163 lines
8.7 KiB
Plaintext
163 lines
8.7 KiB
Plaintext
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= F.U.C.K. - Fucked Up College Kids - Born Jan. 24th, 1993 - F.U.C.K. =
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"Can Apathy Die? (or "Earning your BS in BS")
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----------------------------------------------
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*************
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*************
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Above is my attempt at a text-based moment of silence for the stupid,
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needless, and tragic loss of Princess Diana. When I first heard the news
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about this, I was struck with disbelief and grief. As the reports
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continued, this was replaced by sadness and sympathy. Now, after almost a
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week of media throughput, I'm to the point of barely caring if she's been
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buried or not.
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Before folks start flaming be back to snail-mail, I want to preface this by
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saying that my first reactions are still the most honest and sincere. I
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still view this as a tragic loss. Nonetheless, I've had my sympathies
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systematically replaced with apathy by the relentless coverage.
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If it helps, think about it this way for a moment: If a bird flies into
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the glass of your bedroom window, you would likely go "Oh, that's so sad!"
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The next time it happened, you may still feel bad for the poor creature.
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Now what if 10 birds a day started smacking into every window of your house
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for two weeks straight? Wouldn't your original sympathies be replaced by
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"Stupid @(*$^# birds...."
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A perfect example is when I moved to Colorado. When I got here, it was
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unfortunately at the same time as two locally beloved polar bears - both
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raised
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from cubs here at the local zoo - were being shipped away. For the entire
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first
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MONTH I was here, this was the extent of the news on EVERY single channel.
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By the time they left, I thought the evening news would go off the air for
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lack of stories to report on.
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Here's how it got even worse: A few months later, two more cubs were born
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at the local zoo. A few days or so later, one of them happened to die.
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Not only did it die, but the mother actually ate the young afterwards. Not
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only did she eat it, they actually had footage of this. I was still so
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jaded from the previous set of bears, the only emotion I could find within
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me about
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this was a twinge of sadness they didn't show that footage more often....
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THAT'S what's happened to my emotional threshold thanks to the media.
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Does anyone find this happening faster than ever before? I mean, it's not
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like there are MORE sad and tragic things happening in the world today. I
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have come to worry that my own personal jadedness and cynicism is being
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tempered all the further by the increase in media coverage. If you're even
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remotely as cynical about things as I am, you know the fact it's worsening
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is FAR from healthy.
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In the past 2-3 years, how many of these events can we count with little
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need for recall? OJ, Jon Benet, OK City, Anthony Kunanan, et al; and
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that's without any real effort. Think back not so far - perhaps only ten
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years ago. Now how many can you think of? The Pan-Am crash in Scotland,
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the Gulf War, the Challenger disaster....I'm running dry already. Even if
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these events carried the same degree of emotional impact and media coverage,
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it says something else sad and pathetic altogether that they have faded so
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fast from memory.
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I don't want to get off on an already well-beaten tangent about the abuse
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and almost surreal proliferation of the media. Exempting some of my
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existing criticisms about the media, I'm still reasonably happy with
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network news and CNN. What I find unfathomable is the amount of the tabloid
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media shows, such as "A Current Affair" and "Hard Copy", that report on
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nothing other than the "sensational" stories.
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The reason I don't want to get off on a tangent about this is because we
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are all readily aware of this fact. Most of us even complain about how bad
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it's gotten.
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"Why don't they let it go?"
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"Can't they give it up? I'm SO sick of hearing about this!"
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While this doesn't apply to all, I'd like to answer this question for the
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majority of the armchair media critics out there. You know why there is SO
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much coverage for SO long? Because, stupid, YOU STILL WATCH IT!
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I can safely say that this applies to most people because of a little
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something called the Neilson ratings. Yes, that's right, we actually have
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a running tally of you @$#&! MORONS that keep watching this crap you
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complain so much about. Why am I sure there are so many? Because if there
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weren't so many, they wouldn't show it!
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I only took a few classes in media, but it's real simple folks: TV is
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based on ratings. Why did shows like "Cop Rock" and "The George Carlin
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Show" get dropped so fast. NO RATINGS. No one watched them. So, if none
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of you - or even few less of you - weren't watching all the endless coverage,
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it wouldn't be on.
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I finally came to a conclusion why this is. Some people, either through
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education or study, are considered experts about planes, birds, antique
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tables, and even ancient Mongolian side-dishes. These are the people who
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can hold attention at a party with their intricate knowledge; the ones who
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testify at trials with key pieces of information to offer; the ones who
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educate us with documentaries on A&E or Discovery; and those that are the
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only "qualified" individuals to write volumes on their particular area of
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knowledge.
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What about your average couch-monkey? What about that poor sap that felt
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more in touch with Archie Bunker than his own dad? What about that
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lifeless, media-entranced moron that actually dog-ears pages of the TV
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Guide lest they forget particularly significant episodes on Fox? What do
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they have to offer to conversation, let alone to the social collective?
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Well, they can be ed-u-cated about OJ.
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Yup. This is the only thing I can think of. The only reason you can get
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away with a trial like that being on tv everyday, recapped on the news
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every night, and still have the cumulative ratings to stay on the air.
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There are enough of you
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shmucks out there that need to know EVERYTHING about some murder, some
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trail, or some tragedy, that you will catch every snippet of info or detail
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fed to you. This has to be it, or the @!&%# books ABOUT everything on tv
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wouldn't do so well. I'm sure if they had a trail about the trial, we'd
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have a'plenty of expert testimony.
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When was the last time you met an educated, successful person who talked at
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length about what the gardener for the Ramsey's had to say on "Dateline"?
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Face it: If you have even half of the information about a sensational
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story from the past two years, I'll bet dime-to-dollar you have nothing
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else but a head full of "Jeopardy" trivia as an educational background.
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For those that turn off their tv when these stories are on, bravo. Even if
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you're just watching part two of the "Brady Bunch" when they're in the
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Grand Canyon, kudos for at least not supporting sensational media. For
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those that still actually honestly grieve at the tragedies in the world,
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my infinite respect for you - and somewhere within me, I grieve with you.
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As for the rest of you, I'm short on witticisms and analogies, and lord
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knows they'd be wasted on you anyway. Instead, I'll try to put in a
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context you can understand: If you chimps actually were monkeys, you'd
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still only have enough of a brain to throw your own feces at yourselves....
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- capone
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= Questions, Comments, Bitches, Ideas, Rants, Death Threats, Submissions =
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= Mail: jericho@dimensional.com (Mail is welcomed) =
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= issues, send a list of any missing issues and they will be mailed. =
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= (c) Copyright. All files copyright by the original author. =
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