Vulture Culture

Without meaning to, I watch the news. It's on at the gym, in my dad's living room, and at some gas pumps. If a piece of news is especially sensational or interesting I will delve deeper online. The latest piece of infomational currency that I came upon was the Massachusetts teen suicide, a result of bullying. After searching online I found and watched a clip with Dr. Susan Lipkins.
Dr. Lipkins referred to our "vulture culture" a term that I find so appropriate. In her website she goes a little further into how modern family values have lead to this.
I have refused to watch shows like American Idol. It annoys me how people who have the heart to do something are ridiculed by the hosts and the home viewers who are often uncouragious slobs that sit at home watching television instead of actually doing something interesting. Reality tv shows are a part of the problem.
But what is the solution? Definitely NOT encouraging your children to turn the other cheek. I wanted to kiss Dr. Lipkins for stating that: VICTIMS ARE CREATED. I advocate teaching manners and politeness...and martial arts...and drawing boundaries.
One of the moms that I am friends with shared a story with me that I adore. A little girl in her son's play group kept hitting her son. When he came to his mother to report this, she said loudly "Next time she does that I want you to hit her as hard as you can." Of course after overhearing this, the little girl left her son alone.
I definitely appreciate standing up for others and other 'pc' means of dealing with bullying, but the best medicine is preventative.

Dear Critical Thinking, please come back

By now everyone with a television has been alerted to the truth bending of Bear Grylls' Man vs. Wild show. It's so much bigger than that. It's all around us, from circuses to the Discovery Channel to Grandpa's hunting magazines.

This months' Audubon magazine has an artice on nature photography that illuminates a type of deceit that I had never thought to be wary of.

http://http://www.audubonmagazine.org/incite/incite1003.html

The article gave examples of photographers capturing amazing shots of a fish jumping out of the water...because someone had poured battery acid into the water. It goes into wildlife farms where captive animals are kept for staging wildlife shots. I'm not going to summarize the article for you. Read it and make up your own mind.

Has integrity taken off with critical thinking? Perhaps they eloped somewhere nice, but it's time the honeymoon ended.

Can something be "even better than the real thing?" It may be an antiquated view, but I think not.