EASY LIKE SUNDAY MORNING
What would happen to our society if we suspended the hunt for the almighty dollar for one day ? Instead of getting sucked into the sell-sell-sell-buy-buy-buy vortex we could take a deep breath, tread water, and have a real conversation about IDEAS.
Have you ever noticed the difference between weekend edition Newspapers and the blah-ad-blah-ad-blah-ad weekday run of the mill edition? Sunday is much more palatable than Saturday, which is the 'Great Whore of Babble-on'.
This Sunday morning my local newspaper had articles on Christopher Hitchens, a list of countries that censor the internet, and a piece that explores if humans evolve into conservatives or liberals through environment or genetics...these types of articles would rarely if ever appear during the week.
From Monday to Friday the local media in all of it's incarnations presents five million car ads, six billion weiner sale coupons, and reports on which local politician said what, AD, ten kids under 12 steal cars and torch garages, AD, sports scores, AD, wheat prices, AD, obituaries, AD, lotto numbers, AD, weather guesstimate, AD, assinine columnist drivel, AD, idiotic letters to the editor from the same 12 people and a couple more ADs. Ghastly.
The all of a sudden on Sunday mornings, the weekend editors treat people to items that are actually interesting and encourage thought! Instead of numbing us into a trance with catchy titles followed by the blah-blah-blahs , on the weekends there are articles on thought provoking people, places and things. There are actually even more ADs on the weekend but I am so numbed by then that I completely ignore them because there is actually something interesting to read!
Why can't they do that everyday? Do they assume that people have such hectic, frenetic, lives that they can only think on the weekend?
It is very similar to watching Network (PLACE AD HERE) Televison and PBS.
On PBS everyday is a little more Sunday morning! Networks spend every other second trying to keep your eyeballs on them and stop your finger from switching channels. Keep the chatter going, flash the ADs, promote the next program, Shock the Monkey, all in the name of advertising dollars. The sacred CPMs, the cost per thousand rate, that the Media can charge to their advertisers.
These advertisers are very leery about the 'bang' that they are actually getting for their buck! The internet is screwing the whole thing up and attention spans are now measured in milliseconds.
Don't get me wrong, there are some excellent dramas and comedies on Network and PBS has a plethora of material that is somnambulistic catnip. The abscence of the pickle dillion ADs makes it easier to think about what PBS stations are presenting.
I compare Sunday Morning to being able to digest your brain meal instead of racing through the drive-thru. The Monday to Friday serving of Media 'cream of crapola' is all rush, rush, rush, drive-thru.
Sunday is sit-down think-through.
Easy like Sunday Morning.
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Completely disagree. In the UK, Sunday papers are full of filler nonsense, mostly advice on how to improve your property so as to maximise its sale value, etc. They're generally written by different teams of writers from the daily editions.
ReplyDeleteThe Saturday papers have the things you need to know, the background to the stories of the week and, shock horror, actual news.
Mind you, I'm a fan of the Financial Times which is a rather good newspaper (particularly international coverage) as well as good on business stuff. It is an exemplar of this approach: there is no Sunday edition at all.
Suspect that it's different in your part of the world. Your Sunday papers sound very interesting.
Being a teacher, I am not really in the RAT race but mornings are rush-rush as school starts at 7 am. After my jogging+yoga routine, it is me against time!
ReplyDeleteWe have school 6 days a week.
Sundays, I do get up early. Force of habit, I suppose. Newspapers are part and parcel despite those stupid ad or news.
As usual, I digress.Another force of habit?
Cause I'm eeeeeeeaassssy...easy like Sunday morrrrrrrrrrrnin'....
ReplyDeleteThanks. =P Now I'm besieged by Lionel Ritchie on what was an otherwise easy morning. ;)
Sundays are my day to sleep in and do gaming. I don't have a BF this weekend, however, so I did get a chance to re-arrange furniture and mop the kitchen floor. When left alone I'm always likely to start doing deep cleaning or re-arranging. If the BF's here then I wait for him to bring me coffee and I knit. ;) I know, I'm awful.
'Great Whore of Babble-on'. HA HA!
ReplyDeletePerfect. You are so right on all this.
The feeling in our newsroom is there IS no real NEWS on a Saturday, so Sunday is a day for features and reflection.
And none of the car dealerships want to buy ads for a Sunday paper, which is read, sadly, by the fewest number of people.
I hate what newspapers are becoming. Sadly, though, if it wasn't for all those ads, newspapers would fold. It's all about bottom line.
Brilliantly penned (or typed, as the case may be). Easy Like Sunday Morning, indeed.
spentrails,
ReplyDeleteI can hear Joe Jackson singin' in the background,
"if you wanna know 'bout the new sex position,
you can read it in the sunday papers"
Newspapers are very nervous because they know that the writing is on the wall and that they have to adapt or die. Sunday seems to be a throwaway day here and I like it because I am a snob and I live off of the grid!
gautami,
School SIX DAYS A WEEK! Isn't that outlawed by the Geneva Convention?
My Word! I cannot fathom that. Here in Baby Boomerville we will eventually get to the 4 day work week or flextime because eveybody will be over 65 or working at home.
We are starting to shut down schools because of falling numbers of school aged kids...just like they predicted.
shelley,
I am deeply sorry about the Lionel thing but it fits. I love to rearrange too. I treasure Sunday mornings because I don't HAVE to go to church which is one of the greatest pleasures of my life. It is something I promised myself when I was a kid.
without widgets,
Sunday is a reprieve from the yakkety-yak.
As our economy changes into 99% service indutries that are available 24/7 online, the paper will really lose its rhythm and be forced to focus and compete online.
The papers had a good run! HAHA.
Joe Jackson *sigh*.
ReplyDeleteThe first record I ever bought was Steppin' Out. Those were the days.
Newspapers are indeed worried. In London there is unhealthy competition between two media houses for supremacy in the daily local newspaper wars. Associated Newspapers (Daily Mail, etc) versus News International (Murdoch, etc). They both now do free daily papers. My predicted outcome is a net result of nobody reading any paper at all. We'll see.
Newspapers? Don't read 'em. Don't wanna, ain't gonna.
ReplyDeleteI find that reading your little essays each day is quite sufficient to find my finger on the pulse of what's going down on the planet.
I work just about every other weekend so Sunday has no significance to me, but I have always had a soft spot for that big fat paper with the color comics, ad circulars from the mens' toy stores, and actual articles about things that might actually be worth reading about. Of course, if you lost the ads you could pare it down by at least 2 pounds of dead tree, but the saturday papers are almost all auto ads.
ReplyDeleteFrance just elected a right winger who is vowing to rid the country of their 35 hour work week so that they can REV the economy up and turn the french into the same hyper-live-life-like-you-gonna-die-in-five-minutes, take no prisoners, who the hell needs sleep, profit at all costs, vacations be damned lifestyle we Americans have all come to know and love, whether we actually love it or not.
Strange thing is he vowed in the same breath to take away executive golden parachutes.
I still don't understand those people.
Could you please clip some of those wiener sale coupons for me?
ReplyDeleteBeing a poor student obviously I can't afford such luxuries as the sunday paper, but I do remember one particularly disasterous holiday in France involving what seemed like the entire volume of the pacific ocean hurling itself onto the roof of our static caravan, and in those tedious hours of damp confinement the Sunday supplements in the Independent (deliviered to our campsite by monday) were made to last all week, passed from person to person until they fell apart. Sometimes I find one on a train and I read the arty reviews like I know what the hell they're going on about, and I pretend to myself that people are looking at me and believing that I am clever and rich enough to actually BUY one of those things...
ReplyDeleteThe Ads on American TV would drive me insane. I'm one of those people who records films off the TV rather than watch them when they're broadcasted, just so I can fast forward thru the adverts. I've noticed from my (naturally non-existent) collection of illegally downloaded TV shows that the Ads come before and after the opening credits and something like twice within the show followed by ads and then end credits then more ads...
AAARGH!
The adverts do sexy so well, you know. They are so sexy, some of the television adverts, they make me feel so sexy just watching them, well before I have purchased the product.
ReplyDeleteIt's so very tempting to chase after this sexy feeling, I think. This may be why the hunt for the almighty dollar goes on, to a large extent.
I'm too poor to buy the highbrow stuff (well, not really, addicted to nicotene) but I can afford the ones with an appetite for discussion of sex scandals, sex crime and the ubiquitous glamour photograph of a young woman with very few clothes on. It all adds up.
Yep, the song is now in my head,,, help, get it out, LOL.
ReplyDeleteSunday morning hey, I was recouperating from my PM shift the night before and then left at midday to do my next ER shift...the morning went too fast :(
Yep, totally agree with you. Sundays are reserved for reading books and long naps.
ReplyDeleteAlas, sunday newpapers over here are full of job ads and articles that feature what rich socialites and businessmen do on their weekends so i don't even bother with that crap.
Yep with you on this one, its all one big distraction from the real problems in life... I dont care about the cute cat caught in a tree, give me something to think about...
ReplyDeleteHence why i read this blog:)
I hate the bloody rat race and I dunno why Im in it.
ReplyDeleteKeshi.
hemm...maybe we are stuck in the perpetual evolution of faster times and then the de-evolution will come where we will slow down.
ReplyDeleteI thought Easy was about the end of a relationship, moving on. . .
ReplyDeletemind you, maybe I'm just confused cos that's what you want with the dollar, I guess
*frowns*
I agree - everyday should be a Sunday. I've also been ranting a lot lately (again) about working too many damn hours.
ReplyDeleteI have to start getting ready for work at 7:30am and get home at 5:30pm (and that's only because I live so close to the office - it used to 6:30am to 6:30pm). So that means I spend 10 hours a day x 5 days a week on work. Ideally, I should be getting 8 hours of sleep per night. That leaves me with a mere 6 hours a day for myself.
For the people who have children those hours are used up on picking up the kids, preparing dinner, eating dinner, clearing and doing dishes, helping with homework, taking the kids to any extra-curricular activities, etc. What does that leave them - about 20 minutes?
The rat race is so very wrong. I'm seriously thinking about re-evaluating my life and the way I live it. Life is too damn short.
The ayes have it!
ReplyDeleteSunday Bloody Sunday.
i don't read the papers... but i have noticed something similar with tv...
ReplyDeletehhmm- you okay dude? a whole post with no pictures!!?!