Scary going-ons

Last night, the 80^th episode of Soprano’s The Final Episodes aired. As I watched the scene where the enraged teenage Asian guy beat the crap out of Junior, I freaked. Maybe it’s because of the recent shootings at Virginia Tech. Somehow the usual act (no pun intended) of violence seemed - elevated. Coming from a country where corruption and crime rate is fairly high (I can’t deny it until the day something’s done about it) I shouldn’t be as shocked by what happened, but of course like many others, I was. My first thought was of the victims. What lives did they leave behind? What have they yet to achieve? Were they much younger/older than I am? What were they thinking right before it happened?

Contrary to the emotions that filled my mind, the more practical bf made a powerful point illustrating the gargantuan spillover of this unfortunate event:

What’s going to happen to the college? Why will kids want to go to school there anymore? Why would PARENTS want their kids to go to school there anymore? No professor’s going to want to teach there. The campus will be vacant forever and ALL the money donated to the school for its buildings over they years; it's all gone to waste. The school name is tainted. Just like that.

How painfully true.

I don’t watch the news anymore. Years at BU’s College of Communications has taught me that the spin on news is too immeasurable to ignore. As I get older, I notice how the same things get shown over and over again with the intent of, to put it bluntly, brainwashing viewers. Like with advertising, as much as we think we’re not influenced by it, we are. You can deny it all you want but you picked Citizens of Humanity for a reason, and I can tell you it’s not the quality of the denim. With good intent to sell or inform, advertising is harmless compared to the news. People need information to make choices.

Conversely when it comes to broadcasting news of death, accidents, outbreaks, natural disasters and politics, these catastrophes (latter mention included) can be pieced together to come off a certain way. And these “news” are not of designer jeans, detergent or cell phone services. They’re real going-ons.

Point made here is that there are disasters everywhere. Some worse than others. Some we get to see and some we don’t. So it’s time to turn off the tube and give your head a rest. The shooter guy is gone, and his horrible doings stay with us. There’s nothing we can do about it but learn and go on with our lives.