 |
| Rob's Soapbox | ||
|
May 25th, 2009 NOT NEWS By definition, news is “A report of recent events,” and/or “previously unknown information.” http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/news Sadly, News reporting in America today is now made up almost entirely of ideological spin and hysteria. The alleged outbreak of Hog Flu, for example, was recent and unknown, but also non-existent. Not in recent memory has such a manufactured news story garnered so much credibility. Hog Flu was just the flu, and not even as bad. Bird flu never had a chance of coming to America and Mad Cow disease never has. Y2K never occurred, and probably never could have and the outbreak of SARS was a total fallacy. Global warming? Why has the Earth been cooling for the past decade? The answer, of course, is that the “news” of global warming was reported as fact, despite a total lack of scientific proof and understanding. The Earth warmed, no one knows why, and has now cooled, those are the only facts we can prove. Not much of a story, is it? http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10783 The war on peanuts has raged for two decades as the media happily reports the seriousness of peanut allergies, and ignores the common sense historical precedent of how all allergies are treated; by slowly and carefully exposing the person to what they’re allergic to, thus curing them of their symptoms. Of course, how interesting would it be to report the following: “It appears that some Americans have developed an allergy to peanuts. Patients are advised to receive treatment.” Well, that’s boring as hell. It’s much better to say “some Americans are so allergic to peanuts they can die from the smell, so we’d better start fighting over whether or not people can eat peanuts on planes and in cafeterias!”http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=7089089&page=1 And now comes the latest; A new poll done by the Associated Press has revealed…brace yourself…that college students are stressed about grades and finances. Insert hysterically dramatic music here. Not news: College kids are stressed College kids, are, by definition, stressed, scared, unprepared, overwhelmed, and burnt out. It’s part of the process. Some college kids even take it so far as to melodramatically play up how stressful their lives are. Perish the thought that someone still not schooled in the ways of the world might actually attempt to rely on the good nature of gullible and naïve compassionates amongst us. Eighty-five percent of the students reported feeling stress in their daily lives in recent months, with worries about grades, school work, money and relationships the big culprits, reports the new poll. Nothing about that is in any way noteworthy or new. At the same time, 42 percent said they had felt down, depressed or hopeless several days during the past two weeks, the report goes on the say. Never does the report explore the epidemic of consumption of alcohol on college campuses and its effects on the psyche. Perhaps the next “news” story might report that alcohol is, in fact, a depressant. Gee, I wonder if there’s a connection between imbibing and “feeling hopeless” when they begin to sober up and realize they still have a report to be written. These students complained of trouble sleeping, having little energy or feeling down or hopeless — and most hadn't gotten professional help. That’s because they don’t need professional help, they need sleep and a job. Such is life in college. These are the days that try men’s souls. It’s always been this way. According to the mental health institute, the first step to getting appropriate treatment is to visit a doctor. Excellent advice. The doctor, in turn, will prescribe the college students, already incapable of dealing with life’s challenges, a cocktail of sleeping pills and anti-depressants, designed to numb them into a fog that allows them to float through life, rather than confronting it dead on. Not only is none of this news, it is yet another manufactured story that could only gain any sort of credibility in America. Here we have young adults who have essentially led relatively pampered existences in the prime of their lives, receiving the greatest education in the world, stressing over it to the point of near depression. I wonder how the 20 year olds in Africa feel about that? Do you think a 19 year old Afghanistan girl, whose face was burned off attempting to get an education, has much sympathy for a stressed out American girl who lives in an apartment across from college, gets drunk 5 nights per week and isn’t sure if she’ll find a job immediately after graduating? Please don’t pacify yourself with the argument of relativity. Claiming that plights such as famine and acid attacks are unfair comparisons to an American teen negates your point; if all things are relative, then we must demand that American college kids put their alleged problems in perspective; to not do so intellectually dishonest. College kids are just that, kids. No offense, mind you. The truth of the matter is that we’re all kids until we mature. Some of us do so at 25, others not until 50 and seemingly some of us never mature. So be it. College aged people, however, present a group of individuals who, for the most part, have not been exposed to the real world. Most of them have spent their entire lives being managed by either a parent or coach or teacher or institution or a combination of all of them. The only difference is that in college the students begin to realize that there is an end to all of that coddling in sight; the safety net is about to be removed. While many college students have higher IQs and pretty documents to hang on their walls as compared to the rest of us, they also have something else not as revered; a lack of perspective and preparation. In many ways they are intellectually and emotionally immature and the thought of having to deal with finding a job that pays their bills and somehow also falling in love someday is just plain overwhelming. While some of that may make you sad, none of it is new, interesting, or hard. It’s life.
|
||