Noise to signal ratio

The East Vacouver Republic has a Conrad Black-related two-fer today. The first story relates that Mr. Black and Izzy Asper both believed in media conspiracies against certain individuals, because they saw them from their CEO's chairs. The second one profiles recently-murdered philanthropist Glen Davis as very much the son of his father, former Argus chairman and Black ally Nelson Davis. The elder Davis was close to being Canada's richest man, largely through building up mining fortunes. The article concedes that the younger Mr. Davis was an environmentalist, 'tis true, but still one that was primarily interested in "conserving" the same stretch of Ontario land where mining fortunes have been made.

The Republic's masthead, found at the bottom of its home page, says that it aims to cover current events without bias or doggishness. It is an alternative newspaper, and shows hints of the radical worldview that's par for the woods there. The above two articles show something about where the radical worldview comes from.

To put it bluntly, many radical notions come from (at times distorted) views from the upper crust itself. Add a few Telephone-Game-style iterations and what was offhand talk [or bragging] in the plush set becomes a plank of the radical worldview.

A lot of the radical worldview seems crazy because the building of the radical worldview inappropriately decontextualizes worldly observations from the part of the world they apply to. Yes, it's true that media organizations launch campaigns, and even hatchet jobs, against certain individuals, and these are often organized. It's also true, though, that these campaigns are limited to newsworthy public figures. The typical 'victim' of any said 'conspiracy' is really too below the radar to be directly visited by one. The most common explanation, for those who do not fit the diagnostic category of paranoia, is the victim in question either is a victim of collateral reputation-damage or is being used as a whipping boy/girl by the locals in his/her locale.

As far as any secret desire on the part of Glen Davis to focus upon conserving Ontario land that his father used to wrest a lot of wealth from, the simplest explanation for he doing so was to honour his father - not to mention to stay close to the memory of him. The more reclusive a family is, the more close-knit its members are. The upper crust have enough social skills to cover up this tight-knittedness, which makes it less obvious in families from the posh part of town.