Chinese balloons are novel. This is not. It’s tragic. But its most memorable element seems to be the meta-debate around its coverage. That's boring.
Alas, I haven't heard much about them from those knowledgeable enough to chime in on the subjects and I'd love to.
As for balloons, they got boring last week, other than some airspace closures that only pilots need worry about. China has always been spying on us, the methods might be new, but not the fact of it.
It’s a diplomatic escalation with global geopolitical ramifications. If you have any business or personal exposure to China, or anything in Southeast Asia, that’s directly relevant in a way lives in Ohio, unfortunately, are not.
Also, Ohio is out of immediate crisis. Now is the time for investigation and litigation. The train has derailed. Yet balloons may keep coming—that’s the drama one story has that the other lacks.
It's not like we can't point to a time when things were majorly screwed up in a way that didn't just go away quickly despite the news moving on (Flint says hello).
Is it? Sounds like an environmental crisis with serious ramifications
> The train has derailed. Yet balloons may keep coming
The balloons may keep coming - the environmental disasters are certain to keep coming.
I think the coverage tells quite a different story though, namely distractions on external "enemies", like Chinese balloons, providing cover for corporate sponsors that fund the political parties and buy ads on the major networks. Unregulated capitalism at its finest.
No, it's not. Over a thousand trains derail every year [1][2]. We have superfund sites under millions of Americans [3] that even locals can sometimes barely muster a bother with.
We also have no evidence this derailment was caused by an issue the recent deal forced, e.g. unpaid sick time. (It could have been. That would be a story.) But in the meantime it's not novel unless you're into trains or from that region. Exhibit A of that is the most interesting thing we, on Hacker News, can find to discuss about it being the meta debate.
[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/3539221-how-often-do-trains-der...
[2] https://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/publicsite/Que...
How many of them require a controlled burn of its content that forces nearby citizens to evacuate?
> We have superfund sites under millions of Americans
How many of them are a result of a derailed train?
Yes, separately those events aren't novel. Their intersection is.
> Over a thousand trains derail every year
How many of them are filled with toxic chemical substances that force the evacuation of a town?
With the balloons you have someone to point to and pin the blame who is not you.
With derailments and the recent acrimonious railworker labor agreement still in the rearview, the blame can't be cast far away; so the play is to ignore it and hope it fades.
From whom? The implicit assumption in this is that the powers that ended the railroad strike are perfectly aligned with the media. Or that bipartisan Congressional idiocy doesn’t get called out in the press. There are loads of powerful people who would benefit if this became a story. They’re not because it’s a bad story for national interest. Nobody died. It’s getting cleaned up. It happened in Ohio.
Progressives don't want to stir up anti-railroad sentiments.
