I'm always tickled -- not in a good way -- when stock market watchers announce that one of two things has happened: oil prices have dropped from their historic peak, or stocks have dropped from their -- well, is 'current droopy level' a sufficiently concise description?
Whatever, they fascinate me because short of amazing events, gas prices are going to continue to climb, and they're going to do it in an up and down -- but mostly up -- path, just as stock prices, though they are pretty poor now (and likely to get worse), are going to eventually go back up (though you ever notice that the people who say this in the trade press never add '..but they'll never get to where they would have been had they not dropped). Thats just what they do. Price of gas goes up. Stocks go up, and down, and up again. Thats just what they do.
So why is it always NEWS! when it happens?
4 comments:
Its just another way for the media to avoid covering things that actually matter.
And probably also because as a country we tend to care about money more than anything, so whatever is affecting our money at the moment matters.
To tell you the truth, Shannon, I am not sure I would READ a paper that covered the items that really mattered, all the time, and nothing but. How you make up a paper like that, how you select your target audience -- thats an interesting question.
And yeah, it always comes down to money. I'm reading Almost French at the moment, and she's just made some interesting observations about the core of 'being French' that have given me reason for thought. Not deep thoughts, but still....
I don't think I would be able to read stuff that really mattered all the time too. Is that a human thing or have we been conditioned that way? Who knows...
Sounds like an interesting book. I took a class on modern France last semester (French Rev to modern day). It was fascinating to see this culture react and behave differently than the anglo-saxon culture I am so used to seeing. It was challenging to put my mind into the French perspective.
I think that we just get overwhelmed. A Doonesbury strip, years ago, had a character saying that he no longer was concerned about something; he'd moved on to newer, fresher tragedies. I think thats where we are -- and our horizon for caring is pretty narrow. It doesn't make us bad. Most people don't have the scope of action or freedom to care about more than two or three things outside of our normal scope. On bad days, less than that.
Post a Comment