Well, that was an interesting ending day.

[silveradept]

My co-worker called in sick. I got up at 9 or so to find an e-mail in the box asking if I could come into work, and that there was a 10:00 delivery scheduled. Well, I busted ass and got there about 10. The delivery had already been made, but I stuck around until 5 doing my usual job and contributing a bit more to my fiction-writing. It's coming along. Although I'll want the proofers to put it through the wringer and see what comes out.

And there's another intrusion into civil liberties. Way to f**king go, America. What's next - terrorism checks at school? Or perhaps the corner store? I'm going to have to wonder whether I can get out when I get my degree if this continues. It's a long route to the next election, and there's no telling what the Court will do in the meantime.

On a slightly more positive note... or something like it. Let's say there's a good thing and a bad thing about this. To disentangle the two, read J. Brad Hicks's take on the newest Dove campaign. Good stuff and bad. My question, though, is if this is a campaign designed to break females of the idea that waifishness is the standard for beauty, what do you do to the males who are supposedly also being programmed to think waifs are acceptable and all others are fat? How do you break us Cross-Eyed, Knuckle-Scraping Morons of our delusions? (I hope I don't have too many of those - I never found Callista Flockhart to be that attractive...)

I haven't seen Chocolate Factory yet - actually, I haven't seen Batman Begins, either. But there's an interesting column about the differences between kids and adults viewing Roald Dahl - the kids love 'em, the adults hate 'em. Maybe I'm still childlike, but I still like those books tremendously.

Seeing Tenny again is good, too. I miss his frantic energy. Hopefully, he doesn't turn out poorly. And hopefully his teachers don't encourage him to draw angry pictures against another country. Are American children being taught to hate Muslims and Arab Peninsula countries like this? I wonder whether the country's going to pot these days. But the problem is, I can only base it on what I hear around the country. Thus, what gets left behind are all the good things that happen daily, in favor of the "doom and gloom" that sells so well. So, could someone tell me, for every headline I see about terrorists making bombs, is there someone who saves another person's life unquestioningly, even putting themselves at risk? For every homicide, is there a birth? For every robbery, a generous outpouring to a stranger?

For every hypocrite praying in the streets, asking God to get rid of liberals, gays, Muslims, and everyone else is there a genuinely devoted person who prays in secret and then lives their life according to the teachings of Christ?

Comments

[kaura-nighthawk.livejournal.com]

Roald Dahl's awesome! o_O; How can people not like those books?!

[uncle-pervy.livejournal.com]

The same type of people that think Harry Potter is advocating witchcraft.

[silveradept]

Ding-ding, sir. A winner Is You.

Beyond that, the article also suggests that Dahl's relentless treatment of adults getting their comeuppance for wickedness may sit poorly with those adults reading. Perhaps some sort of understood metaphor or something like that.

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

So, could someone tell me, for every headline I see about terrorists making bombs, is there someone who saves another person's life unquestioningly, even putting themselves at risk? For every homicide, is there a birth? For every robbery, a generous outpouring to a stranger? For every hypocrite praying in the streets, asking God to get rid of liberals, gays, Muslims, and everyone else is there a genuinely devoted person who prays in secret and then lives their life according to the teachings of Christ?

It's more like one to onehundred really. That is if the ratio is that small, might be a thousand. However "Man pets dog, dog loves man." and "Christians around the globe pray humbly." for some reason doesn't make it into the news papers. The reason is acutally very simple, even though it might not be obvious.

You expect that behavior, it happens every day and thus is not news. People have absolutly no interest in "Everything went fine today, no troubles."

How many times you gona buy that news paper? However "Man slaugtes family, marries ex-Miss America just before excecution, declairs love of twinkies, details inside!" is god damn interesting.

One must look beyind the news papers and remember the old maxim "If it bleeds it leads" because that is where media distortion begins.

[silveradept]

Well, if it's supposed to be "we expect this behavior", then do we have some sort of scapegoat/displacement mentality that says, "All that stuff in the news happens Elsewhere. We're Morally Upstanding Citizens."

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Wasn't it you who posted the monkey sphere link?

If not, here is it.
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/monkeysphere.html
In a nut shell, we only believe people near us are real people, the closer they are the more real and vice versa

[silveradept]

I can believe that - I do it myself. The Monkeysphere, though, would suggest that we just don't care about the people out there. (Which we don't, because trying to visualize them is tough.) I'm talking about a bit more active scapegoating than that.

(And no, I didn't give you that link)

[greyweirdo.livejournal.com]

Well scapegoating is just a them thing isn't it? If there is an us, there must be a them. Since it can't be our fault it must be their fault, DAMN THEM!

I think it fits because people rarely try to shove the blame off onto people inside their own monkeysphere.

[silveradept]

I suppose. But wouldn't the monkeysphere contain people's nemeses, like bosses, co-workers, mohers-in-law, and the like? People are willing to blame it on them, and they would fit inside someone's monkeysphere...