Skip to main content

Troubling times

Gun violence in American schools has reached epidemic proportions.  The gun lobby and the anti-gun are finding it out from capitol hill to local counties.  Amidst all this the media as usual is having a frenzy with meaningless and thoughtless commentary on a regular basis.

Their favorite BS terms include or selectively exclude -


  • Active shooter on campus - What the bleep is an 'active' shooter?  As opposed to what? Comatose?  Jaywalking?  Also what is a 'shooter'?  Is he or she wearing a sign?  Or is it a label assigned to a person with a gun?  Is campus security wearing a firearm considered an active shooter?  I am sure he is or can be. 
  • Terrorism - this term got used a lot during the heyday of the war on terror.  Which was itself confounding.  Now that the offending parties seem to be from all religious background and ethnic origin the pundits and politicians cannot decide what to call it?   Fire arsonist were never labeled terrorist as an example of the media hypocrisy but just fire arsonists.
  • Shots reported fired - what is this redundant use of 'reported'?  Shots fired in so and so school is enough.  The fact that you have this bulletin next to Viagra and Mattress Discounts tell me you are trying to Report it while making good revenue.   Or would you worry I might skip over it if I did not see the use of the word 'reported'?
The rush to get the front page with sensational phrases has completely decimated the quality of news reporting and broadcasting.  That to me is equally if not more troubling sign of the times.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...
2 comments
Read more

You are important to us

Followed by piano music.   Followed by 'we are experiencing heavier than usual call volume'.  Sounds macabre like bleeding during menstruation or after a ghastly attack with a weapon on a hemophiliac.  Sorry Mrs. Johnson but it appears little Gertrude here has been bleeding heavier than usual what with her night time activities competing with the woodchucks in your neighborhood. Some services even go as far as to pick a random day to say - 'if you were to call us during the Chinese lunar month when the moon is axiomatically hugging the polar star with Jupiter intravenous when call volume is light'.  Well I will be damned.  I thought  I had checked with my astrologer before I placed this well focused call but  I guess this is what you get for listening to a quack. Umph! I am not sure which marketing genius came up with this personal touch concept of informing the caller that you are really a jackass for actually calling the customer serv...
Post a Comment
Read more

Of Jims and Johns

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...
2 comments
Read more