Check out Ross Gittins as he punctures the puffed up sympathy for the elderly that is provoked by Australia’s public conversations about “doing it tough”.

Your sympathy’s too selective. If you really cared you’d give the matter a bit more thought and not be such an emotional easy touch. When it comes to ”hard head, soft heart” you flunk on both. … the game we’re playing isn’t about who’s most vulnerable or needy, it’s about who we feel most sympathy for. And when it comes to the deserving poor, age pensioners win hands down. They’re the most socially acceptable among the needy, the ones most like you and me.

This is great journalism.  He neatly disabuses us of the sympathy strings that are jerked by the debate over pension increases.  We simply haven’t taken the time to look into the matter and think a bit harder about it.  It offers cogent criticism of our federal government’s tactics.  Oh, and while we’re at it, also offers some cutting reflections on the experience of being elderly.  There’s something here for everyone:

Although like all successful interest groups they feel greatly put upon, the aged are hugely powerful politically. That’s because there are so many of them, they have so much time to worry about the deal they’re getting – there’s something about old age that makes people greedy – and they get so much sympathy from their children and grandchildren.

And just because I’ve loved the time enough to read three news articles on the topic, it doesn’t improve one jot the fact that I am almost completely ignorant of the plight of nearly all of the groups of people that Gittins names.

Filed under: Family, experiences, media , Australian federal government, false sympathy, pension increases, ross gittins

Tweeting ourselves to death

Check out this brief news article.  The Archbishop of the Catholic Church in England and Wales has gone “on record” with concerns about online social networking.  The article is a bit useless – it is too short and offers no context for his comments (was it a speech, an interview, something else?).  It probably grabs a headline simply because a prominent person (ie. a person with an impressive sounding title) registers some opposition to a phenomenon that only appears to gather more speed everyday – and which all media outlets would love to tap somehow to garner advertising revenue from.

However, I think his Grace (or whatever you’re supposed to call him), is really on the money.  (Figurally, that is.  I can’t imagine his comments will garner him any advertising revenue).  Community is not online.  You can network online, but it’s not really social in the full sense either.  The Archbishop’s comments are quite subtle too – it is not even that mediatised communication replaces other forms of social interaction, but rather they become the standard for social interaction.  The full richness of friendship is lost.

Says he with a blog.  Excuse me while I go text my wife that I love her.

Filed under: Blogging, experiences, media, technology , community, friendship, media advertising, online community, social costs of online technology, social networking

He wasn’t fat

Tragically, a 26 year old man, Lee Marriage, died within a couple of hundred metres of finishing last Sunday’s City2Surf fun-run.  He suffered a heart attack, and the medical staff couldn’t revive him.  Ever on the ball, the newspaper staff have had a geezer at his facebook page, where people have been writing tributes.  Someone who saw it commented (not clear whether in an interview or on Facebook): “He seemed fit, he wasn’t rippling with muscles but he had a slim build – he wasn’t fat.”

O Facebook, source of newspaper stories great and small!  Just before the Olympics, the Tele ran a frontpage story on a couple of our Olympic athletes who had updated their Facebook relationship status.

Are we so ignorant in our consciousness of health, so fixated upon obesity, that this becomes the sole indicator of whether or not we can complete a 14km run and be in tip-top shape?  (Are your muscles rippling?)   Are we so myopic in the face of the vast amounts of information about the world around us, that Facebook is the rule for what is newsworthy?  Can you dumb it down for me, just a little lower, pretty please?

It’s tragic that he died.  It scares me (does it scare you?).  I’m 27, I like to run.  I’ve done the City2Surf.  People in family have high-blood pressure, are obese.  I am not making light of his death.  Nor do I mean to have a go at whoever made those comments.  But, in the interest of public awareness, I’m sure journalists and editors can do a little better, have a little more judgement and responsibility, than Facebook and “he wasn’t fat”.

Filed under: Australia, death, food culture, madness, media, observations, personal, random thoughts, responsibility , City2Surf, death, dumbing it down, facebook, obesity, rant