The New Austerity
Are we hurtling toward some sort of cultural precipice? Already gone over it, maybe?
posted by The Cunning Realist at Monday, February 02, 2009
AN OASIS IN A WORLD OF HACKS, HUSTLERS, AND HIRED SPIN
posted by The Cunning Realist at Monday, February 02, 2009
5 Comments:
It's probably the lack of sleep but when I saw this at the bottom of the page I couldn't help but laugh:
Order a high-quality photo print of this image: http://pictopia.com/gallery/yahoo?photo_name=ptl:ap:xt-mt-ap-orig_name_PX105_2009-01-30
How many of these have they sold? Care to guess?
Oy, I just about to eat lunch...
Sums a lot of things up.
They shoot horses, don't they? Years ago, my mother had a conversation with me about the nastiness of marathon dance contests during the depression and how they induced and institutionalized voyeurism of the suffering of others. I began to wonder if history was repeating itself with the appearance of those socially acceptable torment shows (ala, Fear Factor) and alas, the economic indicators also now seem consistent with this analysis. I think the proliferation of these disgusting eating contests (to the extent that there are "professional" eaters) is part of that same ball of wax.
It more about economics than anything. Do anything to make make money, bring in the crowds. The last 20 years have shown us, Wall Street, Enron-types, Fox News/Limbaugh/Rove have shown us, there is no line. Perhaps this is a symbolic image of our current state. Oprah had a family on her show. Their house was like this man. So full with stuff, that it had nowhere to go. When the house threw up, they collected 75 tons of stuff in 15 industrial sized dumpsters. We have big bellies, big trucks, big houses...
Maybe things, in many areas, will get better... It's like we can't preemptively do things right. Little things crumble, it gets bigger, something huge falls, then finally things change. People have been doing crazy stuff for a long time, but, "When you know better, you do better." Personal responsibility is contagious. It's karma.
I don't believe in formal religion, but I do believe we should be thankful and respectful of the things this planet provides. And this was extremely disrespectful. But, I find the use of food, especially in today's world, for anything but nutrition, disturbing. Someone did sponsor this, no? Someone made money. Just think of it as another sort of "bubble", and the "bubble" burst". Icks! Eating is not a sport, professional eating contests are a slap in the face of humanity.
This is worse: "The worst event that Prather witnessed, however, was a dead rat dry-roasting in a peanut area."
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