Cornwall ON – Some of you may notice that we here at the Cornwall Free News don’t like to dwell on the standard disaster news story, but frankly I’m overwhelmed by this weekend’s two busiest stories.
Both involve death; one the massacre in Norway, and the second being the senseless waste of life that was Amy Winehouse.
The Norwegian murdering of children of a Summer camp is much grist for the mill. The conspiracy theorists are fast at work. Alex Jones on one of his video clips stated that he predicted it the day before. The story is fast becoming a cottage industry for the news biz.
We live in a weirdly odd and fastly becoming more frightening world where lives and death are just bits and clips rapidly consumed without empathy or feeling.
Amy Winehouse had a dream. She loved music. She wanted to be on stage. She wanted to sing and be successful. I’m sure she was happy when her albums hit it big. She was unlike millions of other people with a dream. Amy though was successful. Her gift; her talent, fought it’s way through the others and she garnished success after success in her short career.
Why she abused it; tarnished it; and ripped it up to the point of pressing the delete key of her life only she could answer you, and most likely she could never do that?
Drug abuse like most other addictions is very sad, but there are those that get help and get treated. After the loss of her great voice she’ll go to the vault with the other members of the “27” Club; other wastes of talent and life. What’s odd is the Lemming like behaviour of so many in our society. The fact that Amy died at such a young age didn’t surprise most; even her parents. It was part of the performance in a way with people who went to her live shows half hoping she’d show up smashed or ripped.
Well for those fans of car wrecks Ms Winehouse gave her final performance on Saturday. Sadly she’s been emulated not only for her music, but for the addictions and conditions she had in her life. Amy Winehouse was not a hero. She was not heroic. She wasted her gift and talents by consistently making bad choices in her life.
Choices we all have to make in our lives yet for many are becoming harder and more difficult to make. Her life and the oddly filtered messages may end up costing more life than the shootings in Norway this weekend.
I was listening to a radio show this weekend that talked about the break down of our society from the family unit to religion; to culture and the communities we live in. With the internet today we’re just as likely to make friends a thousand miles away than our next door neighbors.
What path are we on and where are we going? What happened to courtesy and caring for each other? What happened to nurturing people instead of cheering them on as they destroy themselves as Amy Winehouse did?
I wish I had some of those answers. I really do.
Jamie Gilcig – Editor – The Cornwall Free News
The sad thing is that for every Amy Winehouse, there are thousands of unknown people either taking their own life, or allowing their lifestyle to do it for them. They never make the news.
News works with human nature. We as a race, tend to crave the un-ordinary information. Gossip tends to be ‘hot’ only if it leans towards the unusual. News too, tends to feed an innate human desire to hear about the rich, famous, powerful or beautiful. Everyone else is boring.
I’m not blaming ‘the news’ or media in general, but the fact that the human need for these kinds of stories is what feeds the news machine. If the media posted news about all of the ordinary goings on around us, it would be boring and impractical. Our desire for ‘hot stories’ and to keep them alive, and discuss them to death, is the demand which the media is forced to supply, at the risk of going out of business.
Yes, drug abuse is very sad. It all starts with smoking pot and goes up from there. It’s too bad for Amy Winehouse but c’est la vie! The Norway massacre is a terrible thing and more newsworthy than Ms.Winehouse in my opinion. Even more terrible is the famine in Somalia. Canada has donated the amount of $72 Million to the cause. How much did the Somali pirates donate our of their $ Billions from the very lucrative pirate trade of kidnapping ships? You see, they have the money but won’t spend it to save their own. They leave that task to us. What a world we live in. Thats newsworthy!
When you said: “We live in a weirdly odd and fastly becoming more frightening world where lives and death are just bits and clips rapidly consumed without empathy or feeling.” I felt like you read my mind. It seems every time I turn on CNN (for the ten minutes I can bear to watch it mind you…) I’m bombarded with horrifying stories and clips that are not only tragic and depressing, but are told in such an inconsiderate and factual manner that the only thing I can feel after is disgust in what this society considers “news.”
It’s refreshing to know I’m not the only one who’s noticed this. For some reason, I can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that people don’t care enough to voice their opinions or demand more humanity or common decency in the media they are exposed to. It’s just sad to realize our society has the power to change so much, and because we don’t we are truly the only ones to blame because the media is just a reflection of what our society has become as a whole…
Nicely put and beautifully written as always! Thanks!
Amy Winehouse had been a casulty for several years before her death, what disgusts me is the faux pass of artifical sympathy people have at her demise, when they were satisfied at making jokes at her exsistence when she was alive. Its easy to develope compassion as a matter of retrospect when someone is no longer with us, saying they hold pity for her is just an excuse to show concern when there was none when she was alive.
As for the perversity of the culture of consumer exploitation, its simply the continuation of road of nihalistic hedonism, and the public love affair with watching lives of the infamous spiral out of control, its not a problem of today’s society, basic history lets you see bread and circus games have always been popular they just exsist in a different medium. Network broadcasters simply respond to the demands of viewers expectations, and those expectations are to see things that have no relavent value.
What’s sad is that depressing stories are being reported, but that their the once that have no significant value in our lives, such as the widespread growth of poppy fields in afghanastan and our involvement in a country where 10 percent of the population deal in narcotics as an occupation. Or what about the threat of China becoming the super power that out performs the U.S. , does anyone like the deal of a country where police are knowing to openly assault dissident artist that question their authority. These are real global problems but they get throwing under the rug, to talk about people who were dead three years ago and only got the post mortem photo op now, the problem is never the media, it’s the people who see the world as an amusement box, its a problem of self-control, amy winhouse had none for alchohal, the public have non for cruelty. So the world spins.
Et tu Brute?