I'm not sure whether the author's
| assertion this is true) from the kind of rigid roles
| people in this kind of place impose upon one another
| (which is inextricably tied to the politics of the place,
| too).
|
| edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31978527 This
| comment explains what I'm trying to say quite well.
| forgingahead wrote:
| What is striking to me about the discourse amongst American
| elites is that they easily otherize their own countrymen, and
| swallow hook, line, and sinker any story about the "others"
| that help confirm their smug beliefs. If you had 24/7 coverage
| in the news about how X group in another country is bad, you
| may pause and think this coverage is a little one-sided. But
| against your imaginary political enemies, you cackle and laugh
| in glee as you pat yourselves on the back for not being them.
|
| Go outside, travel, and meet real people sharing the wonderful
| country you have. You may surprise yourself at just how normal
| everyone really is.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| You've put your finger on a fundamental problem in modern
| American political discourse.
|
| Hubris is the deadliest of the seven deadly sins. A
| significant but very vocal minority of Americans see politics
| as a means to validate their personal self worth rather than
| address common problems.
| jessaustin wrote:
| _If you had 24 /7 coverage in the news about how X group in
| another country is bad, you may pause and think this coverage
| is a little one-sided._
|
| You might want to reconsider the news coverage you may have
| seen of Russia, Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Venezuela, Colombia,
| Cuba, Bolivia, China, Iran, etc.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| Just as a counterpoint to this, here's a murder in small town
| Missouri, not too far from Mendon:
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/fox2now.com/news/true-crime/mis...
|
| Nobody said anything about it in 40 years. There's a lot more
| nuance to small town people pulling together than the train wreck
| shows.
|
| I grew up outside of Kirksville MO. I've even taken the Southwest
| Chief from La Plata one or two stops NE of Mendon, to Newton KS.
| Idealizing small town or rural life is a mistake. The issue is
| more complicated than "rural Americans pull together, urban
| Americans do not".
| eitland wrote:
| > This content is not available in your country/region.
|
| Seriously.
|
| What kind of century are those people from?
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| The century of adtech, which the US doesn't bother to
| regulate.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| This is the same problem with authoritarianism.
|
| Communities aligned to a single goal can do amazing things, the
| downside is just that sometimes that single goal is "protect a
| murderer that we all like" or "commit genocide".
| soared wrote:
| I do not enjoy that every good hearted story needs to have a
| top comment with a clickbait counterpoint.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| Given that I grew up near there, and remembered the Skidmore
| murder story, what would you have me do? Not add material to
| the discussion? Arm I supposed to just stay silent about some
| things? If so, how should I know whether or not to stay
| silent. Give me a method, and I'll use it next time.
| jessaustin wrote:
| How would "sometimes bad things happen" be relevant in the
| least? Missouri is a large state and the two communities
| aren't close. Besides, you should read the link you posted
| rather than relying on memory. That story is of a small
| community defending itself from the predations of a
| sociopath whom law enforcement could not control. Maybe
| it's a critique of law enforcement, but it isn't a
| "counterpoint" to "small town people help out in
| emergency".
| bediger4000 wrote:
| How is "sometimes good things happen" relevant in the
| least? I can flip it that way too.
|
| The "Mendon, Missouri" story had as its theme that small
| town/rural America pulls together. There's nuance to
| that, and it's a mistake to ignore the nuance. The
| Skidmore story illustrates that, and it took place in the
| same rural NW Missouri millieu.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Just ignore the haters. As a fellow Missourian, I
| appreciated the additional context.
|
| Your comment was relevant and on-topic.
| halffaday wrote:
| Having lived in both areas, cities make people crazy. Everyone
| spends so much time trying to stand out. Look at my fashionable
| clothing. Look at my exotic sexual identity. Nobody is
| comfortable in their own skin. There are no consequences to bad
| behavior because people are disposable and reputation is
| unimportant when there are 10million other suckers that don't
| know you're a dirtbag.
|
| I don't think we've evolved to live among millions of people.
| bediger4000 wrote:
| Hey,me too! I grew up near Mendon, spent the last 35 years in
| city of Denver! I'm qualified too!
|
| I say the opposite: most urban dwellers just take it easy.
| You don't have to conform to whatever ideals your small town
| holds. There are freaks, but they don't demand your
| participation in their freakery. Live and let live! Living in
| a small town is suffocating if you're at all different.
| rhexs wrote:
| "This was not a small truck. This was a vehicle about the size of
| a Sonic Drive-In."
|
| Has the author ever been to a Sonic Drive-In or was there a
| Liebherr T 282B in Mendon Missouri?
| boopboopbadoop wrote:
| By mass maybe?
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Maybe it's the size of the Sonic in Mendon
| Miner49er wrote:
| RickJWagner wrote:
| Great story.
|
| The day of the train wreck will live on in Mendon for
| generations, I'm sure. There will be kids and grand-kids telling
| this story in 50 years.
| yooo000 wrote:
| God Bless America.
| aaron695 wrote:
| alasdair_ wrote:
| Americans are especially good when it comes to large efforts over
| the course of a short space of time to solve a major problem.
|
| Americans are also especially bad at tackling problems that
| require a small, consistent, amount of help over a long period of
| time.
|
| I'm honestly not sure why this is.
| bigdict wrote:
| That's people.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yeah exactly, big efforts where you see short-term results
| are instantly gratifying - you see things change almost
| immediately.
|
| Small gradual changes are hard to see, many people might
| overlook them entirely, and the reward is stretched thin or
| very far off. You might not even see the full outcome in your
| lifetime.
|
| It's easy to see why people favor short term results.
|
| This old proverb comes to mind: "A society grows great when
| old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never
| sit in."
|
| We've still got a long way to go.
| sovande wrote:
| On a larger scale, the US Marshall Plan to help Europe back on
| its feet after WW2 was immensely important for Europe and for
| individuals. My uncle got help funding a successful garment
| factory in Bergen, Norway. He could employ over a hundred
| women, many widows. Those who still remember are forever
| grateful to the US. The same uncle also told me about how the
| Flesland airport outside Bergen was constructed. For years
| there had been bikesheeding about building an airport outside
| Bergen. After the war, it was finally constructed when NATO
| needed an airport. The US army came in with large bulldozers,
| shaved off the hilltops and put it into the valleys between the
| hills and in short time a large airstrip was made.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Thank you for writing this. Reading it in the USA on our
| Independence Day reminds me how wonderful my country can be.
| nkrisc wrote:
| The former feels like you're doing something to immediate
| effect. The latter is invisible, both the solution and the
| problem, until it's too late.
|
| I don't think it's a uniquely American trait.
| treis wrote:
| There's no real basis for this. America is at the forefront of
| any number of long running projects. Cancer research, self
| driving cars, and all things space are three things that
| immediately jump to mind.
| njarboe wrote:
| Great to hear these people helping out. I didn't like when people
| started using the phrase "First responder" for police, fire,
| ambulance people. If you are at the scene of a problem, you can
| be a first responder and be there sooner than the "first
| responders". You can be a zeroth responder.
| InefficientRed wrote:
| _> You can be a zeroth responder._
|
| You can be. But you can also cause more harm than good as the
| zeroth responder (removing an impaled object, moving someone
| with a back injury).
|
| Fortunately, there are affordable high-quality first responder
| courses. In the extreme, becoming a certified EMT takes only
| 100-200 hours of instruction, and there are many training
| options that are much shorter and cam be completed over a
| weekend.
| bilsbie wrote:
| This reminds me of a town I ended up in when I got separated from
| the truck transporting me and actually had to do community
| service to fix up the roads.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| How are you defining "Woke Progressives"?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Pretending that there's a compromise just floating out there
| that if we could just get "the extremes" out of the way, would
| be embraced by all, is a rosy but ultimately utterly false
| fantasy.
|
| There are very, very different views about the role of
| government and religion in this country, very different takes
| on morality, responsibility, and lots more. These are not
| resolvable via compromise. If things are relatively good
| economically, people can generally agree to disagree. When
| things are not so good financially (e.g. after 30+ years of the
| destruction of the American manufacturing sector and wholesale
| movement of capital and labor offshore), this becomes much,
| much less easy.
|
| The answer to "Can't we all just get along" is, fundamentally,
| "No, unless we're all doing so well that we don't have to
| care".
| logifail wrote:
| > There are very, very different views about the role of
| government and religion in this country, very different takes
| on morality, responsibility, and lots more. These are not
| resolvable via compromise.
|
| I spent a lot of my time telling my three kids they _have_ to
| learn to compromise [with each other!], since the
| alternatives are much, much worse.
|
| Q: What's the plan for reconcilling "very, very different
| views" if one is _not_ going to compromise?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| There is no plan. These things get resolved by some
| combination of:
|
| 1. civil war 2. political power (domination) 3. secession
| 4. overwhelming economic prosperity
| logifail wrote:
| > These things get resolved by some combination of: 1.
| civil war 2. political power (domination) 3. secession
| [snip]
|
| Umm, there would appear to be a fair bit of collateral
| damage in those first three. Are you sure you're going to
| end up on the winning side?
|
| Compromise is healthy. Maybe you should reconsider.
| stevetodd wrote:
| Being a pessimist is easy and lazy. You don't have to lift a
| finger. Things can actually get better and do when people
| believe it and do even just a little bit.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| realo wrote:
| Your "Trump nationalists" is a bit too indulgent for what
| they really are.
|
| Try "Trump's gang of domestic terrorists" instead, for what
| they actually are and/or represent.
|
| Then what you call "the middle" suddenly takes on a very
| different , much less reasonable look.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Your comment suggests that there's "65%" of the country
| that just wants to get along. I'm disputing that.
| Clubber wrote:
| >When things are not so good financially (e.g. after 30+
| years of the destruction of the American manufacturing
| sector and wholesale movement of capital and labor
| offshore), this becomes much, much less easy.
|
| Neither of the political parties are doing anything other
| than lip service to entice jobs back. Trump was the only
| one to really bring it up in probably 40 years, and he
| was lambasted.
|
| >Your comment suggests that there's "65%" of the country
| that just wants to get along. I'm disputing that.
|
| Based on what? There are only a few wedge issues, I think
| aside from those, most people aren't that far off, even
| on the issues they are passionate about. The biggest
| impediment is that the political parties are both
| extremely economically conservative.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Bernie Sanders and others associated with the DSA have
| been raising the impact of trade and global financial
| treaties for decades. Hell, even Ross Perot made "the
| giant sucking sound" that NAFTA would create a center
| piece of his campaign. Trump never proposed anything at
| all that would have addressed the impacts, and hence was
| lambasted over this. "I will bring back <dying industry>"
| and then doing precisely nothing (often because there's
| nothing that could be done) is solid grounds for
| ridicule.
|
| There may only be a "a few" wedge issues, but they
| concern the fundamentals of how a society is run and
| organized. To name just a few in no particular order:
|
| role of redistribution in the economy / role of religion
| in public education (and education and public life more
| widely) / whether or not life begins at conception and
| the moral consequences of one's answer / how much (if
| any) foreign military intervention / the importance of a
| mammoth response to climate change / the extent of and
| response to systemic discrimination in historical and
| present day society / individual responsibilities during
| public health emergencies / the roles and
| responsibilities of for-profit corporations in society /
| ...
|
| People _do not agree_ about these things, nor will they.
| grumpitron wrote:
| A reasonable person reading your comment could infer that
| the "other 65%" of Americans are all in agreement on
| something, and the reply simply disagreed.
|
| Sometimes when there is a misunderstanding of the writer's
| intent, it is an issue with the clarity of the writing and
| not an issue with the reader.
| [deleted]
| jordanmorgan10 wrote:
| Typing in Mendon, Missouri in Apple Maps has the most small town
| feel a town could have once iOS zooms in on all four buildings
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Anywhere in the world if you fall off your bike someone will help
| you up.
| jacquesm wrote:
| As someone who fell off their bike rather hard in my case it
| was a 9 year old boy that found me and he really made my day in
| how he responded and organized help.
| justusthane wrote:
| In a similar spirit of small towns rising to the occasion, I'll
| take this opportunity to recommend the musical Come From Away
| (Apple TV), about the planes grounded in Gander, Newfoundland on
| 9/11. A wonderfully told story.
| mttjj wrote:
| Might be on Netflix in other countries, but it's on AppleTV+ in
| the US.
|
| (Also, if the live production is touring near you- go see it. I
| saw it live a few years ago and it was awesome!)
| justusthane wrote:
| Thanks, fixed -- I misremembered the platform I watched it
| on.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| For some reason this reminded me of the Ray Bradbury story, "The
| Town Where Noone Got Off" which is a dark little story indeed
| about two men and a small town on a railroad line. This one is a
| bit more positive.
|
| However, it turns out this whole incident was apparently due to
| the lack of a railroad crossing guard system of any kind at the
| intersection. The most basic system has flashing lights warning
| of oncoming trains, and even that wasn't present.
|
| https://www.kwch.com/2022/06/30/amtrak-derailment-places-spo...
|
| In that respect it's also a story about the poor state of
| American infrastructure.
| rustymonday wrote:
| You must not drive out in the country often. Railroad crossing
| with lights are not common outside busy roads. The most you'll
| have is a railroad crossing sign. Certainly a flashing light
| system is safer, but you (and that news article) make it sound
| like it's absence is unusual.
| mindslight wrote:
| The absence of traffic control devices isn't unusual, but
| it's most certainly condemnable.
|
| Being in a denser area where crossings generally have a light
| and a gate, it really irks me when I see a no-visibility at-
| grade crossing with just an intended-to-be-ignored "yield"
| sign for the road. It's nothing more than a pathetic fiction
| to legally cover the railroads ass after the fact, and the
| setup should be outright illegal.
|
| I've experienced different expectations in less dense areas
| with generally clear landscapes, say where a single main road
| runs parallel to the tracks and all the branches on one side
| cross the tracks. But overall US railroad standards are stuck
| in the 19th century and we shouldn't just accept that state
| of affairs.
| VictorPath wrote:
| This is the real story behind the story - a giant
| corporation creating a dangerous situation for the sake of
| profit, a government which does not protect people but
| corporate profits, and a small town that sits by and allows
| this to happen, but will pitch in and carry off the bodies
| when tragedy inevitably strikes. One person in the town did
| try to prevent this, but one person is not enough in the
| face of everyone else. "The national tapestry that is The
| Great American Small Town" indeed.
| solardev wrote:
| (Disclaimer: This is just personal knowledge from a
| casual observer and occasional passenger. I traveled
| cross-country by Amtrak a few times and loved it, and
| wanted to learn a bit about its history.)
|
| Amtrak isn't quite the giant evil corporation in the
| sense that Amazon is. If anything, it's more of a dying
| relic propped up by sheer nostalgia. Congress keeps it on
| life support with small, occasional injections of funds.
| Its infrastructure and equipment aren't just obsolete,
| but dying, neglected by a nation who's almost entirely
| switched to automobiles and planes. Amtrak is a lifeline
| into the heartland, where many small towns have no other
| transit options.
|
| But Amtrak is largely unprofitable outside of the
| Northeast Corridor, which runs up and down the East Coast
| and has fancy commuter trains for the rich businesspeople
| and politicians. The rest of its network runs on decades-
| old equipment and trains and barely keeps up with
| operating expenditures. It shares rail lines with freight
| trains, but is subordinate to them, so passengers have to
| wait any time a freight train wants the track.
|
| It's stuck in a catch-22.
|
| As a business, it can't turn a profit because, at current
| ticket prices, it is often slower and more expensive than
| flights -- not even considering the money lost due to
| time off of work. For shorter hauls, intercity buses are
| often quicker, cheaper, and have more time slots. It's
| not really a practical way to travel for most people in
| our economy except as a form of recreation, almost like a
| land cruise, or for small towns with no other options, or
| certain religious sects that don't drive (Mennonites). So
| it's not just a very profitable business thing to begin
| with.
|
| So why don't we just nationalize it and run it as a
| national utility? We can't; it was specifically founded
| in the 70s to NOT be a government-run service.
| Nonetheless, in the decades since, it stays alive only
| because of government injections... yet it can't be
| directly run by the government.
|
| So it's a private business that can't survive on its own,
| doesn't have enough capital to do anything differently,
| and can't go out of business because Congress keeps
| propping it up. It's literally just stuck on life
| support. The wiki on it is pretty interesting reading:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak#Public_funding
|
| Covid hit them pretty hard too and caused a lot of
| shutdowns. They have to negotiate with something like 20
| different unions to keep operating, when they've already
| been unprofitable for decades. Biden gave them more
| money, but I think that just keeps the death spiral going
| for a bit longer rather than actually fixing anything.
|
| Personally, I think the age of passenger rail is sadly
| behind us. A part of me wishes they could resurrect under
| a different model, maybe more like a fancy land-based
| cruise ship, with fun amenities on board, more sleeper
| cabins, things for young people (clubs, pubs, games,
| maybe even traveling concerts), whatever -- e.g. make the
| train its own destination. But that requires both the
| will to transform their service and the capital to do so,
| and they have neither. And so, for the foreseeable
| future, Congress keeps paying, and the train keeps a
| rollin'...
| InefficientRed wrote:
| On the contrary, OP correctly identified that lacking even
| basic safety systems is a pervasive issue and not a one-off
| oversight in the case of this small town:
|
| _> > In that respect it's also a story about the poor state
| of American infrastructure._
| kodah wrote:
| Interestingly, it's the line operator that usually has to
| establish and maintain those according to federal and
| (whatever) state guidelines might exist.
| cagey wrote:
| I believe that this is incorrectly simplistic, if only
| because these sorts of situations by definition exist at the
| interface between a railroad and either a private or
| government road. Having the line operator (which I'm taking
| to mean railroad owner, in this case BNSF) bear 100% of the
| burden of providing full crossing protection creates an
| unbalanced situation (in terms of the cost to be borne). I'm
| not an expert, but have been following a forum thread on this
| topic (this Amtrak-truck collision and how to prevent
| repeats)[0] which points to articles stating that this
| particular crossing has been "on the list" of not the RR
| owner (BNSF) but MODOT (Missouri [state] Dept of
| Transportation) for receiving a "crossing gates and lights"
| (automated protection) deployment, and that the cost of this
| prospective deployment is approximately USD400K (per
| crossing) which would be _shared_ by the state (MODOT) and
| BNSF, and that, as noted by others posting in this thread,
| there are a large number (probably the majority) of RR /road
| crossings in the state (and country) which are similarly
| unprotected, and whose low use rate has historically not
| justified the installation and ongoing maintenance costs of
| full crossing protection. A cynic on the linked[0] thread
| mentioned it was possible that MODOT had put _every_
| unprotected RR /road crossing "on the list" to receive a full
| protection equipment deployment, so that in case of any
| similar accident, they could claim to "already be working on
| a solution, just didn't get there in time" as in bureaucratic
| CYA.
|
| Given the costs involved, IMO it would probably be better to
| close at least half of the crossings in (e.g. relatively flat
| farmland) areas where the road grid incurs these crossings at
| a rate more than one per mile. But as with decisions to spend
| money, choosing _which_ crossings to close (ostensibly so
| that the remainder may have automated protection added)
| becomes a political "hot potato" that can easily cause the
| process to stall.
|
| [0] https://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/292768.aspx
|
| [1] https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article263
| 049...
| mindslight wrote:
| This cost sharing hot potato is itself part of the problem.
| It's ridiculous to have privately-owned infrequently-used
| tracks having precedence over well-used public roads, and
| then making mitigating the resulting contention into a
| shared responsibility. It's akin to someone putting up a
| yield sign on the road next to their driveway, and then
| just pulling out without caring because they technically
| own up until the center of the road.
|
| Rather BNSF et al should be paying for the full cost of
| their own infrastructure, either by building out the
| necessary safety devices or simply ending the full-speed
| aspect of the crossings they don't want to pay for. And I
| say this as someone who like trains, has taken the
| Southwest Chief cross country a few times, and wishes we
| had more passenger rail in general.
| cagey wrote:
| The RR line on which the collision near Mendon, MO
| occurred is the furthest thing from "infrequently-used
| tracks"; these tracks are part of the "BNSF Southern
| Transcon[tinental]" line[0] between Los Angeles, CA and
| Chicago, IL, which carries (per previously linked Trains
| Forum thread: "Posted by tree68 on Thursday, June 30,
| 2022 7:59 PM") "The FRA/DOT crossing data shows over 50
| trains a day..." (wikipedia[0] provides a higher number).
| And the vast majority of the BNSF Southern Transcon in MO
| (and elsewhere) is double-tracked, meaning trains can
| (and usually do) run near full track speed (90 mph in my
| understanding) without the frequent need to stop for
| opposing-direction traffic as would be typical on single-
| track lines.
|
| Also, I don't know if you were applying the term to the
| road of the crossing involved in this crash, but this
| road is not one I would characterize as "well used"; more
| like "exceedingly rarely used" (thus the lack of active
| crossing protection).
|
| Finally according to the previously referenced Trains
| Forum thread ("Posted by blue streak 1 on Wednesday, June
| 29, 2022 11:32 AM"), the railroad existed 60-70 years
| prior to the road in question. I _believe_ it is this
| circumstance which places the onus on MODOT to defend the
| users of their later-arriving road from hazards
| associated with rail traffic on the preexisting BNSF line
| (with BNSF being an involved party).
|
| I understand citing posts another public forum does not
| necessarily meet the gold standard of citations, but all
| of these facts align with my preexisting understanding of
| the situation.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Transcon calls
| out Mendon, MO as a station on the Marceline subdivision
| mindslight wrote:
| I was talking in generalities. As I said in another
| comment, I'm in a more dense region where level non-gated
| crossings tend to be branches for factories and the like.
| So I've seen plenty of roads that are decorated with some
| train tracks (with a toss up as to whether they're even
| active), but still carry the nonsensical presumption that
| every passing vehicle should somehow have to yield to
| nonexistent trains going at unknown speeds.
|
| The specific busyness of these tracks is all the more
| reason all crossings should be lighted/gated. And while
| we're at it, there should be sensors/cameras to check for
| stuck vehicles and communicate that to the train a few
| miles away - if a train going at 90mph takes 3 miles to
| stop, that actually means the gates only need to come
| down two minutes before the train gets to the crossing.
| But there's no impetus to proactively address such
| problems until the incentives are reformed.
|
| > _I believe it is this circumstance which places the
| onus on MODOT to defend the users of their later-arriving
| road from hazards associated with rail traffic on the
| preexisting BNSF line_
|
| Sure, but understanding the legal justification doesn't
| change what I said. This is an instance where the common
| law first-come first-serve system completely fails. See
| also: water "rights". It would be a different story if
| the tracks were also a public way and open for use by
| everyone, but in general private control over the commons
| should be rejected.
| cagey wrote:
| Your solution proposal appears to be:
|
| If BNSF is not already today 100% responsible for
| installing & maintaining maximal protection equipment at
| _all_ RR /road crossings that were installed by
| government over its preexisting tracks,
|
| then BNSF should have all of its property (tracks and
| right of way (RR track bearing real estate)) converted
| into "the commons" (i.e. BNSF should be nationalized)
|
| and the owner of "the commons" (government) will then
| resolve _all_ RR /road crossing safety issues (by RR
| closure, road closure, or deployment of crossing
| improvements sufficient to match safety levels attained
| in the country having the safest RR/road crossings in the
| world, at its prerogative) all while operating the new
| national RR (carrying freight and passengers) safely and
| efficiently to ensure supply line problems attributable
| to RR causes do not worsen.
|
| Is this accurate?
| kodah wrote:
| I used to work for BNSF, I'm well aware of how those
| programs materialize on the private end. Sometimes states
| will chip in, but it's mostly on the line owner. You can't
| just install a crossing anymore. They're wired into
| national and global networks that are part of track-side
| overhauls. Additionally, when AMTRAK goes over BNSF lines
| (at least when I worked there) you don't have automated
| train control (which is really braking). A signal is a good
| first step, but if your goal is to really put a dent in
| these kinds of incidents then it's a lot of on-going cost -
| mostly born by the tail operator because they're the ones
| that lease access to the lines.
| cagey wrote:
| The situation is quite confusing. Restricting the
| discussion to the vast numbers of existing RR/road
| crossings (not new crossings), then to what degree does
| the state control the installation of automated crossing
| protection (upgrades)? The various articles I read about
| this crash strongly suggest that MODOT is largely
| throttling which RR/road crossing automated protection
| upgrades are executed, and implies this throttling is
| largely because of state spending limits. But if as you
| say most of the cost of these upgrades is to be borne by
| BNSF, why would MODOT be reluctant to compel BNSF to
| spend money upgrading crossing protection throughout
| their state? If BNSF had refused such "suggestions" by
| the state, I would expect to made aware, post crash, of
| how evil BNSF was in not performing needed safety
| upgrades requested/commanded by the state, how the state
| is suing BNSF to compel them to do so, and how BNSF is
| 100% liable for the damages related to this crash. But
| that isn't what I read in any of the articles related to
| this crash. This strongly suggests to me that the state
| bears significant, perhaps gating, responsibility here.
|
| Any clarification of what's going on in this regard would
| be appreciated.
| msrenee wrote:
| I can find you a dozen such crossings within an hour of my
| house. If you care to head into the properly rural part of any
| state, you'll find they're everywhere. There ought to be
| flashing lights and arms at every one, but no one wants to foot
| that bill.
|
| Was the truck actively crossing the tracks when it got hit or
| was it disabled? I haven't found any explanation of why it was
| there.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| It seems to have been at least trying to cross, as it had
| been crossing for the past couple of days delivering rock to
| a levee project [1]. If you look at the crossing on Google
| maps [2] it's clear that the crossing is not at right angles.
| If the dump truck had been northbound at the crossing (and I
| don't know if it was), the driver would have had to turn his
| head more than 90 degrees to the left to see the train (which
| was coming from the west).
|
| Local residents had apparently been warning of the danger of
| this particular crossing for some time [1]. A mockup of the
| accident scene is at [0].
|
| The lawsuits have begun [3]. One of the suits alleges that
| the trucking company failed to properly maintain its
| equipment, which suggests to me the possibility that the
| truck stalled on the tracks.
|
| [0] https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article263
| 060...
|
| [1] https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article262
| 969...
|
| [2] https://goo.gl/maps/n7WNSFMiqYgbEQQp9
|
| [3] https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article263
| 084...
| SamPatt wrote:
| I don't care about such crossings, it's trivially easy to
| check for a train. I live in a rural area with many of these
| crossings and (to my knowledge) there haven't been any
| problems.
|
| I don't think this is an infrastructure failing as much as it
| is a "Why would we need that?"
| exar0815 wrote:
| I have witnessed something quite similar. During the flash-floods
| in 2021 in Germany, locals in the Ahr region absolutely rose to
| the occasion. Farmers were evacuating people in head-high water
| with their tractors during the night, local restaurants were
| already providing hot food and water the next morning wherever
| they could reach, pharmacies were loading whatever they had
| available on ATVs to somehow get much-needed medicine down
| precarious mudpaths. Local construction companies were already
| clearing rubble and building emergency bridges out of it. One
| Excavator was just basically standing in the middle of the river
| and ferrying people and rescue partys across. The local racetrack
| basically just organized everything while politicians were still
| playing the blame game. When our local firebrigade was officially
| pulled back from active duty because we lost one of ours during
| rescue operations in the first day, basically everyone just went
| down again and just tried to do whatever was possible. Absolutely
| stunning what people will do when they are face to face with
| disaster. I freely admit that I was crying like a little girl
| when I first saw the endless columns of Bundeswehr, THW, Fire
| Brigades, Farmers, basically everyone who could just streaming to
| help people they never met but were neighbors and friends for me.
|
| Sorry for the rambling, but I am still not emotionally
| disconnected enough from it to concisely talk about it.
| mlyle wrote:
| Yes. I think people are good overall.
|
| I think the biggest reason people in small towns may be a bit
| quicker to help is that people in cities are a little
| conditioned by the bystander effect to assume that people
| around them, or the authorities, are better equipped to help.
|
| But any random individual asked for help in a city is likely to
| go well beyond their duty and be quite helpful.
| townied wrote:
| Having gone small town to "the city," my interactions with
| other humans are by and large a net negative to the point
| that it's almost better for one's sanity to not involve
| outside of whatever communities you have therein.
|
| Having spent a decade now here, it feels a bit like when
| you're getting a cavity ground out at the dentist and they
| finally hit the nerve. Spending time away, "back home" or in
| some other tight-knit society only seems to fill it in for it
| to be ground back down.
|
| For the folks that can and do thrive in "the city," I find it
| fascinating on how we must differ in mind and spirit.
| InefficientRed wrote:
| _> or the authorities, are better equipped to help._
|
| It's not just "equipped to help". It's also that random
| untrained people can do more harm than good. Hell, even
| random _trained_ people can do more harm that good when there
| are too many people around.
|
| I'm not a medical professional, but I have some first aid
| training and have been the most-trained first responder in
| not-even-crowded areas on a few occasions. Even with only 10
| people around, managing the crowd while providing care
| becomes difficult.
|
| The article even mentions:
|
| _> "It was a wonderful problem to have," said school
| district superintendent, Eric Hoyt, "but we probably had too
| many volunteers show up."_
|
| In a town of 171 people. Just 171 people, and crowd
| management became a problem.
|
| Now drop into Manhattan, with approximately 1.629 million
| more people. If "everyone" showed up to an incident, you'd
| have at least an order of magnitude more deaths from the
| stampede to help than from the original event.
|
| People in dense cities move away from the scene of an
| accident in order to _get out of the way_ , which in most
| cases is genuinely the best thing they can do to help.
| mlyle wrote:
| Yah-- I'm not even quite talking about that, though.
| Whether someone else is better qualified to help in a given
| circumstance or not, we're conditioned to not get involved
| because _someone else will_. Hence, the bystander effect,
| which stops people from being helpful even when they could.
|
| I have first aid training, too, and my impulse is not to
| rush to help but to look around at other people and see if
| they're going to do something.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > But any random individual asked for help in a city is
| likely to go well beyond their duty and be quite helpful.
|
| Fortunately yes, though I think I'd still give the edge to
| small towns for this. In cities, people are a lot more wary
| of being scammed, since it happens more often in areas with
| more people.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > I think people are good overall.
|
| Until a certain amount of sacrifices have to be made. Then
| things start getting tribal. The sacrifices do not even have
| to be material, simply sacrificing or losing socioeconomic
| status relative to others is sufficient.
| la64710 wrote:
| Tribes are actually very benevolent and certainly helpful
| to many strangers that in their eyes seek help. There have
| been numerous incidents all around the world where poor
| tribals have come and nurture a sick stranger back to life.
| It is basic human nature.
| jan_Inkepa wrote:
| > >Yes. I think people are good overall.
|
| > Until a certain amount of sacrifices have to be made.
|
| I remember some political philosophy online course from
| some reasonably reputable American college that was quite
| nicely set up - it had a lecturer and two token students (a
| man and a woman). At some point the lecturer asked the
| students (IIRC the topic was anarchism) if they thought
| that people were fundamentally basically good - the man was
| like "yeah I think people are basically good", the woman
| said something along the lines of "Well, I grew up in
| Yugoslavia, so not really..."
| sassy_quat wrote:
| Retake political science please.
|
| The advent of the agricultural revolution, the telegraph,
| and the teletype each resulted in massive increases in
| "tribal size". To the point that after the teletype, it was
| a bipolar cold war.
|
| So I don't think you have any qualifications to say a
| single word in this matter.
| dang wrote:
| Your comment has broken the site guidelines badly. We ban
| accounts that do that, so could you please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and
| stick to the rules when posting here? We definitely don't
| want swipes or flamebait in HN comments.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I have no idea what your comment is trying to convey, but
| to help clarify my comment, this might help:
|
| https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-
| lowest-wh...
|
| I posit that at the root of all societal friction is the
| widening income/wealth gap within the US, along with
| shifting socioeconomic statuses with some losing ground
| and some gaining ground.
|
| Note that people are in many tribes of many sizes
| simultaneously, and constantly shifting priorities and
| allegiances as it suits them, and trying to figure out
| others' priorities and allegiances.
| kortilla wrote:
| > I posit that at the root of all societal friction is
| the widening income/wealth gap within the US,
|
| Why would you think this when there is little meaningful
| difference income-wise between Democrats and Republicans?
|
| A significant chunk of the US votes on single issue
| matters that have nothing to do with economic status
| (abortion, gun rights).
| mlyle wrote:
| I don't agree that the root is the income/wealth gap, but
| it certainly is playing a big role in the divide.
|
| > little meaningful difference income-wise between
| Democrats and Republicans?
|
| https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-
| stu... is striking-- and when you look into the sub-
| demographics of the lowest and highest band it gets more
| interesting still-- e.g. that 27% in the lowest income
| band is _shockingly_ rural.
| kortilla wrote:
| >certainly is playing a big role in the divide.
|
| The only divide is in whether it's something that is even
| a problem that needs to be addressed. Income inequality
| doesn't divide people itself, just the focus on it does.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Income inequality doesn't divide people itself
|
| I don't agree. We're increasingly divided along lines
| that are very well correlated with demographic factors.
| Like, age, sure, but also income, religion, race, etc.
|
| And the link makes it pretty clear income is a pretty
| strong predictor of political leanings. (And when you
| combine income + rural/urban split, it's a very strong
| one).
| jessaustin wrote:
| In other nations (e.g. Mexico, Peru, Ghana, Thailand,
| etc.) health care is provided to all. In USA lots of
| people can't afford any sort of health care. The family
| left behind by someone who dies at 48 because he couldn't
| afford e.g. blood pressure medication doesn't need any
| sort of "focus" to see the divide.
|
| Health care is just the starkest illustration of this.
| One sees the same phenomenon with any other necessity:
| housing, food, transportation, etc.
| mlyle wrote:
| I don't see how his comment justifies yours-- either your
| reading of it (I don't see any claims about "tribal size"
| in his comment, and I'm sure we're all aware that there's
| a whole range of affiliations we have from large--
| 'Murica-- to small-- HN fans) or the vitriol.
|
| Be kind, please.
| worik wrote:
| speak for yourself
| Threeve303 wrote:
| I have found otherwise good people are capable of
| intentionally doing awful things to another human, even if
| you have known someone almost your entire life, a switch
| flips and it is like a full psychopath is unlocked. Many
| only need the moral cover, certain they are right, to say
| and do awful things to another.
|
| This was always true but it seems to me that social media,
| in all its forms, not only takes your privacy, it also
| takes your empathy. At the root of many mental health
| disorders exists narcissism and for the past few decades an
| increasing number of people have been added to the empathy
| erasing internet hate machine.
|
| Just look around, the proof is everywhere.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| The proof of kindness is everywhere, too. Just look
| around.
| adventured wrote:
| In most cases people see what they prefer to see. Their
| response to such impossible questions tells you more
| about them - how they see the world, their sense of life
| - than it does humanity at large.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| I agree, this is a hard subject, whether people are good
| or not. I've always believed we're all capable of doing
| good under certain conditions, but let most get out of
| their comfort zone and they'll turn on you like a mad
| dog. (sorry) Proof? just look at our political scene the
| last 5 plus years. I won't debate any thing ideologically
| anymore with co-workers, they simply default to anger
| when you press them to explain how they feel and why
| about any difficult ideas.
| neuronic wrote:
| Thank you for bringing this up, it was the parallel story that
| first popped into my mind as well, as this was a national
| tragedy of rare proportions.
|
| To me the amount of people streaming from everywhere in the
| entire country (!) to help fix up a region that has been struck
| with disaster moved me to tears more than once now.
|
| And the happier I am about this circumstance, the angrier I get
| at politicians and some media.
| manor wrote:
| bpodgursky wrote:
| mmmpop wrote:
| [deleted]
| sixothree wrote:
| Having lived in the deep south, it's easy to see the paradox.
| Vehemently, deeply racist and judgmental people willing acting
| so selflessly at random occasions. Southern manners are usually
| just a facade masking hatred. I hate to say these things, but
| it is true.
| tootie wrote:
| People can be nice while simultaneously not being good.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| I've heard the following said:
|
| "Southerns will hate the group but love the person.
| Northerners will love the group but hate the person"
|
| Obviously that's way oversimplified, but it's broadly
| reflective of what I've seen. I've seen open casual racism in
| the South followed by kindness and empathy toward individual
| members of that race. I've seen public "performative"
| condemnation of racism in the North followed by quietly
| limiting the opportunity of individual members of that race
| by the very same people.
|
| In my experience, Southern manners aren't a "facade". They're
| the way people interact with the world. They do things out of
| a sense of duty, even - perhaps _especially_ when doing it
| requires that they put aside their feelings about the matter.
| sixothree wrote:
| We can talk Missouri in particular. Just a year or two ago
| there were anti-blm protests. I saw signs people were
| carrying with the n-word on them. This was in public and on
| television.
|
| And I'm guessing this same person will use their southern
| manners accordingly when they come across a black person in
| their daily life.
| mcphage wrote:
| Is the author's claim that modern journalism doesn't contain
| enough feel-good human interest stories?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| No. The author indicated that the exceptional (and it was,
| indeed, "exceptional") generosity and sense of Duty, exhibited
| by the townsfolk was ignored by the press.
|
| It was probably a bit "whiny," but it was not incorrect.
|
| I do feel that publicizing examples of generosity of spirit
| would help in healing our nation, but he's right, in that it
| doesn't sell papers.
| mcphage wrote:
| > The author indicated that the exceptional (and it was,
| indeed, "exceptional") generosity and sense of Duty
|
| The author took pains to assert that it wasn't exceptional:
|
| >> And the most unusual thing about all this is: None of this
| is unusual
|
| >> believe me, they happen. Every day. Every hour. Ordinary
| Americans will astound you with their goodwill
|
| > was ignored by the press
|
| Well, they're right in that I didn't hear anything about this
| specific train derailment, but heart-warming human interest
| stories are a pretty regular staple of even the national
| press.
|
| > I do feel that publicizing examples of generosity of spirit
| would help in healing our nation
|
| I'm not so sure. Our nation isn't breaking apart because we
| can't pull together in a crisis, it's breaking apart because
| we can't stand together outside of a crisis. Americans want
| very different things, and pulling together in a crisis only
| helps when we're in crisis mode.
| phtrivier wrote:
| > Americans want very different things, and pulling
| together in a crisis only helps when we're in crisis mode
|
| The world _is_ in crisis mode.
|
| Unfortunately, some people have a vested interest in
| looking at the train crash, and not helping, and maybe even
| preventing people from helping.
|
| (I can't help but picture the "train-crash denier" next to
| the boy scout, explaning that the train did not crash, it's
| all a scam from you-know-who to restrict your liberties or
| serve the car industry, wake up sheeple, etc...)
| kodah wrote:
| I mean, this is a crisis. There's a constitutional crisis
| in terms of two extremely divergent views of how to
| understand the constitution that both carry significant
| trajectory changes and neither of which sound very helpful.
| There's a political crisis going on with neo-nazi influence
| in and around the Republican party that's not being dealt
| with at all. There's a digital war on-going that's been
| heating up for the past two-ish decades that promises to
| get worse. There's a literal housing crisis. There's more,
| but that's a short list I think most people can agree on.
| mlyle wrote:
| > ... extremely divergent views of how to understand the
| constitution...
|
| IMO, there's good in this situation, because inferring a
| nebulous right to privacy that didn't do very much was
| always a little questionable thing for the supreme court
| to do. It was a "good enough" measure that prevented us
| from doing any better.
|
| Yes, it's terrible that poor women in red states will
| have to pay the price.
|
| But ultimately, we're going to have to figure out how to
| define a right to privacy and make it into real law. And
| we can maybe fix other things, like security/privacy in
| our papers and effects and not rely upon 19th century
| judicial compromises on policing power and searches, too.
|
| > There's a political crisis going on with neo-nazi
| influence in and around the Republican party that's not
| being dealt with at all
|
| Honestly, the Republican party is <<slowly>> making
| itself less relevant. Which is kind of bad-- a relevant
| and not-crazy political opposition is a useful thing to a
| society.
| rospaya wrote:
| > No. The author indicated that the exceptional (and it was,
| indeed, "exceptional") generosity and sense of Duty,
| exhibited by the townsfolk was ignored by the press.
|
| Man bites dog is news. Dog bites man isn't. Sorry to be cold
| and unaffectionate (I love the story though) but I believe it
| happens regulary. Big town, small town, there's good people
| everywhere.
| phtrivier wrote:
| I'm pretty sure there is a market for a social network that
| would tweak their algorithm to present positive content
| rather than the usual junk, though.
|
| It's not like FB or twitter doesn't have the resource and
| skill to A/B test that - but I'm pretty sure their biased
| by the 19th century tradition of "sex sells, and we only
| have one frontpage".
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Terrible people everywhere too. I like hearing about the
| good folks. It invigorates my soul. Hope is important!
| ShroudedNight wrote:
| > Man bites dog is news. Dog bites man isn't.
|
| I become increasingly convinced that a significant part of
| our deficiency in reporting is that we've conflated "news"
| with "current affairs" long enough that we've forgotten
| that both are actually worthy of mental bandwidth.
| tptacek wrote:
| Yes. It's a bit of a thing with him.
| mcphage wrote:
| Well then--I guess that's better than I was expecting, given
| how often "ordinary Americans" is a dogwhistle. I don't agree
| that journalism needs more feels good stories... but they
| could do worse.
| xbar wrote:
| Is this a question you are asking in good faith, because I
| think it is clear that he is not making that claim?
| mcphage wrote:
| > I think it is clear that he is not making that claim?
|
| This is the second last line of the piece, where the author
| explicitly makes that claim:
|
| >> Although we rarely hear about such acts of compassion and
| lovingkindness within our society, believe me, they happen.
| Every day. Every hour. Ordinary Americans will astound you
| with their goodwill. Sadly, ordinary American journalists
| aren't interested in being astounded by such things.
|
| Maybe that's not what they're trying to get across--if not,
| I'd like to hear what you think it is--but I like how you
| jump to "acting in bad faith".
| xbar wrote:
| I think your question was rhetorical in casting journalism
| that focuses on American goodwill as "human interest" was
| designed to engender an angry response; that it was a
| trollish question where you already had an answer that was
| baiting; that you were not at all asking that question;
| that you were expressing an opinion.
|
| I think your responses affirm my read.
| mcphage wrote:
| > casting journalism that focuses on American goodwill as
| "human interest" was designed to engender an angry
| response
|
| Much like a passenger train barreling full speed into a
| dump truck, you made one severe mistake at the beginning
| and rode it head first into a spectacular disaster.
| marssaxman wrote:
| There is an excellent book on this theme, which I have been
| recommending liberally for several years: "A Paradise Built in
| Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster".
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Built-Hell-Extraordinary-Com...
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Looks like Kansas City news picked it up.
|
| KSHB - https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/mendon-missouri-
| communi...
|
| KCUR - https://www.kcur.org/news/2022-06-28/amtrak-derailment-
| mendo...
| ryan_j_naughton wrote:
| > And the most unusual thing about all this is: None of this is
| unusual. At least not within the national tapestry that is The
| Great American Small Town.
|
| It also isn't unusual in the cities. Humans are wonderful and
| terrible everywhere. It reminds me of the 30 Rock episode where
| Jack and Liz go to Georgia to find a new comedian in touch with
| the "real America" and Liz keeps insisting that all Americans are
| real Americans and there is no "real America."
|
| The acts of people after 9/11 in NYC remind us of the good in
| humans just as this small town inspires us.
|
| As Mr Rogers said, "When I was a boy and I would see scary things
| in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers.
| You will always find people who are helping."
| turdit wrote:
| "It also isn't unusual in the cities."
|
| yes it is. last week i saw a homeless man follow a woman onto a
| packed train, scream in her face and throw her across the
| train, and nobody did anything. i'll let you guess the races of
| the victim and the attacker. this was on the L in union square.
| no one cares. this country has been dying for decades and it's
| almost completely dead
| kiernanmcgowan wrote:
| When I lived in Chicago I saw the aftermath of a car/moped
| accident up close. I had just gotten off the L at Western and
| was walking to the north exit. To my right was a moped turning
| left under the tracks and to my left was a sedan driving out of
| an alley, also turning under the tracks.
|
| I heard a crunch and a group of people at the exit all jumped
| and rushed over. I hadn't seen the actual accident, but feared
| the worst. Once I was street level the group that had rushed
| over had already called 911, was comforting the person on the
| moped (they were fine, at most concussed), and directing
| traffic around the accident. I ended up leaving because there
| wasn't anything to do and didn't want to get in the way.
|
| 60 seconds was all it took for a group of strangers to provide
| an overwhelming amount of help.
|
| Walking home, I heard the siren of the ambulance, but that
| eventually faded as I walked another block or so, the scene of
| the accident swallowed by the vastness of the city.
|
| I probably walked past a couple hundred people or so that
| evening, all of them unaware of what had happened under
| Western, yet filled with the hope all of them could provide an
| overwhelming amount of help.
| nickysielicki wrote:
| I agree. One of the things that was visible to me as a
| transplant to Houston was how much city pride there was in how
| people came together after Harvey, even years after.
| tootie wrote:
| 30 Rock also spoofed the "Subway Hero". A real story of a
| person falling on the tracks from a seizure and bystander
| jumped down and pressed them both into the track well while a
| train ran over them. There's alway bystanders and I'm sure the
| dynamics of a small town are different. Especially when a rush
| hour subway platform might have more people than Mendon.
| melenaboija wrote:
| Although I agree with it I think that small towns have
| something that is lost in big cities which is the sense of
| community, and that is simply because in towns you know every
| single person that has some impact in your daily live.
|
| My family is from a small town who moved to the city right
| before I was born and there is something my mom said to me when
| I was a kid that got stuck in my mind which is the awareness of
| death, in big cities is like people don't die because you don't
| know about it. Although it may sound macabre I think that
| knowing about death helps me better understand being alive.
| formerkrogemp wrote:
| > Although I agree with it I think that small towns have
| something that is lost in big cities which is the sense of
| community, and that is simply because in towns you know every
| single person that has some impact in your daily live. My
| family is from a small town who moved to the city right
| before I was born and there is something my mom said to me
| when I was a kid that got stuck in my mind which is the
| awareness of death, in big cities is like people don't die
| because you don't know about it.
|
| Cities have plentiful and varied communities, but it's easier
| to be lost in the masses. Many people lose empathy amongst so
| many other humans, or so some claim.
|
| I was raised in a small town. Every coin has its other side.
| "Every single person has an impact on your life." Certainly
| if the community disapproves of your appearance, skin color,
| or religion, they can ostracize you, they'll each take turns
| with their individual impact to turn your life to shit.
|
| Small towns can be bucolic, beautiful, and communal, however
| your mileage may vary dramatically from in-group to in-group
| and tribe to tribe. Beware your own scarlet letter, whether
| it's your skin color, religion, or otherwise.
|
| > Although it may sound macabre I think that knowing about
| death helps me better understand being alive.
|
| Wise words.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I think it's a basic feature of human nature that every
| ingroup has an outgroup.
| mlyle wrote:
| Sure. But in a big city, you'll find that groups you're
| "out" of don't affect you as much.
|
| In a small town, if the town is the ingroup, and you're
| the outgroup... you're going to have a bad time.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Yeah, I think that's the pro & con of living in a "real
| community".
| melenaboija wrote:
| > Small towns can be bucolic, beautiful, and communal,
| however your mileage may vary dramatically from in-group to
| in-group and tribe to tribe. Beware your own scarlet
| letter, whether it's your skin color, religion, or
| otherwise
|
| Totally agree and that is probably one of the reasons I
| never went back to my town. Sense of belonging and
| tribalism definitely comes with drawbacks but also builds a
| feeling of having to stay together to move forward which is
| what makes that things like the post happen.
| cortesoft wrote:
| The downside of the small town community is if you are not
| accepted in it. There is no alternative.
|
| In cities, you have many communities, and if you aren't
| accepted in one you can find another.
| redtexture wrote:
| A fishing community / island in Maine I know of, forced a
| thief and their family off the island by completely
| withdrawing all assistance.
|
| You cannot live on an island in Maine without community
| cgriswald wrote:
| That sense of community comes roaring back in times of
| calamity.
|
| I've only ever lived in cities or suburbs. During a major
| calamity, those of us in the city drove out to a small town
| that was nearly wiped out and gave supplies, money, and time.
| When our own city was hit by an extremely damaging and deadly
| storm, we took care of our neighbors (generators for
| refrigerators, places to sleep, help with repairs, food,
| etc), even if we had just met them for the first time.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| smaller communities exist in big cities too. They might be
| neighbourhoods like a small town, or interest, cause or
| activity-based. The trick is not to defer to government to
| provide them for you, which I think is harder in big centers.
| InefficientRed wrote:
| Harkening back to the GP post: Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was
| based on a city neighborhood, not a small town.
| louky wrote:
| Seasame Street, as well.
| orzig wrote:
| This is very true - some apartment buildings have great
| community (of course, plenty don't). Demographics certainly
| drive part of the distinction, but just having a person
| step up and do the barest amount of leadership is also
| critical.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I'm old enough to have experienced the slow, quiet, patient
| love of Mr Rogers first hand; I'm not sure it's able to rise
| above today's noisy fears? I hope I'm wrong.
| WorldPeas wrote:
| I'd sadly say that the trust and love for
| community(especially in cities) has waned quite a bit, even
| in gentrified areas I see parents afraid to let their kids
| walk to the store. l'd say it's another casualty of the typo
| of journalism this article mentions, all fear no friends.
| Clubber wrote:
| >"This is a crisis for our democracy and our society," said
| Penelope Muse Abernathy, a visiting professor at Medill and
| primary author of the report, in a statement.
|
| Why is everything a crisis now? The crying of wolf gets tiresome
| and it makes it easy to tune out, probably to the detriment of
| local newspapers.
|
| Oops, replied to the wrong article.
| pjbeam wrote:
| I didn't see this quote in the article--what are you referring
| to?
| Clubber wrote:
| Oops I must have replied in the wrong article. It was in
| reference to this:
|
| https://www.axios.com/2022/07/04/local-newspapers-news-
| deser...
| fortran77 wrote:
| One way to see rural MO is on the Katy bike trail:
|
| https://mostateparks.com/park/katy-trail-state-park
|
| It's a 240 mile protected bike path.
| jeremiemyhren wrote:
| And ironically one of the most popular ways to "do" the Katy
| trail is to take the Amtrak to Kansas City since that train has
| bike stowage, and riding the trail from west to east is
| (generally) all downhill.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Is it relatively easy to get back to Chicago from the eastern
| terminus of the bike trail?
| moomoo11 wrote:
| Awesome thanks!
| tnorthcutt wrote:
| And if you like that you'll also like the Mickelson Trail in
| South Dakota:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_S._Mickelson_Trail
| psmith50 wrote:
| Rode the entire trail in 3 days in 2016! Quite the challenge
| for myself at the time and living out of your bike was a blast.
| Got to talk and meet many locals and go into many small towns
| to resupply food and enjoy the ride. My total milage ended up
| being 270 miles.
| freediver wrote:
| Love HN for gems like this.
| Linda703 wrote:
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