Oh my god. We are all going to die and there's nothing we can do about it. The cloven paw of Satan is leaving it's mark all over our doomed planet, from the arid deserts of Mexico to the crumbling ruins of our Western cities. Silence outside, punctured only by the lone siren screaming in the distance, carrying another of the plague victims to an early grave. A global Uniflu initiative fails. We are told not to panic but it is too late, too late for any of us. The virus spreads like warm margarine over the toast we call the Earth. Soon our globe is nought but a shattered dystopia, run by the few surviving mutants who have been chemically altered beyond recognition by this unstoppable virus. Zombie pigs roam wild through the deserted cityscapes, preying on whatever life that can be found. Then nothingness. Silence reigns. THE END.
We're not going to die, of course. But this swine flu idiocy has mushroomed way beyond anyone's control. You might say, huhuhuh, that, huhuhuh, the media have made a right PIG'S EAR of the coverage. Ah, I can't get away from the bloody nonsense. I will say that it is slightly scarier than SARS. I think that killed one man and his dog. Bloody newspapers. To paraphrase Hunter S Thompson, we shouldn't take any guff from those swine.
Leinster 25-6 Munster. The bandwagon is beginning to wobble.
I feel jaded and tired after bank holiday festivities. Mushy brained and woolly headed. Sayonara young blogees. KEEP AWAY FROM MEXICANS.
It is sad that a T Mobile advert fills me with such hope for humanity. Crafty advertising execs. They've got me!
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
We Have Ways of Making You Think
The news, or what we once understood too BE "the news", has ceased to be. What we NOW call the news is advertising, marketing, shallow PR masquerading as things YOU MUST KNOW. News stories oscillate between mind numbing special effects, worthless bluster and sickening fear. They deliver us a calculated, carefully engineered message designed to make us feel X and think Y. And I do think why?! WHY IS LINDSAY BREAKING DOWN AGAIN?!!?! OMG! But in all seriousness all I ask from the news is the accurate delivery of facts. I don't want hyperbole. I don't want poorly disguised opinions masquerading as facts. And I certainly don't want a morbid deathwatch of a mother of two whoever she may be. We're slowly degenerating back to the level of public hangings. Still, there's nothing like a good TV war these days. Watch those laser guided bombbombs fly!!! Wheeeeee....
Death, misery and war have, of course, become the darlings of the newsmedia. And we certainly need to know about death, misery and war throughout the world so we can at least have the desire to avoid it. However, events such as the Madeleine McCann kidnapping case or Jade Goody's struggle with cancer are analysed to the point of filthy sickness. Tragedies turn into charades to boost ratings and put, as the man said, bums on seats. If no tragedy is available, one can easily be manufactured. War coverage, meanwhile, is often more akin to a Hollywood movie. HEROES!!! VILLAINS!!! BOOM CHKCHKCHKCHKCHK!!!
Through its over the top hyperbole the news media generates fear, anger, sadness - basic emotions - among its consumers. What the people delivering this news desire is an immediate visceral reaction from its viewers and readers - the delivery of facts has become secondary. They don't want us to think primarily, rather they want us to feel. To achieve this end, the basic reality of events is grossly distorted to the point where news stories read more like pulp fiction. Human beings become monsters, the world becomes a lawless wasteland, terrorists lurk behind every post box, no one is safe...no...NOT EVEN YOU.
In short, the news media has to a large degree ceased being objective for quite some time. Behind every carefully manicured story lies an agenda, be it political or merely monetary. Of course, no one is truly objective. But what any of us should expect is at least an attempt at objectivity by our journalists. The agendas of news corporations appear to becoming more and more overtly clear as the days fly by until soon the only news we can trust to form our own opinions on will be what we see with our own eyes.
There are, of course, bastions of objective journalism alive today particularly in the print media. But they operate increasingly on the fringes. No longer can we trust the mainstream media to deliver us accurate facts. Even the BBC, once the standard bearer for its news coverage, has gone weak at the knees and stumbled gracelessly off to the side of hyperbole and slack jawed idiocy.
Mass media has incresingly began to treat us as brainless dullards with the attention spans of goldfish with ADD. Unfortunately, no one has ever gotten poor underestimating the public and thus the snowball gathers pace. Not long now before we're a nation of drooling zombies. Still, beats thinking right? Right you guys?!
I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen them both Charlier Brooker's Newswipe and Screenwipe and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent - both better analyses of the newsmedia than I could ever hope to put to paper. Have to dash. There's a Guantanamo Bay special on CNN about the lady who sews the orange jumpsuits to keep those evil doers in their places. Wow, she's just like you and me! Ahhh....
Death, misery and war have, of course, become the darlings of the newsmedia. And we certainly need to know about death, misery and war throughout the world so we can at least have the desire to avoid it. However, events such as the Madeleine McCann kidnapping case or Jade Goody's struggle with cancer are analysed to the point of filthy sickness. Tragedies turn into charades to boost ratings and put, as the man said, bums on seats. If no tragedy is available, one can easily be manufactured. War coverage, meanwhile, is often more akin to a Hollywood movie. HEROES!!! VILLAINS!!! BOOM CHKCHKCHKCHKCHK!!!
Through its over the top hyperbole the news media generates fear, anger, sadness - basic emotions - among its consumers. What the people delivering this news desire is an immediate visceral reaction from its viewers and readers - the delivery of facts has become secondary. They don't want us to think primarily, rather they want us to feel. To achieve this end, the basic reality of events is grossly distorted to the point where news stories read more like pulp fiction. Human beings become monsters, the world becomes a lawless wasteland, terrorists lurk behind every post box, no one is safe...no...NOT EVEN YOU.
In short, the news media has to a large degree ceased being objective for quite some time. Behind every carefully manicured story lies an agenda, be it political or merely monetary. Of course, no one is truly objective. But what any of us should expect is at least an attempt at objectivity by our journalists. The agendas of news corporations appear to becoming more and more overtly clear as the days fly by until soon the only news we can trust to form our own opinions on will be what we see with our own eyes.
There are, of course, bastions of objective journalism alive today particularly in the print media. But they operate increasingly on the fringes. No longer can we trust the mainstream media to deliver us accurate facts. Even the BBC, once the standard bearer for its news coverage, has gone weak at the knees and stumbled gracelessly off to the side of hyperbole and slack jawed idiocy.
Mass media has incresingly began to treat us as brainless dullards with the attention spans of goldfish with ADD. Unfortunately, no one has ever gotten poor underestimating the public and thus the snowball gathers pace. Not long now before we're a nation of drooling zombies. Still, beats thinking right? Right you guys?!
I highly recommend to anyone who hasn't seen them both Charlier Brooker's Newswipe and Screenwipe and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent - both better analyses of the newsmedia than I could ever hope to put to paper. Have to dash. There's a Guantanamo Bay special on CNN about the lady who sews the orange jumpsuits to keep those evil doers in their places. Wow, she's just like you and me! Ahhh....
Friday, April 10, 2009
Peter Andre's Insania
Christ this blogging business is a bit difficult to keep up with eh? What with the toing and the froing and the hipping and the hopping and so on and so forth. And so at last I return to Blogspot to update the globe on all the wondrous events that have occurred in my life... watch out globe! THIS IS GONNA BE GREAT!!!!
We're watching Hitch. Sometimes you look at your life and you question what you have become. Have I become a romcomming, Notebook loving, walk remembering PONCE?!?! However, I am told there is nothing else on despite the US Masters being nought but a button click away.
A lot of strange things have taken place since lost I posted on here. Very strange things indeed. A BLACK MAN has become President of the United States. A cancer victim has become the media's favourite bag of jollies. Liverpool Football Club played well for about 3 months. And I have joined a goat slaughtering cult that worships the voodoo snake god Damballah.
First of all, Barack Obama. Can one man change the world? People seem to think so. It is hard to think of an another time in history where such pressure was mounted on one man's shoulders. He is a powerful orator, a man with a strong sense of right and wrong and that rarest of things - an American president with a social conscience. But politics is a fickle business and we have to question whether or not he will have a) the time and b) the political support to realise his ideas. But whilst it is always hard to change the least any of us can do us try. For that both Obama and the American people deserve kudos TO THE EXTREEEEMMMEE!!!!
Secondly, this Jade Goody fiasco. I would like to prefix this by saying Jade Goody was, after all that's been said and done, a regular human being. She is neither a saint nor a devil, a princess nor a whore. But she died a delicious media product for us to consume, yum yum, cancer is fun! It's hard to overstate how despicable this whole circus became. I know this whole saga has been analyzed to death by all the usual talking heads but it is worthy of looking at. It is easy, as always, to blame the tabloid media for all the ills of modern society but it is about time we began to take responsibility. We eat this savagery up. Slow painful death, it seems, is a profitable enterprise.
Peter Andre was right. The world is an insane place.
We're watching Hitch. Sometimes you look at your life and you question what you have become. Have I become a romcomming, Notebook loving, walk remembering PONCE?!?! However, I am told there is nothing else on despite the US Masters being nought but a button click away.
A lot of strange things have taken place since lost I posted on here. Very strange things indeed. A BLACK MAN has become President of the United States. A cancer victim has become the media's favourite bag of jollies. Liverpool Football Club played well for about 3 months. And I have joined a goat slaughtering cult that worships the voodoo snake god Damballah.
First of all, Barack Obama. Can one man change the world? People seem to think so. It is hard to think of an another time in history where such pressure was mounted on one man's shoulders. He is a powerful orator, a man with a strong sense of right and wrong and that rarest of things - an American president with a social conscience. But politics is a fickle business and we have to question whether or not he will have a) the time and b) the political support to realise his ideas. But whilst it is always hard to change the least any of us can do us try. For that both Obama and the American people deserve kudos TO THE EXTREEEEMMMEE!!!!
Secondly, this Jade Goody fiasco. I would like to prefix this by saying Jade Goody was, after all that's been said and done, a regular human being. She is neither a saint nor a devil, a princess nor a whore. But she died a delicious media product for us to consume, yum yum, cancer is fun! It's hard to overstate how despicable this whole circus became. I know this whole saga has been analyzed to death by all the usual talking heads but it is worthy of looking at. It is easy, as always, to blame the tabloid media for all the ills of modern society but it is about time we began to take responsibility. We eat this savagery up. Slow painful death, it seems, is a profitable enterprise.
Peter Andre was right. The world is an insane place.
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