A friend in a particular European country has sent me the most amazing piece of journalistic rubbish I have ever seen. I will quote the outline:
“By the year 3300 there will be no living (name of the country and its citizens)
on this planet”
In my 69 years on this small blue rock I have seen a wide assortment of journalistic crap, but this is THE piece that beats all others – quite a record. How can a) the journalist “responsible” and b) the editor-in-chief “responsible” print such a load of unadulterated bullshit? Pure crap! At this stage in the history of that country, Europe and the world as a whole, the last thing any sane, thinking individual wants to read is that in just over 1,000 years time he ain’t gonna be here! Well, how amazing!
But I am forgetting myself; the kind of journalist, editor-in-chief and readership of such a rag is not the sane, thinking individual – they (each in their own way) are contributing to a massive tsunami of hopeless indifference. Who cares what will happen at that time? Let’s just go out and spend money we haven’t got on things we don’t need. And if that means raping the planet of its natural resources, tough shit!
Information and being informed are two quite different animals and it is the responsibility of those who bring us “news” to make sure we are informed and not to embark upon crude, unnecessary scaremongering or disinformation as a ruse to sell their shitty little rags.
Perhaps I am neurotic (NO!) in expecting higher levels of penmanship. As someone who has loved words and lived with them for the greater part of my life I have a passion for honesty and truth by the pen. Maybe I am a “verbal dinosaur” who just cannot cope with the stuff I read; maybe it’s my time to shuffle off this rock and allow the cretins to take over.
Until next time (and nearer than 3300),
Peripatetic Scribe
Oh yes!¨One day poetry, next day poison - and it's great. Agree that most of the stuff in newspapers is 100% junk and fit only for the trash can! Can't agree with you as a "dinosaur" - we thinking people have to maintain our standards against the cretins of this world. Keep going!
ReplyDeleteAs in life, so in reading newspapers. It's all in our hands. It's up to us what we choose to read and how we choose to interpret it (even though we can be influenced in subtle ways). Don't give up on your search for a better world, don't surrender to the cretins!
ReplyDeleteLucana
Anonymous (NZ) - well, I'm not sure it was "poison" but yes there are things in this world against which I will rebel, and this sort of stuff is an example. Also agree that standards cannot (must not) fall to accommodate the mores of the "sheep". P.S.
ReplyDeleteLucana whilst I agree in part with your comment I would also suggest there are many less literate individuals who regard what they read as "true". There is an old Ottoman proverb that says "the biggest fool is not he who cannot read, but the one who believes everything he reads is true". P.S.
ReplyDelete