Category Archives: Media

Norway’s Tears & Miss Winehouse

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What a strange couple of days.

As I sit here in my safe and comfortable house, more and more pieces of information about the devastation in Norway filter in and I feel so helpless. Images of the destruction caused fill TV and computer screens and I shed a few tears for the families of those who’ve lost their lives.

And when his picture, that heartless bastard who caused all of this, flashes up, I get a feeling in my throat and stomach as though I’m going to be sick.

What kind of man does something like this?

They’re calling it Norway’s 9/11.

And, of course, the blame game begins. Why would someone just snap like that? Some are saying it was religious reasons. Others are blaming the fact that he played computer games.

The latter seems ridiculous but the facts can’t be denied that we’re all becoming numb to the horrors of the world. TV shows glorify violence by getting us to sympathise with serial killers who murder criminals or mafia bosses with psychological problems. Newspapers show us graphic images of war torn countries and dead bodies which shock us … but not like they used to. We play computer games with aims of shooting the enemy and stealing cars to score narcotics while running over pedestrians.

That fine line between reality and fantasy begins to blur.

On the eve of his execution, Ted Bundy explained the motives behind his murders: “My experience with … pornography that deals on a violent level with sexuality, is once you become addicted to it … I would keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Until you reach a point where the pornography only goes so far … where you begin to wonder if maybe actually doing it would give that which is beyond just reading it or looking at it. Violence in the media particularly sexualizes violence,  sends boys down the road to being Ted Bundys.”

22 years later and Bundy’s proven right. More than ever, the media glorifies violence … and feeble minds are susceptible to snapping and going apeshit, not realising that their actions are wrong.

I’m not saying that the media is to blame for Anders Behring Breivik’s actions at all. But given how exposed we are to the glorification of violence, it isn’t any wonder that those prone to mental outbursts begin to believe they’re invincible.

And then there’s Amy.

Poor, sad Amy. Her music was probably the closest I’ll ever get to liking jazz and it had only been Friday evening, as I took the train home from work, that I’d listened to her Back to Black album again, wondering when the next one was due for release.

So much talent and beauty … and all gone at 27.

Her family, friends and loved ones don’t deserve to have her memory tainted by ignorants saying she deserved it because of her lifestyle choices. She made that choice. Not her loved ones. She wasn’t physically harming anyone but herself. She wasn’t harming you. So leave her rest in peace.

Being an addict doesn’t automatically make you a bad person or take away the beauty and creativity of your spirit. Anders Behring Breivik deserves to die. Not Amy. Though death is too easy for him.

And, of course, the great Twitter debate still continues over whether it’s wrong to be mourning for “another celebrity” rather than the lives lost in Norway.

You can mourn for both.

Amy’s music touches hearts and lives all over the world … and we need things like music, art and creativity to connect with, and express ourselves. They stop us from turning into animals like Breivik.

The F Word

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This post isn’t going to be very long. I’m just writing it as a response to all the crap I recieved yesterday from anonymous – and hostile – idiots on Twitter.

For those of you who don’t live in South Wales, a huge debate has recently surfaced over plans to open a Hooters restaurant in Cardiff (our capital city). The complaints arise from a group of feminists claiming the chain is responsible for a lot of sexual exploitation and that it’s arrival would be a “step back” for equality in the city.

Uh huh.

I argued the point, yesterday, that no woman is actually forced to work at Hooters and that every girl who does is well aware of how she’s required to dress. These jobs could also provide a lot of students with financial aid or help out a lot of people struggling to pay off their debts (I mean, there’s a shortage of employment opportunities at the moment, for godsake). I actually got a lot of backlash saying that my opinion wasn’t valid because I believe all women have every right to a choice. (Does that make sense to anyone? Because it sure as hell didn’t to me.) I actually got a lot of feminists saying that I was ridiculous and wrong because I was disagreeing with their opinion. Okay …

I’m going to make my point clear and concise right here, right now.

First of all, this is a city. We have far worse things than Hooters already – We have an abundance of strip clubs, ‘red light’ districts, sex shops, and girls who make a habit of walking around in short shorts with their boobs hanging out every single weekend.

And second of all, this whole Cardiff Hooters debate is another bullshit example of people in the Western world not realising how lucky they are to begin with. You want to talk about exploitation? Go and sit next to the hundreds of children who are exploited for labour or sold as sex slaves every single day and tell them why you think a charitable restaurant chain is worth getting more worked up about than their suffering. The Cardiff Feminist Network need to try living a week in a country with Sharia law before bitching about something as trivial and insignificant and ‘degrading’ as Hooters.

I didn’t want to do this …

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But nobody seems to be leaving me a lot of choice.  I honestly feel like I’m about to speak to a bunch of toddlers.

This BP oil spill isn’t the first. In fact, oil spills are a daily occurence. Maybe not to the extent of the one we keep hearing about. But it happens. It has happened since then. And it will continue to do so. You’ve only got to  follow Greenpeace or WWF to know that natural and man-made disasters occur every single day. This isn’t a unique situation.

So here’s my question:

Where the fuck was the media, the government, the politicians, the support, the money raising, when all of this happened before?

Covering the iPad? Or Britney Spears’ upskirt shot?

I have been observing a few things over the last year or so and have come to realise that those of us from the Western world seem to be suffering from what a friend of mine described as ‘selective compassion.’ Is it any wonder that President Obama and the American  media are covering this oil spill so well? I mean, it happened on their turf.

What happened to Haiti in January was an absolute tragedy. But did you know that a few months earlier the Samoan Islands were hit by the biggest earthquake of 2009? In fact, this earthquake caused a tsunami so horrendous that it claimed many lives from the citizens of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga?

No, I didn’t think you knew that. And you know why you didn’t? Because the Samoan Islands are on the other side of the world and our media – our world media – seems to also suffer from an unhealthy dose of selective compassion.

I can’t help but shed a tear for how unbelievably giving and thoughtful we can be when it comes to rallying around to raise money and doing what we can for certain causes. We have that amazing ability to want to want to support others. But, believe it or not, we live in a world where there are always going to be reasons to get together and fight. And why don’t we?

Haiti was the ‘in’ cause a few months ago. Now we’re talking about the BP oil spill. What about the Chilean earthquake in February? (One of the largest ever recorded!) Or (two of the first things I learned about our world in school – 20 years ago!) the fact that the rainforests are still being destroyed and the famine in Africa hasn’t actually been brought to a halt?

That extra bit of money you spend on a new piece of jewellery or a new DVD or even a cup of coffee … Why not give it to something that actually matters? Think of all the things you really don’t need … Those things that aren’t essential to your survival. Think about what that money could be doing.

We’re also living in a world where information is at our fingertips. Start subscribing to news places that you wouldn’t usually have access to. Not only am I subscribed to a daily BBC News update email, but also one from The New York Times, The Australian, and Albawaba.

We have no excuse to live in ignorance. Join the church of Google.