A Blog Post You Just HAVE to Read! NOW! Your Life Depends on It!!

Okay, well, not really. I’ve had all these thoughts in my head that have just been itching to be printed, but we still don’t have a computer and blogging on a tablet can, at times, be slightly maddening. That said, have you noticed how headlines regarding often tepid subjects can be so sensationalized, while others that should use stronger language are downplayed?

What reminded me of this topic was a subtitle of a news story, this morning, about a father shooting a fox that was attacking his daughter. The headline reads, in part, “Gray fox attacks 10-year-old…”. Underneath the headline it says, “The child’s father came to her aid and euthanized the fox with his pistol.” Ummm…euthanized? The fox was not euthanized, a relatively passive process used to put an old, usually ill animal to sleep. Rather, simply put, the fox was shot. Dispatched. Killed. Terminated. Snuffed. Taken out. Pick your synonym, but euthanized? Let’s call a spade a spade, shall we?

Then there’s these stories that I see on Facebook where something is MIND-BLOWING, GENIUS, NEVER-SEEN-BEFORE, WILL ROCK YOUR WORLD, YOU WON’T BELIEVE IT!! Seriously, it’s like one of those infomercials you see on the telly for what is usually a cheap product that you MUST have or else your life is just not complete. The funny thing is the FB posts I’m referring to are often about simple household “hacks” like baking a cake: “It was just an ordinary cake recipe, until she did THIS! GENIUS!!” Then, if you read it, she probably added an extra egg and some apple sauce or something. Ooh, Einstein in the kitchen!

You can also see this heightened drama in news headlines, especially now that we are in political race campaign time, something that seems to start earlier and last longer with each passing election season. Political headlines and stories are peppered with words like searing, attacked, spectacle, circus, revolt, slammed, blasting, fired back, hit back, blitzes, stormed, surging, and so on. My goodness, so much drama! Are they are talking about grilling steaks, a war, the weather, or football? 😉 Yes, I know–it grabs  the reader’s attention and sells the story (assuming they even read it which many don’t), but is it exhausting to anyone else, besides me?

I have never been one for drama, even as a young girl. Maybe that’s why I always preferred and had more guy friends (they are usually more laid-back about pretty much everything), was fairly quiet and shied away from rumor and gossip (still do), and prefer to watch old movies. I threw that last one in there because so many of today’s movies have such powerful musical scores, that even if the action wasn’t exciting, your adrenaline would still be pumping. Meanwhile, many of the old, classic movies often have either mostly low-key music or, sometimes, none at all. The drama comes from the action, dialogue, and plot, which is often, in my opinion, more intellectual than many of today’s movies.

Anyway, that’s my thought for today. One is enough, ha-ha! Now, back to my low-drama day of grocery shopping, canning pear sauce, and talking to my cat….