They had a mutiny. Probably. Didn’t we cover this already?

Y’all do know real life isn’t resolved in an hour, right? It also doesn’t come with a reset button.

Okay, okay, so it’s been a week and you’re thinking we’re supposed to actually know something by now. Modern media is not good for humans. That’s what we know. We know that because it’s silly to expect anyone to really know what is going on this early with so many people acting in so many different ways and most of them Russian. The Russian part just makes it more interesting.

I’ve discarded three preliminary hypotheses so far. I’ve heard a dozen or more and about five of them seem reasonable. Four or five analysts that I think are really good and zero that I’m certain are correct. That’s just the nature of analyzing a moving target that doesn’t really want to be analyzed.

Below, I’ll link to one of the best analysts I’ve found on the thing. Make sure you have plenty of coffee – it’s an hour long power point. Perun‘s work is excellent and if really understanding the intricacies of this sort of analysis is what you’re interested in, by all means watch his video. He reads all those white papers so I don’t have to! But if you’re expecting a definitive assessment, you’ll be disappointed.

Frustrating, yes, but a great object lesson. We Americans are way too impatient with everything. That impatience costs us. We turn off the TV and ignore the world because it’s too slow and too complex and too danged annoying. That’s not so bad – everyone needs a break sometimes – but then we don’t ever come back. Then the world does something stupid we have to deal with and we’re left wondering what just happened.

You’d think we’d get a clue after getting caught flatfooted twice with the world wars but time goes by, generations change and life happens. Those hard won lessons have to be relearned.

Or do they? Are we really incapable of staying informed without drowning in information overload? Nah.

You don’t need every possible article on every possible permeation. You don’t have to follow ever second of coverage. Nor do you have to stay glued to the computer all day listening to every report. I do because I write a commentary on politics but that level of hyper awareness isn’t necessary to be well informed.

The first step is figuring out your criteria for your news sources. Do you want a particular viewpoint first and foremost or do you prefer a source you can trust for reliability? Decide what’s most important – three to five things – and find sources that meet your criteria.

Don’t get too attached. Sure, I want you to join the newsletter that I hope to eventually start and to subscribe to the video and podcast but I’m a commentator, not a journalist. I am most interested in educating people about politics and government so it isn’t so scary to so many folks. You’ll outgrow me and that’s cool. Know your criteria and move on as you need to. Preferably after buying a tee shirt!

Not just me – don’t rely on a solitary source. I know, it’s a pain finding new sources from time to time but the less dependent you are on a solitary source, the better informed you will be.

Now, the types of sources. First is a general news source. This just gives you the basics of the story for the day. The standard newscast will do just fine but you can also use RSS feeds and aggregators to just cover the basics. What happened is all you want from these sources.

Deeper coverage: In the old days – you know, the Seventies – we used newspapers for this. These are the sources you go to for the who, where, how and why. Don’t bother reading/listening/watching some deep dive on every event – you’ll drive yourself nuts. Just catch an article or video that explains the thing better than the news did.

Deep Dive: This is the equivalent of grabbing the encyclopedia to figure out what the heck they are talking about. This is what you do when you really want to understand the whole issue. Don’t worry about it for most things.

Commentary: These are good for getting a general feel for the issues involved. Remember that commentary is always opinion. Opinion isn’t a bad thing but don’t mistake opinion for fact. Opinions give you more information and more points of view but use them as accessories, not sources.

Makes it sound all nice and straight forward which it isn’t. Journalists act as commentators and often blur the lines between the two. Google’s maddening algorithm makes you click through pages of useless junk just to find an article that wasn’t written by some AP hack. FYI: I hate Google search – betcha didn’t guess!

Don’t get me started on YouTube’s idiotic algorithm. It’ll suggest one great channel and forty unrelated ones.

It’s the 21st Century! Could we stop using last century’s search engines?

Sigh, but at least I didn’t have to drive to the library. I kinda miss the card catalog, though.

So, what did happen in Russia? Wagner made a weird run on Moscow then took their toys and moved to Belarus. It’ll be quite some time before we know just how much and what kind of fallout there will be but we’re pretty sure there will be a lot of it.

We’re gonna need more popcorn.

Perun’s Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP8VPkWXOfU