Society – Coming to you live, 24 hour FEAR

Every channel in High Definition, all those in Standard Definition, coming in Stereo, Mono, televisual and audio, web-cast, podcast, newsprint, magazine, telepathically hooked into your nervous system comes... The News!

The bombardment of human existence by news broadcasts continues unabated today as the media continues to scour the planet for bad news. In every corner of the globe, on every continent, in every country, state, fief, and city fear is found and delivered to you. And you just take it all in. Absorb it visually, aurally, and by osmosis. You're hooked, addicted; a fear junkie and you probably don't even realise it.

Try something new, go without news for two weeks and see how you feel. Don't read the gossip magazine, avoid the daily newspaper, skip the hourly radio updates, avoid the dawn, morning, mid-morning, midday, mid-afternoon, evening, night, and late night news. I've done it and feel much better for it.

Do you really need to keep that up to date with things outside your control? Is the war in Iraq and Afghanistan really all that important to your daily life? Is the latest celebrity scandal necessary to your well-being? Does the latest anti-social allegation against a sports personality actually impact your home life?

So you need a weather report, try going to the Bureau of Meteorology website and getting the forecast without the unnecessary histrionics of the media.

Want sports news, use the internet to get your results or watch the match. Why take part in the gossip that surrounds the game, it doesn't add to the game itself.

It all comes down to your choice of tuning in, encouraging the creation of material for your consumption. Use your democratic right to not partake in this form of media and watch them change to get you back. It's a numbers game: subscribers = money. Take away the subscribers and you impact their ability to generate income.

It starts with a single viewer making the choice.

Do you want a fear driven media or do you want actual news without the added flair? Your choice. Your power. Use it.

So, why am I harping on about this? Well, it's Saturday morning, I'm a little fuzzy from the birthday I attended last night and I'm on a bus into the central markets, and there are a half a dozen people reading the newspaper, or rather the Advertiser, a rag tat passes for a broadsheet. Their faces are grim as they navigate the column inches. Is this their natural expression, I don't know. All I do know is that they are not happy people. Their eyes are sunken and hollow, the lines on their face makes them look like a bulldog, cheeks hanging loose and floating at the sides of their chins. I'm wondering if they have ever smiled, experienced any joy.

An old man matching the description above gets on the bus, an old white man with a gibbon throat and scratchy voice and starts talking to the driver. The driver is a Sikh, immaculately dressed with pants crease and pressed shirt, his turban a clean powder grey.

“Do you have one of these?” The man says holding out a bus ticket recently introduced that allows pensioners to travel free on weekends (an incentive by the state government to retain the grey vote).
“Yes sir” The driver replies, “may I see your card sir?”
“No. I just want one of these”
“I need to see the card sir, make sure.”
“No. The ticket.”
The Driver gives up and gives him the ticket and the old man moves to take his seat, grumbling under his breath something bitter.

This has got my attention. When I boarded the bus, I wished the driver a good morning and he cheerily responded. He pulled away from the curb gently. A few stops later he pulls in and informs a passenger sitting directly behind him that they have come to the stop he asked for. The passenger has a large bag which the driver helps him get off the bus. By all accounts this is a good bus driver – skilled in handling the large machine, polite and helpful. Why would anyone have an issue with him? Is it because he's a Muslim? Entirely possible.

The old man was carrying his copy of the Advertiser and is reading it as the journey progresses. Maybe he's just read another scary tale of Muslim terror, I don't know. I do know that I do not like this old man. I don't like anyone that can't spare a second to be polite. I don't like people that are bitter.

Years ago I dated this girl whose father was a news addict. He was retired and spent his days watching the news, keeping up with global events. He barely slept and spent most of his time digesting news. He was one of the most bitter human beings I have ever met – a man of the land, turned retired suburbanite, a fierce labour supporter his entire life until John Howard taught him to hate the 'free ride' the new generation has been given, a man who sacrificed for his family and swore to serve Christ but refused to attend church because that's where Satan gets you. This man had no good news in him, jut bad bitter racist information filtered through the television, radio and print media. Any opinion that ran counter to his was anti-Australian, anti-Christian. He was a terrible human being. He is not alone. I have met others.

After a small hiatus I'm back to complete my thought processes and publish this blog. It's Monday morning, for most it is the start of the working week and I'm sitting on a bus heading into the city. There are twenty people on the bus and none of them is smiling. There are only newspapers in sight but four of the 15 passengers look to working on school assignments – all but three of the passengers are high school students.

Without repeating anything previous, I'm concerned for my society, people should not be so unhappy with their existence. Their faces should not naturally be set to scowl or frown, because I am sure that nobody here is actually trying to be down. That would be silly and I just wouldn't understand it if that was the case.

I'm not in my best mood this morning but my I'm content because I know that htings could be a lot worse. When I have travelled, I have seen poverty that has ripped at my heart. When I move around South Australia I don't get the same hollow pain of our country's success over others when I see people in poverty. I wonder, what is stopping these people from being able to claim their place here. I do earnestly hope that we may be able to pull ourselves out of this and make a go at a positive future, but as I was reminded yesterday – People don't want to pay for things like health and education, they just want to earn all the money they can.

So please, remember the next time you watch or read something, you are using your democratic right to partake. If you are unhappy with what's being produced stop watching/reading and don't go back until it is what you want. This is you right and at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, it is the last power you have as an individual.

A more coherent post next time I promise you.