| Overkill |
| Wednesday, 20 May 2009 19:49 | |||
 It must have something to do with the way news is delivered to us these days, and how the entire delivery mechanism has been evolving.
Not too long ago, the news, be it good or bad, was provided to us in a more formal, lay-it-all-out way than it is today. We were provided different opinions, approaches and suggestions – and we made our own, hopefully rational decisions based on what we were given. Today, we are told that as a group we no longer have any patience, and want things given to us in small, quick doses, delivered rapidly by the hard right and left, and that we will apparently accept being administered those doses over and over. From politics to food to commercials, it’s happening to us daily. Some of it reminds me of an old George Carlin routine where he recites ‘headlines and sub-heads’ from newspapers. One of those was “Saliva Causes Cancer! -- But Only When Swallowed in Small Amounts Over a Long Period of Time.” Resting on this format’s most ridiculous level are the commercials – those we see and hear most all the time now, many touting prescription medications that will cure every ill we’ve manufactured for ourselves over the past 20 years, from restless leg syndrome to erectile dysfunction. First we get the pitch – and then, many times in rapid fire order, we are told (providing we can follow the fast track commentary) that we might begin growing hair on our palms or start bleeding from every orifice if we take the stuff. So why bother? The scary thing of hearing over and over again the news about tainted peanut butter, salmonella outbreaks and the spread of Swine Flu is that its repeated delivery eventually inures us what is truly serious – to the point that some time in the future, when confronted with something truly serious, we might blow it off – like the townspeople in the “Boy Who Cried Wolf.” Did we, as consumers, make this happen, or is it all based on decisions made behind boardroom doors a few years back? Has our internal wiring really changed? Are we no longer able to sit down and read, listen to or watch news about a subject definitively delivered, and take our own, hopefully sound, judgments from it? I realize the world has become a ‘faster’ place lately, and that attention spans are indeed getting shorter, but somewhere there has to be an island of sanity where we can go, find and sort out all this material, delivered in a steady, real-time, unencumbered-by-hype format, so we can make sound decisions based on what we’re given. Our new president seems to approach what he’s being provided in a practical, well-though out way, brushing aside side attachments that would disturb his focus; given time, maybe we can learn from his mindset. Whatever we do, and considering the state of the world today, the entire process must gear down into a slower, more deliberate mode, if we are to make sense of everything, so we can act based on facts, not hype or deception, real or imagined.
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