Bart’s People">Bart’s People
I’ve got a love/hate relationship with NPR.
But they always throw asinine tear jerk stories up with next to no resolution. Usually, I can give them a pass, but last night and this morning were particularly bad. Then, I go to check news there this morning, and find, lead story: The Tipping Divide “Study Finds Differences in Tips by Black, White Restaurant Patrons”
And another one from this morning: Message in a Bottle. Scroll down to read the heart-wrenching story of a woman with a littering son. Son later gets killed in motorcycle accident, mom mourns, man finds trash while fishing, calls mom, lots of tears on lots of shoulders.
Like I’d mentioned in a previous post, getting an actual handle on news is tough. Quoth the Bart “I’ll show Lisa who’s dumb! [opens newspaper, reads] “Supreme Court Reverses…” [groans] I won’t turn to the comics, I won’t turn to the comics… all right, I’ll read one comic just to get me rolling. Archie. [reading] “Hey Jughead, didja hear? The Supreme Court reversed…” [groans again]”
So in order to provide pablum to people instead of actually challenging them to think and form educated opinions instead of knee-jerk reactions, the news media have gone to crap like:
“Joe Banks, eighty-two years young, has come to this pond every day for the past seventeen years, to feed the ducks. But last month, Joe made a discovery. The ducks…were gone. Some say the ducks went to Canada. Others say, Toronto. And some people think, that Joe used to sit down there, [camera moves to another nearby pond] near those ducks. But it could be, that there’s just no room in this modern world, for an old man…and his ducks.”
— Bart, “Girly Edition”
(Burns: Smithers…you think maybe my power plant killed those ducks?
Smithers: There’s no ‘maybe’ about it, sir.
Burns: [sniffles] Excellent.)
Heart wrenching, ain’t it?
Go listen to Bob Edwards in the “Message in a Bottle“ story. There’s just no room in this modern world for an old bottle and a heartbroken mother. “(S)he plans to keep the bottle on her living room mantle.”
2 Responses to “Bart’s People”
Comment from jank
Time July 11, 2003 at 8:17 pm
I wasn’t meaning to harsh on the woman – I’ve suffered loss too, cried, etc. My ire was meant for the folks who used airtime to unload her karma onto the rest of us.
My point was that the fact that there are people dealing with hurt isn’t NEWS. We’ve all been there, most of us have the manners to share the hurt with those we’re close to, and depend on instead of getting an entire nation to cry with us.
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Comment from etrigan
Time July 11, 2003 at 3:01 pm
Geez, you are hard, man.
As someone who has spent the last week (ok…I can admit this) crying almost every night because I’m torn up inside about whether or not we should put our oldest cat to sleep (She’s such a sweetheart — she purrs loudly when you come near her and always wants to be picked up and held. But she leaves a butt-stain everywhere she sits now-a-days.), I think you’re being just a tad harsh.
People like me can hurt for silly reasons, but having your son die in a motorcycle accident is far from silly and there is nothing wrong with being sentimental about his childhood.