Thursday, March 20, 2008

Sticks and Stones will break your bones but WORDS will never hurt you…Bullshit!

Picture it-- the Northeast in the mid-eighties. You’re playing on the swings in your ooh too cool Keds, slouch socks, tight rolled jeans with a hyper-colored shirt when your BFF tells you that a rumor has been spread about you. You, last Saturday night… a game of truth or dare, and seven minutes in heaven…you get the picture.

Thankful for you that the age of YouTube, MYSPACE, and the internet in general has yet to be invented! So, you can rest in pure denial and wait for the next storm to emerge with the hope that you won’t be swept up in it…again.
Fast forward a few decades and you may not have been that lucky. In the age that we are living in everything is recycled from bottles to styles to hairdos, what was once old comes back new and that includes rumors and true stories that we wish would go away. In the age of the internet and info at the touch of your iPHONE the old adage “sticks and stones will break your bones but words will never hurt me” just ain’t true. Not only can words hurt you but if you live in the public eye under a microscope…words can destroy you! Especially if those words are on the cover of every paper and recycled in the news from 9am until 10pm (slow news day).

In light of our present election cycle and the fustercluck that the Democrats are in presently…instead of us the American people being able to make clear and factual decisions about our candidate we have to decipher and decode rumors and be subjected to kitchen sink politics like we are back on the playground. You know that back in the days of the playground when rumors were started it was boredom, jealously of the limelight, and the desire to be on top…knowing that getting to the top couldn’t be done on merit and niceties alone…thus rumors and total social destruction were common in school politics. But should this type of mentality be common in real world politics??? I think not.

The media print and T.V. alike has a responsibility to not just feed us the fluff they think we want to know but the sustenance we need in order to make competent decisions based on fact and record not pomp and show. If I wanted entertainment news I would turn on the E! Channel and let my brain slowly pour from my ear to my hearts content. We as an information seeking, instant gratification society rely on text message updates from CNN and MSNBC for their objective views and insightful commentary on important issues such as race, education, health, and the state of Wall Street not on Hillary’s suits or comments from Barack’s pastor consuming a days worth of news. What is at stake in this coming election is too important to be playing games with…because tricks and games are for kids!

Ciao,
T.C.

1 comment:

Aisha said...

2 snaps, 2 Sense!