Wrapped up in cotton wool
2008-09-12 08:56
Colleen Figg
I read on the news on Thursday that a girl in India committed suicide because she was afraid the world would end following on from this "Big Bang" particle smashing experiment in Geneva. I must admit I find such a profound lack of logic very alarming.
Her fears surrounding the purported ending of the world seemingly had to do with her expiring in said event, yet she was happy enough to precipitate her death by causing her death as a means to avoid having to face her death. As it were.
Other strange goings-on in the press this week have echoed this inability to think a thing through properly before reacting.
One involves the irate parent who wrote to Chris Roper demanding that he (Roper) write a column for this person?s six year old son, who, whilst perusing the paper, was encouraged to commit rape (in his future life) by the shocking cartoon depicting Zuma and cohorts' rape of our country. This cartoon, said the parent, would teach his/her son that rape was fine.
Thus, the paper was to blame for having published the cartoon and of course Mr Roper was the real ogre, having endorsed the fact that Zapiro was courageous enough to draw the cartoon in the first place.
Thought process
This "thought process" cedes responsibility for the child?s ultimate education on unpalatable subjects like rape, over to the media and its representatives instead of leaving it where it rightfully belongs: with the parents.
"On another note, I know and have known several six year olds, none of whom is ever to be found leafing through papers aiming for the rather serious political cartoons to be found there."
"In fact I remember having to staple my eyelids back at school when the history teachers started droning on about the meaning of political cartoons."
I found them mind numbingly dull and it was only once I prised myself reluctantly away from my youth that I actually looked at any with a sense of interest or understanding.
If this parent is anything to go by we as a country can look forward to a horde of youngsters who are blind, deaf and completely muffled from the realities of life.
They will never have been allowed to be exposed to a newspaper or to television in case they may stumble across something that damages them irrevocably; or worse, something that demands their parents actually step in and answer their difficult questions.
No sex education will be offered in case they then actually go out and have sex (shock, horror!).
Sales in cotton wool will escalate. Intelligence levels, terrifyingly low as it is, will plummet off the charts.
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