A news story making the rounds today involves a man named George Burgess the director of the international shark attack file at the University of Florida . He is suggesting that the reduction in shark attacks this year is because the bad economy is causing fewer people to vacation and go into the water. So apparently if there are only 250 rather than 300 people in the water sharks don't have a big enough selection to eat. Whether intended as a news of the dumb story or not it represents a growing annoyance I have been having. People and news outlets under the guise of rationality and objectivity finding it necessary to apply meaning to all events according the news story of the day. A couple of years ago this reduced shark attack level would have been because of global warming. In just post 911 times because of terrorists? Of course if I remember what I just read right there were even fewer shark attacks in 2003. Probably the bird flu caused this decrease. Sure there are real economic problems and I think global warming is an issue worth solving but if these people find the need to put meaning to all events that happen around them with some kind of flavor of the day belief system it would be a lot more consistent of them to just say it is because of what ever religious deity they believe in wants it this way. I would respect this answer a lot more and could chose whether or not to take their argument seriously a lot faster. Of course then shark attacks, terrorism and the bad economy would all be because of broke back mountain and the Academy giving Sean Penn the best actor award for his portrayal of a gay politician in the movie Milk .
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2 comments:
But if they don't tell us what to think we will not know what to do.
Way to go coonon! (thats the verification word I needed to type in)
I changed to a verification mode because I got spammed on my blog yesterday and spent 2 hours removing viral comments today. I like your report of your word because I have often thought it would be fun to make a story out of verification words. Your comment about the news telling us what to think is so right. They suck and are dying because they spend most of their efforts telling people the way to think about news events rather than just reporting objectively about them.
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