Since I started this thread, I'm going to tie it up once and for all. And,
yes, there is still some track and field in this post:
So how should the AWLs feel about Steve Irwin's (Crocodile hunter) Federal
Express commercial which depicts a snakebite from the "most deadliest snike
in the woyld". Given that snakebites kill tens of thousands each year,
surely you must be horrified at this flippant treatment of such a serious
matter?
>As for whether people like the Texas Chainsaw murder exist, you only need
to
>watch discovery channel (The New Detectives, Forensic Science, Mind of a
>Serial Killer, etc) to know that they do.
>
>Kathy Rounds
I've seen all of those documentaries on serial killers and not one of them
used a chainsaw. Not Jack the Ripper, David Berkowitz, Ted Bundy, Kenneth
Bianchi and Angelo Buono, Aileen Wuornos, Henry Lee Lucas, Albert DeSalvo,
John Wayne Gacy Jr., Wayne Williams, Richard Speck, Richard Ramirez, Jeffrey
Dahmer -- not one of them!
That's the same educational Discovery Channel where children learn about how
brutally unfair natural selection in the animal kingdom is, isn't it? Which
image is more comforting than the Nike ad? The damn hyenas harassing the
lions until the male lion finally gets fed up and kills their leader? The
predator lioness lurking in the tall grass waiting to ambush and murder a
cute Thompsons Gazelle fawn? How about when a pride is taken over, all of
the males kill the cute, cuddly lion cubs? That's educational. What about
the mother Killer Whale teaching her young how to hunt and brutally batter
(cute) baby seals for food AND sport? Vivid reenactments of Grizzly bears
attacking unsuspecting hikers in our National Forests? Desmond Morris
documentary on human sexuality complete with a clinical "money shot"?
Cultural anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon's forays into the Amazon jungle to
study the social breakdown of the Yanomamo and REAL murder and mayhem? Sure
sheds a different light on those Nike ads, doesn't it?
Just change channels to PBS, right? Oh no, those damn Magruder Tapes again.
The humanity of it all, that's REAL people being barbecued in the Hindenburg
isn't it?
Turn off the TV, that's the solution, right? Reading is much better for them
isn't it? Nope. Lurking in the eerily quiet isles of the library are Homer,
Shakespeare, Nabokov, Hemingway and countless others with tales of rape,
murder, incest, torture, and war. Your history and sociology books aren't
much better, with the endless stories of pain and suffering.
OK, forget the library then, your daily newspaper is safe. But, noooooooooo!
Right there on the front page: airline, train, and auto accidents with all
the gory details on the front page to frighten them. I've never seen a Nike
ad try to parody a Mafia hit, but in Newsweek, Time and your daily newspaper
they've publishished photos of Paul Castellano in a pool of blood in front
of Sparks Steakhouse and Carmine Galante's bullet-riddled body with a cigar
still clenched in his teeth.
Well then, keep your kids away from the weighty periodicals -- let them read
PEOPLE and GLAMOUR. Another bad move. Nothing but photos of JFK Jr. and
Princess Diana, both dead. Of course the women's magazines will teach your
daughter "15 Summer sex tricks to get and keep a man!"
Don't count on the arts as being a safe harbor, either. Picasso's Guernica
is a sure cause of nightmares. Take up music lessons and they learn of the
horrors Jimmy Hendrix, Mamma Cass, Curt Cobain. Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie.
Sports are the answer then. Want chilling? How about the tragic death of
Austrian skier Ulrike Maier. On your television in prime time. Joe Theisman
breaks his leg again...and again...and again...and again! What could be more
horrific than to watch Dennis Miller commit professional suicide on Monday
Night Football? Since this list is about track and field, after all, aren't
you concerned with so many REAL DEATHS caused by throwing implements that
your child could be severely affected by the sight of one of these "weapons"
being used in the name of sport?
Kids have it so much tougher these days, with AIDS, Epstein-Barr, Carpal
Tunnel, Attention Deficit Disorder just waiting to grab them. They need to
be protected, coddled and numbed with Prozac and other psychotropic drugs.
They can't even ride a bike without a helmet under penalty of law. Have we
forgotten that kids fall down, go boom, get up and play again? Whose idea is
it to create a nation of sissies?
Is the innocuous Nike ad, which is a parody of an entire movie genre, really
as horrifying as any of the aforementioned REAL images that bombard children
every day?
malmo
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