Posted on 07/09/2011 7:30:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
What is the fascination with Casey Anthony? One 96-year-old grandmother in Alabama was so fixated; she knew the names of Casey’s entire family, the defense team, the witnesses and prosecutors. The Nielsen ratings demonstrated clearly that millions of Americans spent hour upon hour of their own precious lives watching this tragic scenario unfold. But why?
Some say it’s because Caylee Anthony was a pretty little girl…her mom somewhat pretty…and white. A less attractive mother or child or a minority would not get the same attention, they argue. Maybe so. It probably did contribute to media coverage. Visual appeal is an important criteria for television. Storms are perfect as are accidents and people moving about in all sorts of ways. Thinking doesn’t play well on TV. Neither does nobility or thoughtfulness. Rash, erratic behavior…boorish rudeness…aggression….overt sexuality. These look good on camera.
It certainly was the common denominator with the media obsession over Natalee Holloway, La Crosse beauty Yeardley Love…Nicole Smith and Scott & Laci Peterson. It might explain why they got media attention, but it doesn’t explain why we watched it. Why did we watch it? Why did we devote hours of our own lives…hours we can never reclaim on the OJ trial?
Is it uplifting to the soul? Does it make us smile? Do we come back into our own reality feeling better? Does it challenge the intellect? Does it make us grateful? Does it encourage us to achieve? Does it energize or motivate?
It does none of these. Watching the Casey Anthony saga or any other tabloid tail is a squandering of your life. It is a misdirection of your mental energies. Gambling drains precious financial resources causing you to neglect paying your bills. Inordinate amounts of time spent watching this kind of coverage drains other precious resources; your time and your attention. The amount you have of that is finite. It can never be reclaimed. While children or spouses or friends or needy neighbors or responsible citizenship or just plain hard work clamor for us, we blithely turn to the screen, seemingly paying no price, or at least, none we can feel in the moment.
One has only to visit the homes of America’s Founding Fathers to be amazed at their accomplishments. Thomas Jefferson was an inventor….Benjamin Franklin, the Ambassador to France, developed a printing press, founded the U.S. Post Office, invented electricity, the kite, and the Franklin Stove. In his spare time he helped write the Constitution and found the United States of America. George Washington was a surveyor and horticulturalist. Many wrote books, learned astronomy, French, Latin, and Greek while they were already busy adults.
What will future generations say of us? Will they remember all we accomplished or the hours we spent motionless, living vicariously thru the tawdry lives of others?
Did the great men of our past write noble things and think noble thoughts by accident? No. It is undeniable that we become what we surround and saturate our minds with. Advertising executives know this well. So do Leftist educators who have given us a generation of people who reflect the propaganda of their textbooks. Long time hostages can come to think and act like their captors. Imbibing pornographic images can cause men to act upon and think thoughts they would not otherwise have entertained. Romance novels find their power in stirring up female fantasies, destroying marriages that in other generations might have been saved. It matters what we read and see and listen to.
We are not forced to absorb such banality. We choose to absorb it. And we can choose not to. Americans are obsessed with diet. They understand that processed foods, carbohydrates and sugars make them fat. They don’t seem to understand that taking things into the mind without discipline produces fat, sluggish minds. Bad content produces bad results. And we can change both. We know how to discipline our bodies so how about our minds?
Ben Franklin actually formed a “Young Men’s Society” for the purpose of achieving character. Members worked toward obtaining one attribute at a time; honesty…generosity…humility. You can imagine it was an uphill battle, but it was, at least, up hill.
Casey Anthony’s story is tragic, but it is not important to all of us who are strangers. Turn the television off realizing that each moment that remains is precious.
I think it was the idea that some mother could be so inherently evil that she’d kill her daughter, just so she could go party.
I think that was the hook.
It consumes crazy people who have no life. This also happened to Ramsey family after their daughter was killed. All kinds of fools coming out of the woodwork with their theories of how that girl died.
I still change the channel whenever this crap comes on.
I can only imagine Nancy Grace’s reaction. LOL
Maybe the fixation comes from the fact that people are TOO SCARED to even think that our nation is on FIRE.
This is exactly how I feel about the Casey Anthony trial, and also reality TV. Who cares?
I was forced to watch a little bit of this in a waiting room and I almost laughed out loud when they showed people outside chanting ‘appeal appeal’. Are they really so dumb as to think that is possible?
The fascination for me was the jury. They bought the defense story that the child died in the pool and then they put duct tape on her mouth, put her in a garbage bag, and discarded her body in a swamp.
A head shaker, like OJ.
This is the same syndrome that causes people to slow up on the freeway to watch a guy changing a tire. Their lives are so humdrum and plain that even such mundane events as a trial pulls them in. Most people lead unbelievable lives of frustration and boredom. God forbid they should read a book, go to a museum or learn something about the world they inhabit.
I feel its one of the escapes in peoples lives. When your life is better than the criminals you can complain and be in disgust.
How far are we than the crazies. Who has not been bad about their children?
IT IS BEYOND amusing to hear talking heads itch out and over other talking heads. Talkers are just that talkers, maybe just maybe one step above used car salesmen/women, and thus far all those telling US what it is we should be doing or NOT doing are exposing themselves for being IDIOTS.... jealousy is never a pretty thing to watch. THIS for me was never about ‘ratings’, but a flash image of what American society has deteriorated into .... TRUTH is the first casualty of any civil society.
I think the jury was too lazy to think this through. They just wanted to go home to Pinellas county. Her refusal to testify and her damning jail phone conversations are evidence of a guilty conscience.
“...One 96-year-old grandmother in Alabama was so fixated; she knew the names of Casey’s entire family...”
I wouldn’t base the American public’s interest on the likes of a 96 year old granny.
My mother at 93 watched the tv listings with the little celebrity interviews scrunched above them because “they have most interesting programs.” Yeah, she had the attention span of 6 month old by that time.
The media pushes these stories to distract from what is going wrong in this country. You wouldn’t know from our lefty editorial board in our paper because Obama’s name is rarely mentioned.
It’s always the ev-e-el GOP.
It irritates me to no end to read and hear how Americans really don’t care when we do, but cutting through the massive propaganda is difficult.
I only know about this because of the last several days - I could give a s_it about a murdering mother and her family. There are thousands of missing children my heart cries for everyday and I don’t know who they are. If the main stream media wants me to watch it I auto pilot off that subject.
I think we want to see evil punished. The fact that the mother was partying, having a good time made her look guilty. 99.9 people would be in deep depression if they were innocent.
Today we see so many people getting away with evil deeds and it makes us mad. We know she will one day face God and he will bring justice. But it’s right that evil is punished here on earth so others will see the consequences of evildoing.
I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless.
Isaiah 13:10-12
uh...it’s easier to understand for most people than the
national debt and deficit?
/s
Casey Anthony's story is not tragic.
Caylee Anthony's is.
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