Things of the day(2)
by Joan Marques
From a save and objective distance, if you would manage to block out all emotional involvement, the daily occurrences in our world can really crack you up. But when confronted with them more closely, it's not that much fun. Everything that you get dished up from the news media these days is negative. Of course! News folks have realized a long time ago that we, the consumers, yearn for all that's negative. Negative sells. Positive doesn't. If they would start telling us that a gentle citizen helped a nice old lady to cross the street today, we would all tune away, in search for another bloody story.
And so, apparently to give the customer what he/she wants, they present us one grim fact after another. This is more or less what a daily news presentation looks like:
In downtown Los Angeles there has been a collision between 3 busses. Result: 25 wounded. Not heavily, but sad enough to be presented to the public all night. For starters, one could wonder how those 3 busses managed to collide in busy downtown at rush hour. And the complication is, that every eyewitness has another story to tell with regards to who had the right of the road and who should have waited.
Next: the recent forest fires: it's summer, remember? And it's dry. The reports tell us that in one state an all-destroying fire is under control for merely 20%, but at another location another inferno has been successfully handled for 40%, while firefighters are trying with all their might to further calm the nature-eruption. Left and right people are being interviewed while preparing for evacuation.
Subsequently, world news: another suicide bomber shakes up the east. Another dozen of people killed in a market place, bus, or movie theatre: one long series of depressing tidings.
In between, a brief notification: people are advised not to fly in small airplanes these days, as they can be used by terrorists as bombs. Makes you wonder if no one realizes that the airplanes used on September 11 were real jets, carrying hundreds of passengers? Makes you wonder also if this should just indicate that the corporations running the smaller airplane services should now just close their doors and say farewell to the light of day? Fortunately, there are seasoned flyers who make their own safety choices, and reason that they prefer flying in the smaller aircrafts, because at least they can measure their co-passengers, and keep an eye on the ones they don't trust too well. That would be practically impossible in a jumbo jet.
The last frowner of the evening: Southwest airlines want to demand the somewhat "broader" American travelers to purchase two tickets, since they need more space. Naturally, this causes a stream of protests, as it would mean that many, many Americans will have to pay the double fare. And the worst part of this matter is, that someone alerted me, not too long ago, on the fact that the U.S. is the only country where people gain weight as their financial situation deteriorates. Explanation: junk food is cheap, yet fattening. And the ultimate conclusion of this drastic idea of Southwest airlines would, hence, mean, that the poor would get poorer.... Well, what's new under the sun...?
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