The Media coverage of celebrity deaths...

After having finally and successfully gotten rid of feudalism (thanks to the French Revolution, Egalité, Liberté, Fraternité...democracy et al) - we, the society have finally and successfully reinvented it...
Only that these days we have replaced nobility (perhaps even the Gods?) with celebrity.
We put perfect commoners on pedestals, endowing them with rights, privileges and too much money, thereby perpetuating a system of inequality and privileges that we have ever since sought to overcome...
At the same time - ironically - we love to see the same people fall from said pedestal, fall from grace, die tragic and untimely deaths, struggle with alcolism etc...we indulge in their plight, because somehow (in a very dismal way) it reminds us of the fact that they're only human after all - and that they're just like us at the end of the day...
This is so insane!
We need to ask ourselves why we put these people on pedestals in the first place, endowing them with wealth and privileges, thereby creating a caste of over-privileged individuals - if we so feel the need to see them fall from said pedestal, if we so strive for equality?!

Do we really need this? Do we need Gods that we see fall only to remind us that the Gods are human just like us...

The down-side of our dismal obsession with celebrity is the constant media-coverage of every of these people's moves...whether they stage this coverage themselves (Jane Goody for instance) or whether "celebs" find it hard to deal with papps and the loss of their privacy.
Following people around even to their death bed is in poor taste - on either side of the equation...
Photographing individuals on their way to a dying loved-one is equally in poor taste and as superfluous and necessary as a bleeding mole on your foreskin...

I think most people would agree that this type of media-coverage has little to nothing to do with 'journalism'.

This society has become scaringly decadent...showing obvious signs of decline and disintegration.

The Bad Seed...

The media have changed drastically over the last 30 years. What used to be in poor taste or simply *unthinkable* has become perfectly acceptable these days. Cable TV has managed to make us believe that humilation and contempt for human beings (fear factor et al) actually is entertainment.
What does it say about us, about the state of affairs if we (i. e. a large portion of society) consider these types of shows entertaining...it's all about humilation, ridiculing and exposing people...
We have sold out our human dignity...and what have we traded our dignity in for...for fast bucks, and our 15 minutes of fame...
We have to reconsider our attitude towards the media, TV, the internet. Shows that damage the dignity of an individual (I bet you will et al) should be banned - full stop. This may sound over-the-top, but disrespect and bullying both start HERE.
That's what I tried to break to my kids at school today...It always starts with *little things* and it goes further down from there - *little things* accumulate. Also, we get used to this stuff quite easily...it's called habituation.
We have to monitor what our kids see on TV, in the internet...and no, dissing someone isn't funny, really, as much as ridiculing people in public isn't - it is simply inacceptable.
We have too root out this "bad seed"...before it blossoms.

Reporting from the War Zone...

Today, just one day after the massacre of Winnenden, a highschool in my area had to be closed.
I met up with colleagues today and two of them told me that their school was closed today due to an announcement that was made last month in the internet...last month someone had announced a bloodbath at the school where these colleagues of mine work...until yesterday, it seems, the announcement hadn't been taken too seriously...that has changed drastically within the last 24 hours.
School closed, police shows up, the full program...it's coming closer and the rope around our neck is getting tighter and tighter...

Tune if for the next shoot-out...coming soon...to a school near you!*

* [Excuse my cynism, but right now, it's all that I have left to say...]

Amok, Part Two...

A seventeen-year-old student killed nine fellow students, three teachers (one of them a trainee - like myself) and three passers-by.
The school where the killing took place is situated in the town of Winnenden in Southern Germany (see link)...Winnenden has 28 000 inhabitants...it definitely qualifies as a *small town* by all standarts...

I have NO words...no words at all...I'm just sad beyond words, beyond words...sorry beyond words...for the dead kids - most of them girls - sorry for the killed "colleagues" and for their loved ones...

God bless...

My Father...

Paths...

I guess I'm going through a mild midlife crisis at the moment :)

Life is about choices, decisions...and what I'm currently doing is question every major decision that I've taken thus far in my life...
Should I have been more daring, more courageous, less reasonable, less cautious...Should I have studied photography after all - instead of linguistics...etc Perhaps these questions inevitably come with age, maybe it's normal to question oneself and one's choices rather strongly at a certain stage in one's life...
I can definitely say that it is tiring to question oneself...tiring and somewhat frustrating, but perhaps it's healthy to take an honest look at oneself and to honestly ask oneself if one is happy with one's life, with one's choices.
Is this my path...are these my goals...?
Right now I know less than I ever knew...not that I ever really had one single goal, one singular dream in my life that I wanted to accomplish at all costs. I've always had short-term goals (life has taught me not to plan too long ahead)...like getting my MA in lingustics, like working at a university abroad...
Maybe the security that I have now (even the possibility to become a civil servant at the end of the training period), the kind of security that I never had in the past, is in fact a honey trap - a golden cage.
Golden and as sweet as honey...
Security in the face of a global financial crisis is a very tempting and promising perspective...but nonetheless...it feels like a cage somehow - like a trap. So that's it, that's what I'm gonna do for the rest of my (professional) life...
As much as I like teaching, this perspective isn't all that golden in my book, it's choking me somehow...
Security...too much security appeases you, too much security has the potential to make you phlegmatic and lethargic...
I believe that you need to stay "hungry" to some degree in order to make the most of your potential...too much security can allay this hunger...

Life is about choices...have I made the right choices and most importantly, am I on the right path...on my path or - in reference to my last blog - am I in my element? I don't know...not yet at least...

Nederland...

When I think of the Netherlands, I think WATER...there is no other place I know where water is the domineering element.