Monday 17 December 2012

Woodcare pt. 2 (plus a rant)

  I'm going to share this article, as with all the talk over the shooting of those schoolkids it is worth remembering that most people with mental ill-health do not go on to become killers.  I live with depression, I'm also autistic, I even have the so-called "warrior gene", yet I struggle to think of any situation in which I could murder.  Such a thing is either in a person or it is not, but most forms of mental ill-health do not contribute to it.  The panic which follows such events will inevitably lead to some poor sod with hyperactivity or autism or mutism - or even just someone who is unusually shy - who has never harmed a person in their life getting lynched by a bunch of eejits (egged on by the Sun) who confuse different with dangerous.  The problem has chiefly to do with culture.

  I found this quote.  It's attributed to Morgan Freeman, but then a lot of quotes on the internet are attributed to Morgan Freeman just because it gives them a measure of authority:-
"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."
Whoever actually wrote this has gotten it bang on.

Okay, pictures of finished things now.

And I've succeeded in fucking about with the heliotropic behaviour of a bramble.  Hooray!


7 comments:

  1. I'm probably going to go home soon. Really not feeling too well, and I might take tomorrow off to recover fully. So I won't be in if you're still planning to come in at 4pm. Maybe leave it until later, perhaps Friday morning?

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    1. Friday morning's good for me. What time?

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  2. I've got A2 for a quiz 9-11 so that'd be a perfect time as it'll be quite informal.

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    1. Okie doke. Hey, you seen about the bramble with the contrary heliotropism?

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    2. I have now - that's most odd!

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    3. The "head" of the plant now moves like the shadow of a sundial. Presumably it'll be a good few months before it defaults back to the standard pattern.

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    4. If the pattern hasn't already been described elsewhere then I'll call it "Sundial Heliotropism". Now to research...

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