MORNING. KILLER VIRUS WITH YOUR CEREAL?
“Killer Fungus seen in Pacific Northwest.” “SEC staff eyed porn, not U.S economy (well that explains a lot of things);” “Ash cloud closes 2 Iceland airports.” “Deadly blast in Thailand.”
These are the headlines I woke up to this morning on CNN. Nothing too far from the unusual, any other day the blast would just be in another location, and the killer fungus would be replaced with a virus of some sort destined to annihilate the entire human race. Hurry, hurry people vaccinate yourselves!!!
In today’s world by simply reading the morning news, if I were a candidate for Prozac I’d be licking the inside of the bottle by lunch. The fear perpetuated by the media has always amazed me – in that skin crawling, mildly disgusted kind of way. It’s almost impressive in its skill and manipulation. 'We will do our best to find every story to show you how unbalanced, violent, negative, and morally bankrupt this world is. And by the way, good morning to you! How about a nice pedophilia reportage with your morning cereal? Another grizzly triple murder as you inhale your fried eggs, wait, we have a political sex scandal that just needs reporting, put down your fork!'
Fine, there is an argument there that they are simply reporting the biggest stories of the day. Let's be honest here, they are not the biggest, they are the most sensational. And as we all know living in a capitalist society, sensationalism is what sells papers and keeps the reader coming back. Perhaps we gravitate towards the sensational cause it makes us feel more normal – “damn, aunt Peggy’s affair with the gym teacher seems like nothing now!” Hell, I'll trade feeling normal for a week without thinking civilization is in rapid decline (it is, I saw it in the news last week).
Personally, I think the news is disheartening and depressing. I find it hard enough to feel positive and have faith in my fellow human beings, and more importantly, I can survive the day without knowing that SEC officials viewed porn on their office computers. Um, duh! Men look at porn. I could've told you that (the statistic is something staggering like 98%, so women, hate to break it to you but we’re not winning this one). And the fact they’re doing it at the office, well that’s a no brainer as well. They’re not at home, they’re stressed, they’re bored of doing any work. I’m sure “Bigheiffertits.com” seemed like a good option at the time. In my mind did it cause the financial crisis? God I wish it were that simple.
I realize at this point it’s near to impossible to fight the behemoth that is the media. But saying that, how about a revolution by the people (take to your keyboards!) to suggest one positive story in the midst of the detritus? An earth shattering medical breakthrough, a teacher that reaches a problem student, a human act of kindness, a miracle in nature - I don’t care what it is. Hell I’ll settle for the headline, “Starbucks now serves rice milk!” Cause that my friends would be a positive. And in today’s world of fungus and sex abuse scandals, who couldn’t use a little good news.