[78-L] Yawn

[Taylor Bowie]

We are in receipt of more cheery pronouncements from the Sage of the 
Northlands.   Generally I think life is pretty good,  but some people seem 
determined to convince everyone else that life is actually terrible.  What a 
waste of energy,  especially when the same rant is stated and restated for 
the umpteenth time.

I recall from my seventh grade Social Studies class that there is a lot of 
natural gas in Canada.  Now I know where it comes from.

Taylor


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven C. Barr" <stevenc at interlinks.net>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Sunday, June 28, 2009 7:41 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Michael Jackson. A Balanced View.


> (see END...WAY down there!)
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Donna Halper" <dlh at donnahalper.com>
>> And that has long been a pet peeve of mine.  Not about Michael per
>> se, but about what has been called (accurately) by other posters to
>> this thread our celebrity dominated culture.  McLuhan was right about
>> TV contributing to shorter attention spans.  I mean, Farrah Fawcett
>> (another celebrity) dies in the morning and all the major TV outlets
>> stop to mention and mourn her passing.  But by dinnertime, she's
>> yesterday's news and everything is all-Michael all the time.  Okay
>> fine, his story is perfect for the tabloid nature of cable-- it has
>> mystery, scandal, and a protagonist who (like him or hate him) was a
>> bit eccentric.  But what I found odd was how NEWS people and
>> POLITICAL commentators were forced into overdrive to suddenly treat
>> this like the most important thing that ever happened.  I mean Keith
>> Olbermann and David Shuster doing 4 hours each (!) of live Michael
>> Jackson coverage?  Anderson Cooper pausing to remember how he saw
>> Michael at Studio 54.  OMG OMG OMG.  Reporters (and fans) talking
>> about Michael as if he had been some kind of saint who walked among
>> us.  Even if his life had no scandals at all, he was in fact NOT the
>> saviour of mankind and NOT a major factor in world events.  Yes, he
>> made a lot of people happy and he sold a lot of records and he
>> absolutely did a lot of charity work.  But 24 hour coverage of his
>> passing and its effect on people?  Oh please.  I was not a fan of
>> Ronald Reagan, but I understood the need to do thorough coverage when
>> he died.  I'm not a Catholic, but when the Pope died, I totally
>> understood why this was an event worthy of lots of attention.  But
>> Michael Jackson?  Not so much.
>>
>> And somewhere in South Carolina, Governor Mark Sanford was feeling
>> very lucky, since his own scandal got pushed off the front burner,
>> and whether the media should have given that so much coverage is an
>> open question as well.  (Disclaimer-- I never liked the guy, never
>> thought he was a good governor, and when my friends on the right talk
>> about how Republicans are the party of Family Values, my eyes glaze
>> over.  BUT, once the scandal had unfolded, I kind of felt it was time
>> to move on to whatever the next thing was.  My sympathies are with
>> the governor's wife and kids, none of whom, I am sure, ever wanted
>> their personal problems made fodder to cable news...)
>>
>> But what really annoys me is that many of these cable channel and
>> newspapers have cut back their international coverage and closed
>> their international bureaus to save money.  Cover Iran?  Can't do
>> it-- paranoid regime, and the few reporters still there got tossed
>> out. Cover Africa?  No thanks.  Viewers don't care, or so we are
>> told.  Cover Latin America?  Yeah, if Hugo Chavez says something
>> crazy, we'll be there.  And if drug lords in Columbia are caught,
>> we'll parachute some journalists in to report, and then parachute
>> them back out again.
>>
>> And the most frustrating thing of all-- Michael Jackson coverage got
>> Fox (!), CNN and even MSNBC some of the biggest ratings the three
>> have had since the presidential election.  People say they are
>> shocked and disgusted by all that tabloid coverage, but boy howdy, do
>> they all watch it!!!
>>
> I was VERY fortunate (IMO) to have grown up WITHOUT television
> (well, I did go to a downstairs neighbour's place to watch Howdy Doody
> afternoons?!). I was twelve before my family FINALLY bought a new
> Zenith 21" table model TV...and its programs NEVER fascinated me
> to the point of "forget EVERYTHING! Such&Such is on!!" This in turn
> has let me, over the years, take a "disinterested, uninvolved outsider"
> view of television and its effect on western society!!
>
> My conclusion?! Television has, since its early-fifties introduction, been
> completely and totally responsible for the serious...nay, critical...
> decline in human society we have seen over those decades!!
>
> I grew up in small-town Illinois. What entertainment we enjoyed was
> created by ourselves...pot-luck dinners, high-school plays and the
> (square) dances, played by a live combo from the next village! All
> of these gathered virtually ALL the citizens (usually at the local
> high-school gym!).
>
> Then, in late 1953, Waynesville could receive TV!!! By 1955,
> the local "events" had faded out...no one showed up, since they
> were all seated in front of their TV set! Further, the local children
> did NOT learn morals and mores from their parents as they had
> in previous generations...instead, they learned them from television
> programs created with the aim of attracting as large an audience
> as possible! The message given us by our TV sets was succinct
> and simple..."GET MORE MONEY!!" This was 180 degrees
> out of phase with what had held our little farming-based
> community together...in fact, the FIRST step in "get more money"
> was MOVE TO THE BIG CITY!
>
> So...we now have a greed-driven chaos instead of a society! We
> claimed to be surprised when bank executives issued themselves
> 7-figure "bonuses" out of their "bail-out" money...?! Well, TV
> explains that quite well...?!
>
> And one can now buy HDTV sets with screens only slightly
> smaller than Ohio...and see XXI-Jahrhundert idiocy very nearly
> LIFE-SIZE!
>
> Fortunately, my predicted life span tells me I shall only have to
> endure this b***roar for about two decades (unless society
> TOTALLY collapses...quite possible...or the Muslim forces
> elect to nuke Oshawa [gawdknowswhy?!])
>
> Thus spaketh Steven C...?!
>
> ...stevenc
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