friday free for all
… Yesterday, after a fairly substantial lunch, I had a substantial dinner. I am now very much wallowing in my own glut.
… This morning, somewhere in New York, a thirty-four year old man was trampled to death outside a Wal-Mart (some photos). Fucking bullshit. Everyone says I need to be more positive. Fuck that.
If a mob of assholes can kill someone and continue to walk past, blindly trying to find discounts on severely discounted items, I can think the world’s going to shit. I think I’m more than justified. Prove me wrong.
… There were terrorist attacks on India. Major networks couldn’t get their inflated heads out of their ample asses. Instead (to give the impression they knew what they were doing) they started using an unknown man’s photos that they’d seen on blogs.
Vinu Ranganathan’s photos are intense. This is a positive moment for “citizen journalism” after a series of hilarious missteps. (Steve Jobs had a heart attack? Where’s my iPhone? Must. Tell. Everyone.) He has become overnight famous, in the right place at the wrong time.
If our media insists on reporting uninteresting nothing, emphasizing monuments and waiting for intriguing, trite human interest stories to react, we’ll need more like Vinu. We need perspective and context but the media ignores that too, so knee-jerk, quick response images and tweets will have to do.