John Henson

While digesting the news about schools being canceled for the week and football games being called off due to someone shooting at cars in London last weekend, I find myself wondering when decisions started being made due to fear of public backlash.
Too much, it seems, is based on who screams the loudest on Facebook these days, and common sense has become a casualty to the mob mentality of the uninformed sitting with a phone or behind a computer. A friend of mine in coaching used to point out that I had access to the “bully pulpit” in my years as the Harlan Daily Enterprise editor. Now, everyone has their own bully pulpit from Appalachian Wireless or A T&T, with their own cheering section throwing in their support, no matter how clueless or misinformed those comments may be.
Stories that are little more than fantasy are created on Facebook and get shared as gospel with hundreds of comments, and then legitimate reports from legitimate sources are dismissed as fake news if they don’t fit the political bias of the reader. Nothing is true for many readers unless it fits their narrow agenda, as if their side could never be wrong. That has never been reality for humans, and nothing has changed lately just because you have become convinced your candidate or political party has been endorsed by God.
Local school officials were roasted a couple of years ago by some for not closing just because of rumors that someone may show up with a gun. There was no credible evidence a threat was real, but several were ready to shut everything down at the first suggestion of trouble. That was the case again earlier this week, and I’m happy both of our local superintendents had the courage and good sense to not buy into the fear mongering.
A veteran police officer told me that students were much safer in school than they would be out in the public or maybe even at home. If another John Rambo is roaming around in the hills around London, he can probably find a way to shoot someone, with or without a football game on Friday night.
I suspect that some high school football coaches/teams are using the opportunity to get out of games they expect to lose. Some, perhaps, are just bowing to the pressure from parents and community members so bored with life that they feel the need to jump on board with whatever campaign they run across on Facebook.
Jackson County canceled a game in Louisville, apparently because they aren’t even practicing due to the fear that shooter could stumble 30-plus miles down KY 30 to take shots during a workout. Clay County reportedly canceled a trip to Harlan County because of a shooting incident in Perry County, even though the team wouldn’t travel through Perry County to get to Harlan and Perry Central is still playing its game this week.
I noticed at least one district went back to school Wednesday after being off Monday and Tuesday. I’m not sure what staying out two days accomplished other than hurting the academic progress of their students. You also have to wonder if it’s any safer Wednesday than it was Monday. If there was a real threat then students could be out for weeks or months, not just until the people pushing the fear-first approach move on to some other topic or figure out how dumb it was to allow some nut with a gun to control their lives.