Friday 12th October
Today I am in Grumpy Mode.
I listen to the radio a lot, when I am walking to and from work, when I am cooking, when I am having insomniac moments. So I get lots of ABC news and commentary. I also read the newspapers a bit, and look at a few newsy blogs. (Mainly News Lite but never mind…I don’t like TOO much indigestible information.)
When we were away on 2XS Pete and I hardly heard or saw any news at all. This was so very pleasant; I was a bit surprised. I thought I would pine for my regular updates but no, it was really very soothing NOT to know the latest drama, horror, gossip.
At the moment I feel a bit too well-informed. When I was walking down from West Hobart this morning, it came to me that politics, and indeed the ABC news, really follows the 80/20 rule.* So much energy, time, effort goes into the noisiest, most demanding, and often least important aspects. (It’s the same in classrooms – 20% of the students get 80% of the attention.)
No point, really, in getting into Grumpy Mode, is there? It was ever thus…
But…I am heartily sick of Peter Slipper, Alan Jones, the gay marriage debate, the sexist/misogynist debate.
I want to shout at the politicians, and at the media:
Peter Slipper, Alan Jones et al – individuals behaving badly, very rude and inappropriate, shut up, go away. NEXT!
Gay marriage – why not? NEXT!
Name-calling in parliament – be more polite. NEXT!
Sexism/misogyny are not the same thing. No, neither is acceptable. Try harder. Moving on. NEXT!
Because there are, of course, VERY important issues to be dealt with.
Just for a start:
The environment
The economy
Health
Education
A workable, humane policy for asylum seekers
Sigh sigh…
On a positive note – it is FRIDAY!
* 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers
80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers
80% of your profits come from 20% of the time you spend
80% of your sales come from 20% of your products
80% of your sales are made by 20% of your sales staff
(from Wikipedia)
You are very right! Mind you I watch Sunrise in the mornings while I do my Pilates. This is even worse for giving us repeated news stories about individual shock/drama (ratings) stories. Why do I continue to choose this show when I know that there is an ad free ABC version which is more informative and world newsish? Well to be honest I can't resist a bit of light entertainment tabloid news to start my day. Just like 80% of the population I guess!
ReplyDeleteGah! I agree but maybe you shouldn't read my blog post today, all about Julia :P
ReplyDeleteNicky - nothing wrong with Sunrise (News Lite...) Much more digestible...I can't take to much doom & gloom and I do like a bit of gossip and chat. I suppose what I really mean is that I want our politicians to stop using parliament to argue, fight, bitch - would prefer them to solve all of our REAL issues, so that I can enjoy a bit of News Lite...
ReplyDeleteYes, you mean do what we elected them to do? How great would that be ...
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