Sounding Off

Perusing the online news this morning, I found some interesting tidbits that make me wonder why we listen to them at all. Truly, the more I dig into American media's take on newsworthy items, the more I uncover that there is a pattern we do not like to admit. To wit (in no apparent order):

1.) Vanessa Hudgens, a 19-year-old actress, claims she's found the key to a great relationship: "If you really love someone, you shouldn't have to work at it." Even worse, she told this to CosmoGirl!, which means a bunch of teeny boppers who are clamoring for love advice are looking to this twit and actually going to listen to her. Look, she IS a twit, because she's 19 and she and her boyfriend, Zac Efron, will be broken up sooner or later because - gasp! - they didn't work at their relationship. Girl doesn't know what she's talking about. The reason why I think so many people are dissatisfied in their relationships is that they get so comfortable in them that they forget to do all the little things that made us fall in love in the first place. Ladies start forgoing the makeup and guys forget that we used to like love notes written once in a blue moon. You refuse to learn new things about each other, which is what falling in love was all about: the new, the awkward, the undiscovered. If there's nothing left to discover, what's the point? So, kids, please do not listen to a Hollywood tartlet who thinks love is easy. Remember, no one likes an easy woman!

2.) Found this ditty on CNN today, and while it's relatively an unremarkable bit, I started to get that weird, uncomfortable feeling that they wrote the article for all the wrong reasons. Not only is the headline a bit misleading, but it also highlights the human panic that might be induced by something that we can't even control. In short, the Easter Island statues are in danger because of record numbers of tourists visiting the tiny, 10 x 15 mile island. All right, I can understand that tourists walking on these things would accelerate the process, but sun, surf, winds and humidity? That has nothing to do with record numbers of tourists. Is anything truly resistant to Mother Nature? To be honest, I'm more worried about preserving this climate for my daughter and her children than saving the Easter Island statues from the elements. It's similar to the idea that we think all forest fires are dangerous: it's actually the way the forest cleanses itself. To be sure, a fire started by human hands rather than nature (lightning) may have different implications, but we all choose to live somewhere that is particularly vulnerable to the earth's rages: Flooding plains, insatiable heat and dryness, unbearable cold, tornado valleys, venomous creatures, earthquakes. Everyone has to deal with something; it's all about your priorities. Love to visit Easter Island; not a priority if Mother Earth gets to it first, though.

3.) CNN is a pretty popular American media outlet, and I don't know if I should be surprised or not about this: Earlier this morning, I found a headline on the Gmail Ig homepage, and the BBC reported that a man in Kentucky shot four people at a plant before killing himself after an argument with his supervisor. BBC = British Broadcasting Corporation. Erm... I checked CNN to see if they got wind yet. Nothing. I went back to the Gmail Ig page and found the New York Times had picked up on it. Not until an hour or more later did CNN post something on their front page. How the heck did the BBC get to this first? Maybe it's because they were fascinated with the fact that the man was able to go home, retrieve his own firearm, and return to work with no one suspecting. My ideas about gun control and gun ownership are null and void here, but I know most European countries are fascinated with the fact that U.S. civilians have a right to arm themselves. That probably has nothing to do with the BBC reporting on it first, but you don't hear much about school and workplace shootings in Britain, that's for sure.

I'm just glad the BBC still gives the U.S. some kind of air time on their media pages. The problem with U.S. media is this: If something happens overseas and the U.S. doesn't hear about it, does that mean it's not news? I had a conversation in college about the tree in the woods conundrum, and one of my professors argued that in order for a sound to exist, the soundwaves had to hit an eardrum. Therefore, if a tree fell in the forest and no one was around to hear it, there was no sound. I didn't have much of an answer to that. But now I ask, what if the person is deaf? Go chew on that, dear readers, and please let me know your thoughts.

Me vs. The World

For all the complaints I've written about the American media and questioning the true "freedom" of such (have you seen who owns the media companies? Only a handful... hmmm), it sure pays to have the Internet wide open and fancy free to search most anything my heart desires. While my IP address is probably on a government watch list because I've pinged al Jazeera, thanks to the Patriot Act, I still embrace the fact that I can visit the site whenever I want. Not only that, but where else would I have been able to find a dependable moving company by utilizing such tools as MovingScam.com?

Now comfortably seated among the many boxes I still need to unpack in Pennsylvania, I get to reflect on a time when there was no TV or Internet available for news delivery. In the hours before the movers arrived with our 7,100 lb. load, I sat on the floor in our townhome, sitting in eerie silence while I caught up with my transcription work. I had no Internet connection or TV, and was still new to the area that I did not get the newspaper, and so only had the opportunity to look out the window and see what was going on. I could figure out the weather: Sunny, humid, promising a warm day with perhaps a chance of showers later on because of the mugginess. I met my new neighbors, who kindly welcomed me to the neighborhood and chatted amicably with each other, thus demonstrating to me the kind of folks who lived in a neighborhood such as this.

As I've mentioned before, I think most Americans are starting to realize that we can obtain news sources on our own rules, on our own time. No more scrambling to finish dinner before the 6 o'clock news; no more rolling out of bed early to catch Good Morning America before the long morning commute. No more talking heads having to feed us the information we can oh-so-aptly get at our fingertips when we want to.

The individualization of America has been a long time coming, with the boom of self-transportation and now the ability to live and function effectively from our Internet connections. Sometimes I wonder if this kind of fulfillment also stands in the way of how we function with the rest of the countries on the globe. As we sink further into our couches, laptops and cell phones readily available, how further do we sink away from the rest of the people on this Earth who don't have that luxury? Sure, we can connect with any corner of the world, but even that limitation is show by the frustrating inability for us to deliver the $100 laptop to folks in need, the seeming "independence" that we build from our dependence on the Internet, and the mere fact that there are people out there who live off the fat of the land alone, still, in 2008. It's hard to believe, if you think about it. How many different versions of the Ages can we see with a trip around the world? Even in Central Pennsylvania, the ultimate Amish country, you can find a way of life that even our grandparents don't remember.

So upon my first day in our new townhome, I sat on the floor and wondered what life was like before the Internet; kind of like how parents try to remember what life was like before the kiddies showed up. But we also have to remember some folks don't even know what life is like *after* the Internet. The fact that I can peruse the Internet freely seems like a moot point now, thinking about how my life would have been different if I were born to a parents of a small African tribe, or perhaps an Amish family as one of many children who learn to function without the modern, foreign conveniences that humankind has gone on to discover. However many steps you and I might take into the future of human livelihood, perhaps we should try to remember those who keep their feet planted in ways of old, but also do not ever worry about what would happen if they lost power, couldn't pay the cable bill, or pined for a Wal-Mart in their neck of the woods.