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.
Because we’re the same people who enjoy reading true crime and trial stories. It happens to be our choice and our taste.
“”If they could get at her, they would lynch her. We have seen it before and we will see it again””
Who and when?
“”After all they showed pictures or videos of her playing with Caley””
Yep and if you’re Geraldo Rivera, this is evidence of a devoted mother. Show us the pictures of her really taking care of her child...feeding her, bathing her, clothing her, taking her to parks, shopping with her, SWIMMING with her and on and on. There aren’t any!!!
Dead on right. If it wasn't Casey Anthony, we'd be seeing 24/7 coverage and media dissection of George Clooney's love life. Anything to avoid talking about the fact that we are being run by a tyrannical, seditious bunch of Communists. The majority of people in this country are in the same mindset as the people of Germany in the 1930s. "My neighbors disappeared? Oh, they probably just moved. Nothing like that would happen here."
I think to these people it’s nothing more than a reality show or a cop show like CSI. There’s little that’s realistic about them, but they’re made to feel part of the action.
The worst of them become legal sages among their group and pontificate without ever having been part of any of these processes (investigation, indictment, arrest, trial, finding (guilty or not guilty), sentencing/dismissal and incarceration.
Personally, I don’t find them all that much dumber than the so-called police and legal experts the media trot out to explain things to us.
That’s exactly what the cause of death was. Casey woke up one day, decided she had had enough and wrapped Caylee in duct take alive.
Cause of death: Asphyxiation.
Yes, that's the one.
Better a guilty person go free then toconvict n innocent person.
In the future she will screw up again, and not be so lucky!
This case has been like a big, gory traffic accident. You know that what has been seen can’t be unseen...but you look anyway.
That isn't the right question. It isn't just this little girl that America and the world get fixated on. Remember Natalie Holloway? Nicole Simpson?
We will be fed, electronically, one dead female after the other. The appetite is insatiable, and the delivery system is relentless and remorseless.
That is one reason I quit television about 12 years ago. Ain't been back since.
People are fascinated, because we each live difficult and very trying lives. But in this home, which looks fairly average, things turned tragically wrong.
We want to know exactly what happened, so we can know if it could happen in our particular family, or to someone in our extended family or to friends at work or in the neighborhood.
It is a very “micro level” human story.
Which is why I don't watch 'the boob tube' and haven't in decades. I believe I am a better man for it...
the infowarrior
Thank you.
I hate snobby little articles like this and most of the snobby little replies I have read thus far.
If you don't understand why this was news, you do not understand the human condition.
Good theory. More escapism with a realty twist. Helps them look away from the car crash.
Me, I think it is ridiculous. Yea a kid is dead but the country is one the literal edge. We have bigger fish to fry.
Yikes!
one=on
Perfect!
Tail? LMAO....this INTELLECT meant tale. Good grief.
A sleezy defense attorney threw out some bald faced lying accusations with no intent to ever prove what he said. Does this make him some kind of hero for duping the jury with his total disregard for the truth or the facts?
Is this going to be the way justice for a victim is going to be tried in the future?
All you can do is criticize the author about one tiny misspelled word? Like you have never misspelled anything *rme*
The Powers-that-be simply would rather that We the People have as many Casey Anthony stories as possible...preferably far away in Florida or California -to examine in lurid detail...than to focus on the nonsense in DC.
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