I was standing in line at the local grocery store today and noticed that Tiger Woods’ visage was on the cover of almost every supermarket tabloid. Thinking back, Tiger’s escapades and exploits have dominated not only the sports and entertainment media but also garnered significant air time on many of the current events and news shows I frequently listen to. We’ve been titillated by Tiger for more than three weeks and can’t seem to get enough.
All this, while President Obama had given a speech at West Point that, while sufficiently Obama-esqe to have put the Cadets to sleep, was notable for having outlined an Afghanistan war plan been so irresolute that it angered both liberals and conservatives. He followed that up by dissing the King of Norway (after having shown excessive deference to almost every other world leader he’s met) and then giving a Nobel Prize acceptance speech that could have been drafted by his predecessor’s writers.
We have Congress debating the unconstitutional usurpation of almost 20% of the US economy, an EPA that believes human exhalation constitutes air pollution, and a bunch of globalists meeting in Copenhagen intend on enacting the greatest redistribution of wealth from productive economies to non-productive economies in history. This, despite the fact that their reason for meeting possible was the result of data fabrication, or at least the suppression of standard scientific review.
I arrived home and fired up my computer, ready to spend a couple hours poring over today’s news and putting my thoughts about the same onto others’ flat panel displays. A quick perusal of the day’s blog stats revealed the site had been visited exactly…one time? Yes, one curious person read what I had spent considerable time penning earlier this week. Despite all the events that are guaranteed to impact our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren, few thought it worth their time to do some deep reading.
I realize I’m not a Pulitzer Prize writer and I don’t have a huge readership. And just maybe those who do take time from their busy schedules to perhaps glean some insight from my articles were simply busy today. So I decided to conduct a test. I posted a playful picture and a provocative headline and as is my habit, forwarded it to Facebook. Within thirty, count ‘em, thirty minutes, the site had received ten hits and ALL to that article. [Note: that number grew to 30 within an hour.] Then I posted this, the result of the “test.”
Few thought it worthwhile to read about the ongoing health care debacle I’d written about twice this week nor the correlation between Pearl Harbor and 9/11. But the headline “Hot Monkey Love” drew readers like football players to a fumble. The airing of Tiger’s sexual proclivities enthralls the masses. We are an unserious people. We ignore the dismantling of our core constitutional values while we revel in promiscuity and depravity. We’re getting what we deserve.
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Sadly, I have been busy recently. I always read your blog and encourage others to do the same. I didn’t see the hot monkey love post, but I probably would have clicked on that too knowing you had written the article. As a friend of mine always says, fifty percent of something is far better than 100 percent of nothing. Sometimes one reader makes a difference, or perhaps, you make a difference to him/her.
People are visual, innovation has made us focus on a picure than on the words beside it. A picture says a thousand words in less amount of time then it would be to read a thousand words. Don’t be discouraged that a picture of cute little monkeys enlisted such curiosity.
I’m not discouraged that people are “curious” about pictures of monkeys. Quite frankly, that’s not why they linked to that post. I’m discouraged because when my normal post titles show up in Facebook no one bothers to follow the link. But the number of people who had no idea what my post was about but were piqued by the thought it was sexual in nature was amazing. (For some reason Heather I think you truly believed it was about monkeys. Good on ya, for that.)
The entire point of the exercise was that people will spend hours on Facebook making posts about blather and trivial things. Subjects that are important, they ignore. But offer up “Hot Monkey Love” and they’re there in a heartbeat. It proves most Americans are superficial and foolish so it’s no wonder our government can legislate unconstitutional edicts that usurp the citizen’s rights. We’re too busy surfing the web for titillating content, whiling away mindless hours playing Farmville and Mafia Wars, or talking about nonsense. Meanwhile, the world is changing around us and we couldn’t care less.
We all should be ashamed.
Two comments I’d like to make: First, I look forward to your comments concerning the the new tax to be levied on banks to
punish them for all the harm they’ve caused. I’m being sarcastic about the “all the harm they’ve caused comment.” Seems
to me since most of the banks have paid back the money they were forced to take, Obama is fearing he may be losing
control of them, therefore, he is going to tax them. Just another money grab!
Secondly, I was reading some of the past comments; specifically the “an unserious people” section. If Heather is correct
about the “picture” comment, you know people would rather look at a picture than read 1,000 words, then I strongly suggest
you post some pictures from 9/11. Maybe these pictures would emphasise the seriousness of what is going on with
the TSA and Homeland Security Departments.
I will soon post (tomorrow?) on the disparity in treatment between the administration’s favored scapegoats, e.g. Wall Street compared to its favored entities, like unions.
If Heather was correct then posting pics of 9/11 would be an effective means to make a point. But the point I was making with “An Unserious People” was that average American ignore events that truly affect them to their peril but will flock to salaciousness. It’s sad.