In the abscence of any certifiable evidence that our cosmic caregiver is hard at work, what with 30,000 children starving to death every day and all, it has fallen upon Homo Escapeons to fill in the void. You know how Nature abhors a vacuum!
The insane actions of 9/11 are an extreme example of this. The assholes who took it upon themselves to force their maniacal will upon others were acting out the ultimate power trip..taking the life of others..Playing God.
Now we all get to play God every time we get behind the wheel of our automobiles. Suddenly we have the ability to 'rub out' other people at our leisure. Road Rage is really the manifestation of individuals who become disproportionately irritated because other motor vehicle operators somehow fail to recognize the power at their disposal...especially those of us who have severely limited control over their personal lives.
Another example of playing God are Middle Managers, who sometimes become giddy with authority and relish the opportunity to make the lives of their subordinates a living hell. This usually happens because the Executives are too busy enjoying the benefits and trappings of having clawed their way up the ladder without being murdered by all of their victims.
Certain occupations lend themselves to playing God better than others...the "A" Listers are obvious; Doctors, Judges, Politicians, make real Life & Death decisions about others every day. The next level (A-) would prolly include the upper echelon of the Media, Pollsters and Film Directors.
The Media is having a golden age of sorts because they get to convey information, both real and imaginary, however they want to present it. They can supplement any 'angle' they want with purposely driven data from their favorite Pollster. Because Humans are emotional creatures and not rational beings, it is easy to manipulate the great unwashed. Seeing IS Believing right?
In much the same vein Film Directors can prey upon our genetic blindside for abstaining from reason in favor of embracing our emotions, and further their version, I mean vision, of what constitutes reality, by creating whatever the hell they want to up on the BIG SCREEN..once again Seeing IS Believing.
Aside from the opportunity to burrow into rising starlets at their leisure, Directors have the incredible power to overwhelm our senses. To my way of thinking, this is the coolest method of playing GOD.
It is a shame that we are emotionally driven-fact avoidance gluttons for punishment. All that we Earthlings need to do, is set aside one day and collectively stop the wheels from turning and yell in unison,
"I'm Mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"
WHY DON'T WE?
How come you post a picture of a so-called Indian God?
ReplyDeleteStick to Canadian ones!
On a more serious note, come read my post on my other blog. It kind of complements yours. Please do indulge me ASAP! Get that?
Just click on my name to reach there!
Just do as Gautami says.
ReplyDeleteThank God for False Prophets!
ReplyDeletecoz everyone is complacent, lazy and stuck to the boob tube. the world is ruled by fear, and your neighbor. one thing is for sure, if we dont change it, the earth will change it for us.
ReplyDelete//
huh...the gautamist vs escapeons again i see :P
GAUTAMI
ReplyDeleteWhy certainly Dear I'll be right over.
That's Monty Python's "of course it's a good idea" Animated Medeival cartoon version. We don't have any Canadian Gods? Maybe St. Horton, patron saint of Doughnuts?
MJ
Quit egging her on..the woman is incorrigible.
ALLAN
Amen Brutha! You are preachin' to the choir.
GHOSTAY
She is out of control!
I think that you're right about Mother Nature changing it for us. Most of the historic transitions made by the up-and-coming species du jour came about because of climatic change.
We Mammals would have prolly never snuck ahead of the Dinosaurs without a lot of help from the environment...and even then gigantic killer Birds filled in for the Dinosaurs before we got our footing.
We're pretty close to overstaying our welcome.
NEXT!
Maybe I'll start my own religion.
ReplyDeleteI have alot of tree hugging, life loving and over-all zen like ideas that would make this world a whole helluva lot better than it is right now.
there are three types of people (she writes, knowledgably)
ReplyDeletepeople who don't think about this stuff (too busy being lower down the self actualisation pyramid, in your previous post, to be able to spare the energy and effort)
people who do think about this stuff
and people who not only think about it, but get up and go do something constructive with their time to try and sort it all out (and I'm not including your average politician or terrorist in this group)(altho perhaps I should. . .)(but that's a debate within itself)
if the third lot managed to persuaude the second lot to help them out, the first lot might end up living a better quality of life
on the other hand, they might not (as is proven by politicians and terrorists)(I don't mean to offend politicians by including them within the same set of brackets as terrorists)
(of course, I have no idea why I wrote that - you inspire the most bizarre trains of thought donnnnnn!)
ReplyDelete*Puts on Mad Max leather gear and jumps in car, ready to run down oil hungry politicians and terrorists and media mongols*
ReplyDeleteI'd like to think that some of us have evolved to know how to survive our self generated apocalypse.
P.S. I like the new blog look!
ReplyDeleteCATSCRATCH
ReplyDeleteand it's all TAX FREE! You can make everybody double or triple tithe and pay yourself whatever you like.
You won't get the A list Hollywood heavy hitters though, most of them are already happy to give thousands to Scientology to get their E meters read...and then go on Oprah for some jubilant couch hopping Yippeeee!
I LIKE THE VIEW
Well theoretically that is how political Leadership is supposed to work innit? Don't apologise for lumping Terrorists in with Politicians, they both want to change the world...it's just that the former group wants to make it happen their way, yesterday, and at any cost.
I'm not quite sure if I understand the strategy of reducing the world to cinders to get into power..there won't be anyone left to boss around and nothing left to hoard?
EROSWINGS
Well then, I want to be the Gyro guy flying above the fray. Actually I wasn't implying that we are all exposing our necks on the chopping block. I mean obviously Bloggers have become a real fly in the ointment.
Have you noticed how the mainstream Media now follows and reports on Blogs to get an instant pulse on political campaigns..
of course a lot of them are planted sycophantic hacks.
Why? WHY you ask? Because it is not COST EFFECTIVE! It has to be FASHIONABLE! It CAN'T be sooooooo yesterday...duh! It cannot, under any circumstances, interfere with fourth down and 3 from the Colt's 15 yard line! IT CANNOT GO AGAINST GOD!
ReplyDelete1984 actually happened. How were we to know if we were fucking brainwashed NOT to know, huh?
Go back to France, you damn commie!
(and send me a bag-ette, will ya?)
You're so right about the media following blogs now; whatever happened to good old fashioned reporting? And you're so right about some of these hacks that set up blogs to try and look legit.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere along the way, journalism got shoved aside for entertainment and sensationalism. Infotainment has damaged media credibility and muddied the waters for the masses thirsty for truth.
MICHAEL MICHAEL
ReplyDeleteCalm down. It's going to be OK. Now. Here's what you're going to do. Keep your hands where I can see them. Slowly take your left hand and slide your keyboard forward...slowly. It's gonna be alright.
GOT IT!
*talking into lapel mike
All units Stand Down, that's an order Stand down! Perp is in custody I repeat the perp is in custody.
EROSWINGS
I have to wonder how many people are fooled by those phoney baloney Bloggers? I was hoping that after 7 years of swallowing press releases from the White House that the Media was going to try and make amends and regain some credibility. ..but the all of the news outlets are now run by Divisional Corporate bean counters who regard NEWS as just another income stream...and let's face it they can sell more ads during a war.
It appeared as though Blogs were going to cut through the clutter but if you look at all of the BIG BLOGS they are just as mainstream as everything else. They're loaded with Ads..money seems to have found a way of sneaking in the back door. Let's hope that a few holdouts can hold the fort.
Uh, pardon my intrusion, but let's define the media properly.
ReplyDeleteNewspapers continue to do the reporting that the TV networks, in general, don't want to do -- BECAUSE IT'S ALL ABOUT RATINGS!
Do you think they'd put on pap like Entertainment Tonight and Big Brother and any number of the other most idiotic shows in the history of electronic media if people didn't watch THAT more than they want to actually read about what's happening in their own cities?
Cmon, guys...all forms of media -- even some of the big bloggers -- are profit-driven. They're private companies.
I agree with the concept of TV -- as in CNN, which decides for the world what's news and what isn't and plays it up that way -- being an ultimate god of sorts.
But despite the shallowness that dominates, there is still reporting going on and good writing happening and important information being generated, objectively.
If people choose not to pay attention to it or ignore it so they can watch American Idol or Big Brother or whatever, they've decided which god they want to pay homage to.
(**Stomps off to go write a best-selling novel he hopes will be turned into a blockbuster trash movie**)
WINKY WEINERHEAD
ReplyDeleteHere is what is happening. I google news in the morning and then see all of the same stories in my morning paper..which I then naturally skip.
The Paper is going to be relegated to covering local watermain breaks, little league scores, and tree plantings by the mayor.
Because Humans are emotional and not rational they crave distraction and entertainment. The TV Medium has figured this out, that's why all of their presenters look like models or leading men. They know that more people are interested in Brad and Angelina than Iraq and there is nothing that they can do about it..so that's why the line blurred and now we are left with Infotainment. Even real 'hard' news has to have it's own theme jingle, and dramatic visuals.
The Presidential race is a glorified popularity competition...people are too busy trying to keep their heads above water to indulge themselves in absorbing all of the relevant facts...but if Brad and Angelina are having twins, and I don't blame them for all of the attention, then that will be the lead story...followed by Huge cracks have appeared on the surface of the Sun. Scientists predict that Earth may disintegrate by midnight...tomorrow morning at the latest..around the time that Brad will arrive at the hospital to bring home his beautiful wife and their new twins.
Yeah, sure, just completely disarm me and mitigate my rage by making me snort in laughter at "Winky Weinerhead."
ReplyDeleteI call them newspapers because, for the next few years at least until all of us Baby Boomers die off, that's what all those BB's -- or a lot of them -- still read.
I write more stories now for our website than I do for the paper.
A series of stories me and another football writer did on a developing story this week got 100,000 hits in eight hours.
Newspapers ARE making the leap to cyberspace. They will NOT simply be covering the mayor planting trees.
The only thing that will disappear is the paper they're printed on.
You're perfectly right about what people, in general, are tuning into and what they're tuning out.
The main point I wanted to make is the media, as a whole, is not just all about Brad and Pitt.
There are journalists out there working hard to produce objective, important facts for stories that are more important than some of the pap that's on Google News.
If people choose not to read it -- whether it's on newsprint or on the Web -- and they'd rather go watch the latest plastic person on Entertainment Tonight, I hope all that happens after I retire.
But geez, if that happens with totality -- if true journalists are going to disappear or be made redundant because nobody wants to hear the truths they unearth, good or bad -- I hope I croak before that day comes.
There is still some real journalism out there - you just have to look really hard. . . and I mean REALLY hard.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about film directors. Braveheart was 75 per cent fiction, yet it started a whole new wave of Scottish nationalism and we could be detaching from the mothership any time in the next few years. Mel can take a lot of the credit.
"They may take our lives, but they'll never take our delusions." (said in an exceptionally bad Scottish accent).
WW, you don't have to croak - just get Alzheimer's or Binswangers because then everything you read, hear or see will be breaking news every day and you'll believe it all!
ReplyDeleteJust who is this GOD person anyway?
ReplyDeleteYou touched upon something my husband questions all the time - why don't corporate leaders who mess with peoples' lives so dramatically (making folks not get to go into retirement for example because their who retirement fund has been taken away for multi-million dollar golden parachutes) get killed every once in awhile?
ReplyDeleteI quite agree with your conclusion that people-power (aka people sticking together against their social predators) is the way forward towards true co-operation - surely the ultimate mark of civilisation.
ReplyDeleteRe benefits of getting older - I find I'm much funnier than I ever used to be with sharper quips, better timing etc, but that's in everyday life rather than on paper, though blogging is starting to bring it out of me too.
However this posting of yours deserves a serious response!
"All that we Earthlings need to do, is set aside one day and collectively stop the wheels from turning and yell in unison,
ReplyDelete'I'm Mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!'
WHY DON'T WE?"
Because, to misquote the prophet Morrison, "We got the numbers, but they got the guns."
Same goes for why politicians that are responsible for carnage don't get offed as often as they should.
TV News has been turned to "Newsertainment" for reasons outlined above, and one more. The Video is brain candy. Like video games, it is uniquely suited to the function of entertaining us in lieu of our living our lives in the real world. In this case, function follows form. Because we are genetically inclined to be over-stimulated by Technicolor input, TV is the perfect tool to turn us all into ADD and ADHD poster children. Much more manageable than those pesky people who are actually paying attention.
I wish I could respond more than I do react! I probably wouldn't get myself in trouble so much!!!
ReplyDeleteLove those monkey pictures....MONKEY SEE...MONKEY DO!!!!
Oy, Donn ! Where's ol' Lysistrata, when we so clearly need
ReplyDeleteher? The side that says "f*ck the
other bonobos - let's bash their
heads in!" is louder than the one
that says, "wonder if she's got a friend?"