Elem. School shooting in Conn.

[jack c]

I grew up in Fairfield County, Connecticut, where Newtown is. I played several basketball games at Newtown High School (lived in Easton, CT - a couple of towns over) in the early 1970's. It was and is a nice community. I recognize some of the new shots - it is kind of eerie. i always wish that these murder/suicide guys would just reverse the order - sucicide first - it would save a great deal of pain and it makes such logical sense. Not making light of of it - I lived two towns over for my entire childhood - a sad experience this week.

[Lomax]

Morgan Freeman's brilliant take on what happened yesterday :

"You want to know why.....

Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell..."

Very true. But to follow the argument one stage further - things don't sell when we (and we are ALL guilty) don't buy. It's all very well heaping the blame on the media and wringing our hands in despair: but the media are simply tapping into public taste. If people didn't devour the lurid details in their millions, the media woould not dwell on them.

And this is not new. Dick Turpin and Jack the Ripper are folk heroes in this country. Skipping round the continents, so are Ned Kelly, Jesse James and John Dillinger. It's part of human nature. A dark part, to be sure, but one that is undeniable. It explains why Romans flocked to to Colosseum, why public executions used to draw huge crowds (and still would, if tickets went on sale) etc etc.

The only thing that has really changed is the technology. A hundred years ago, events in Connecticut wouldn't have reached my newspaper for a week. Now, they make the lead article on my TV news within a couple of hours.

At the end of the day, people are the problem. The only fool-proof solution is rather drastic.

[bbjohn]

Morgan Freeman's brilliant take on what happened yesterday :

"You want to know why.....

Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell..."

Very true. But to follow the argument one stage further - things don't sell when we (and we are ALL guilty) don't buy. It's all very well heaping the blame on the media and wringing our hands in despair: but the media are simply tapping into public taste. If people didn't devour the lurid details in their millions, the media woould not dwell on them.

And this is not new. Dick Turpin and Jack the Ripper are folk heroes in this country. Skipping round the continents, so are Ned Kelly, Jesse James and John Dillinger. It's part of human nature. A dark part, to be sure, but one that is undeniable. It explains why Romans flocked to to Colosseum, why public executions used to draw huge crowds (and still would, if tickets went on sale) etc etc.

The only thing that has really changed is the technology. A hundred years ago, events in Connecticut wouldn't have reached my newspaper for a week. Now, they make the lead article on my TV news within a couple of hours.

At the end of the day, people are the problem. The only fool-proof solution is rather drastic.

Well put, Lomax. Blaming the media is blaming the messenger. If human beings want to see the real problem, look no further than the mirror.

Big Bad John

[Mynock]

The problem is the messanger doesn't just convey messages anymore. The modern day messanger is a fear monger that deliberatly sensationalizes the worst parts of each days message while glossing over or completly ignoring anything good.

Oh Noes!!! One plane out of the 10,000 commercial flights that take off and land every day crashed!!! That means that all airplanes are defective and could fall out of the sky at any time!!! we know because this guy that wrote a book came on our TV show and said so!!! One out of 10,000 airplanes crashing means that IF YOU GO ANYWHERE NEAR AN AIRPLANE YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!!!!!!

OMG, there's radiation being found in fish after that nuclear accident!!!! Radiation!!!! RADIATION DO YOU HEAR ME!!!! Never mind that it's at such low levels it took a 50 million dollar mass spectrometer to find it, and never mind that it could never pose a threat to a human being, IT'S RADIATION AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!

Swine Flue.....Bath Salts.....Mad Cow disease......kids getting killed by falling Tv's.....this gives you cancer......that gives you cancer.....oh shit son you better BELIEVE if you eat that you're getting cancer.....tell me magic panel on the wall, what should I be afraid of today?

[Regisblb]

.

[TK421]

The problem is the messanger doesn't just convey messages anymore. The modern day messanger is a fear monger that deliberatly sensationalizes the worst parts of each days message while glossing over or completly ignoring anything good.

Oh Noes!!! One plane out of the 10,000 commercial flights that take off and land every day crashed!!! That means that all airplanes are defective and could fall out of the sky at any time!!! we know because this guy that wrote a book came on our TV show and said so!!! One out of 10,000 airplanes crashing means that IF YOU GO ANYWHERE NEAR AN AIRPLANE YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!!!!!!

OMG, there's radiation being found in fish after that nuclear accident!!!! Radiation!!!! RADIATION DO YOU HEAR ME!!!! Never mind that it's at such low levels it took a 50 million dollar mass spectrometer to find it, and never mind that it could never pose a threat to a human being, IT'S RADIATION AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!

Swine Flue.....Bath Salts.....Mad Cow disease......kids getting killed by falling Tv's.....this gives you cancer......that gives you cancer.....oh shit son you better BELIEVE if you eat that you're getting cancer.....tell me magic panel on the wall, what should I be afraid of today?

This makes me chuckle because, Despite Home Theater and TV installations being my job and all, people will always ask me how much tv do I watch and they get shocked when I tell them "None". I watch movies, the occasional Family Guy or Robot chicken and HGTV when I have the time and that's it. If it's news worth my interest, I will catch it on Facebook, I am sure.

Here is where I get a lil negative on my views of the media.....Fact is the media is the auctioneer of social paranoia. They DON'T care about you or those children for that matter. If their report trips another wackjob into doing something as well, better for them...they still have jobs. After all, Blood and sex sells. I find it funny that every industry I have seen to date all have a certain "code of ethics" on how they operate with exception of one...The media. News casters can interview traumatized children, mourning parents and the weeping police officers as they exit a slaughterhouse that was once a school. They can enter our court systems and turn a simple black and white trial of a homicide and turn it into a spectator sport. They can go ahead a take a no named psychopath and turn him into pop culture and to touch bases on Duncan's discovery, we buy every ounce of it by watching and repeating what we see and hear. There lies the viscous cycle and I sure as hell do not see the reporters stopping anytime soon, so where and when does it end?

I remember talking to a close friend of mine a few weeks ago on the subject of the roots of indifference in our society and the whole end of the world theories floating around and I had 3 things to say.

Indifference is taught.
If the world ends, you can be almost certain we pull the trigger...
And at the end of that day, there will be Channel 10 news...selling it to the world.

end rant

[Lomax]

The problem is the messanger doesn't just convey messages anymore. The modern day messanger is a fear monger that deliberatly sensationalizes the worst parts of each days message while glossing over or completly ignoring anything good.

Oh Noes!!! One plane out of the 10,000 commercial flights that take off and land every day crashed!!! That means that all airplanes are defective and could fall out of the sky at any time!!! we know because this guy that wrote a book came on our TV show and said so!!! One out of 10,000 airplanes crashing means that IF YOU GO ANYWHERE NEAR AN AIRPLANE YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!!!!!!

OMG, there's radiation being found in fish after that nuclear accident!!!! Radiation!!!! RADIATION DO YOU HEAR ME!!!! Never mind that it's at such low levels it took a 50 million dollar mass spectrometer to find it, and never mind that it could never pose a threat to a human being, IT'S RADIATION AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!

Swine Flue.....Bath Salts.....Mad Cow disease......kids getting killed by falling Tv's.....this gives you cancer......that gives you cancer.....oh shit son you better BELIEVE if you eat that you're getting cancer.....tell me magic panel on the wall, what should I be afraid of today?

Perfectly true - but again, the media gives us what we want. We may profess to be appalled, but we still tune in the next day, and buy the next edition of the paper.

[dlodoski]

The problem is the messanger doesn't just convey messages anymore. The modern day messanger is a fear monger that deliberatly sensationalizes the worst parts of each days message while glossing over or completly ignoring anything good....

Perfectly true - but again, the media gives us what we want. We may profess to be appalled, but we still tune in the next day, and buy the next edition of the paper.

Not always.

For the sake of productivity, I have 'tuned out' from mass media more and more diligently. The tipping point for me was last February, when I obsessed over the spectacle of Rick Santorum becoming a serious contender for the Republican nomination. After wasting dozens of hours reading (literally) thousands of news story comments, I realized that I needed to change my behavior.

Action taken - I deleted all bookmarks to online news outlets from all of my systems. I'm a happier person for it.

[Mynock]

There was some hippie guy back in the 60's that said something like "Turn off and tune out". Dude was way ahead of his time.

[Fred588]

There was some hippie guy back in the 60's that said something like "Turn off and tune out". Dude was way ahead of his time.

I believe the quotation is "Turn on and tune out," bubt that might not be quite right either. The "hippy guy" was Timothy Leary. He was actually a professor, I think at Harvard, who started out doing research on LSD in an attempt to use it to study certain mental illnesses. He ended up hooked on the stuff and ruined his career.