April 20, 2007
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Tired body means a tired mind and a tired spirit.
So much has been happening over the past few weeks it’s been increasingly hard to comment about them. Obviously, the Virginia Tech is the freshest in my mind. It’s a very tragic event that potentially could have been avoided. Our prayers are with the families of the victims, the assailants family and of those emotionally scared by this event. Though there is nothing we can do about the past it’s the future that I’m a tad bit worried about. I think this cartoon sums it up. (I’m sure that just offended a few people.) But consider how many decisions are made based upon emotion and haste. I fear more laws to protect the ignorant will pop-up leading this nation down a slippery slope. I think my co-worker sums it up the best:
Think the media will bother to question the possibility that, given he mentioned Columbine, their playing up that incident might have helped sow the seeds of this one? Or will they just let that remain a dirty little secret of their success, like violent movies and everything else in the comic?
On a related note, 230 people died in Iraq yesterday and 2 soldiers died earlier this week and nobody held a memorial or profiled the killers or lowered any flags to half-staff. Only people with social pathologies and their total aberrant, random acts of violence or public disgrace knocks American Idol out of the top of the ratings. then people get indignant and say that “something must be done. people must be held accountable,” and then we get back to solving the world’s problems by watching the most immoral sh* stream out of the tube/flat-panel as we eat and drink our way into type-II diabetes.CNN has two interesting commentaries about the idea of gun control. First by Tom Plate and the other by Ted Nugent. Plate’s commentary, to me, is more based upon emotion as opposed to Nugent which is more logical. Logic should win 99% of the time. Unfortunately, in this case I believe that 1% will and we’ll have more stupid stuff like this. All based upon emotion. Nothing on statistics or logics. Just like this. Thankfully, the people spoke and it never became a law. Then again how many people fell for the ban on dihydrogen monoxide?
Comments (1)
The VT incident is a very sad one indeed. Not all of the motivations involved in broadcasting this story seem worthy of public consumption. In my mind, the alleged shooter does not deserve all the attention he is receiving for killing others before himself as those acts represent something he was not supposed to do when so many have done what they were supposed to be doing yet will only receive a fraction of the attention for example showing up on time to class or turning in one’s homework assignment. The shooter killed himself yet receives more airtime than our leaders because his photographs were in transit because he wrote the incorrect zip code. If anything, this kid’s mail should land on the cutting room floor or be marked return to sender because he stopped existing if not for using the incorrect zip code. There is something irrationally perverse about our society if our attention systems reflexively bestow more fame and airtime to those who set the counterexample rather than the example. The lesson I draw from this is that our airwaves appear easy to hijack by so few making such horrible choices. One could look no further than the cutting room floor to find material of socially redeeming value such as a father and son exercising together or honoring the those who used their first aid training to administer first aid to the wounded and saved lives. Which reminds me that my first aid training might not be up to date… What we air and what we cut says a lot about our TV producers.