Grinding axes

We all have an axe (or a few) to grind. They may be trivial or earth shatteringly important but their relevance is only apparent to us and those who love us.

A terrible experience in a restaurant... An hour and ten minutes on the phone to Qantas with a simple request... The incompetence of a government department in processing the adoption of your children.... How long do you have?

I'm getting to my point. The man who took over the Sydney Harbour Bridge last week does not deserve the fame and relevance he's suddenly surrounded with. I don't know his story: bitter custody dispute, DoCS unhelpful,etc. What's new?

What is driving me nuts is that he is suddenly a media darling instead of just being a very naughty little boy. Maybe it's his military background which gives him an air of authority other nutters don't readily possess. Whatever it is, it just isn't on.

To paraphrase an interview I heard with him on Triple M last week: "oh well you inconvenienced tens of thousands of people but you do have an important point to make". No! There are countless "important points" out there waiting to be made. Are we prepared to disrupt the civil running of society, stressful as it is for the ordinary person, so that each bugger with a problem can have their voice heard?

Yes, life is frustrating, especially when it's not going our way, when obvious injustices are being perpetuated, when simple things just can't get done for a myriad of reasons, mainly human error or incompetence. But that doesn't give us all carte blanche to stop traffic, figuratively and literally.

As always I blame the media for being pathetic brainless morons, nothing more than magpies picking up the brightest baubles. They have made a hero from someone who does not deserve it. They have rewarded bad behavior, somethingng every parent knows not to do. When some nutter causes a civil drama to further their cause in the future I'll know where to lay some of the blame. When you glamourize and validate this sort of "terrorism" you say it's ok to disrupt your community to grind your axe.

And I say it isn't. That's what blogging is for. We all know that.

Is anyone else totally fed up with the media eating itself? You know, the whole Kyle Sandilands bullshit beat up, now the Hey Hey It's Saturday storm in a teacup.

What is happening? Why is it happening? More importantly, what have we become?

Am I too cynical to think all this shit is just a case of all publicity being good publicity? Are we just seeing the facade of the PR machine working double time to keep things in the media; thus ensuring us media consuming shmucks are constantly talking about things which, to be frank, I think we are too intelligent (or not!) to keep on discussing.

I'm really not sure if there is any genuine interest in the political correctness aspect of all this. Does anyone truly care who Kyle Sandilands upsets or is just fodder for the hungry mill? Is the Hey Hey discussion about Harry Conick's seemingly genuine discomfort or is it at all about racism or is it just an unexpected avenue for making people talk about a show which is nothing more than a nostalgic wank? Why have these stories continued to be featured as actual news stories in prime time bulletins?

I don't know about you but I'm baffled, annoyed and downright over it.

Do you ever wish those damned scientists would just stop doing research and give us all a break?

Right now I'm listening to the midday news and they are saying that scientists have "discovered" that eating cured meats (ham, salami, etc) is linked to higher rates of bowel cancer in adults. They are urging all of us to restrict our cured meat intake to 70g a week (apparently that's two ham sandwiches) and to stop our children eating the stuff altogether.

Oh for fuck's sake. What are we allowed to eat? Everything is bad for us, absolutely everything. Everything is going to make us fat and/or give us cancer and/or diabetes and/or some other disease they haven't discovered yet.

Considering that eating is such a dangerous occupation and breathing the polluted air is bad for us, as is driving, flying, crossing the road and pretty much just living, how come we are all living longer than ever and each year our life expectancy is increasing, despite all the doom and gloom bullshit?

I do know the truth though. The only thing that is really bad for my [mental] health is listening to the news. It might not literally kill me but it does make me loose the will to live.