2003-07-20T18:43:00.000-07:00

Here it is, July already.

I never was very good at journaling!

Why do people seem to be so titalated by other people's misfortune and sorrow?

Someone recently mentioned Blair Hornstine to me. Imagine my pop-culture ignorance, I had never heard of her.

But her story intrigued me. Young girl sues her school to make her sole validictorian. My original though was that it was an entirely foolish suit. At this point in my life, twenty years past high school, I realize how very unimportant something like being a high school valedictorian is. However, I also realize how important it seems when one is eighteen. Nineteen. Even twenty-something. I remember begging to be allowed to take a course over in graduate school because I had gotten, horror of horrors, a B.

I still think it's a foolish waste of court time. The rest of the story, however, intrigues me.

The town was, understandably considering the 2.7 million dollar price tag on the suit, outraged. The girl was found to have plagarized whole blocks of text for newspaper articles, fueling the local fires. Harvard has since recinded their offer of admission.

It is, by all current standards, quite a juicy story.

Why? And why did it capture my attention for several days?

And why is the story still hotly debated, discussed, and analyzed on the 'net?

Entertainment these days seems to focus, more and more, on the misfortunes and suffering of others. Reality Television is certainly a symptom of this phenomona. Watching the evolution of the genre, from the rather banal American Family of the Seventies, to The Real World of the eighties, Survivor and Big Brother of the late ninties, to such increasingly vile programs as Elimidate, Joe Millionaire, and Temptation Island one can see the 'bar being raised' each season to make the program more exciting, more controversial, more scandalous. In short, more a showcase of human misery. This season, Big Brother is bringing the Ex-es of the Houseguests into the fray, hoping, I'm sure, that feathers will fly.

Americans have become addicted to watching other people in embarrasing, painful, and humiliating situations. Jason Dura, a local Psychiatrist, warns that becoming so inured to the televised pain of others puts us at great risk of loosing our compassion and sensitivity to real-life suffering around us.

Which brings me back to Blair Hornstine.

It seems to me that her story has garnered so much attention, and so much animosity in part because of how accustomed to other people's pain and suffering we've become. We forget that the people in the Big Brother House are real, that their pain is real, even if obligingly over-dramatized for the millions watching. And we forget that the people on the receiving end of news stories are real as well, not actors in the latest, scandalous tele-play.

Personally, I think Blair Hornstine was wrong to sue her school board for 2.7 million dollars, and her actions have reaped a sackful of pain and suffering for her. I think her parents should have spent a little more time teaching her that life is indeed, NOT fair. It's something she'll face again, and again. As we all have. I think the school board was assinine in trying to appease every parent and every child, and the result was that the pleased no one. I think the pursuit of excellence, an ultimitaly empty title, and a Harvard education led the child to make very serious errors (the plagarism) that really have nothing to excuse them other than she was, and still is, a child. I hope that everyone involved learns a lessons.

And that includes every one of us who has been so morbidly fascinated by the story. I know that there are dozens of reasons that the 'average joe' followed the fallout of the suit: For some it was watching the 'perfect' kid get the cummuppance we always wished they would when we were in High School. For others it was increasing anger at the litigous nature of our society, and the uselessness of yet another fruitless lawsuit. For others it was support for the girl, and her status, because of a CFS-like illness, as a disabled student.

But I think for some of us, me included, it was our increasing glee at watching 'Reality' unfold before us, and kick someone else in the shins for a change.

- Denise, 9:07 PM

2002-11-30T21:24:00.000-08:00

Boy.

What a crappy evening.

I really hate being On-Call. Why do I have the absolute stupidest staff in the entire world? I can't believe some of the things they call me for on the weekend. On-Call is for emergencies, not questions that they should have thought about last week! Or to complain about their co-workers. Good grief! These are adults. How can we expect children to grow up decently, and to behave well when the adults of the world can't? Yes, someone in one of my programs made a mistake. Not an earth-shattering mistake, but one nonetheless. Do I /really/ have to be subjected to hearing from everyone who was there to find out why it wasn't their fault? GROW THE HELL UP!

Idiots with the maturity of 10 year olds.

And me with no one to replace them.

God, why didn't I go into Computers or something?

Of course, you still have to deal with the idiots who run the computers then, don't you?

2002-11-17T18:55:00.000-08:00

Do you know....I wish I had "grande cajones", as they say at the office, I really do. Some
girl on the web posted a site begging for money to help pay her credit card debt. And
whooosh....1.3 million dollars later, she's a demi-celebrity. I could never pull something
like that off. Mind you, I'm not even sure I would have thought of doing something like
that. But even if I had...I couldn't carry it out.

And it's very sad. I have one of the most devious minds I know. I really can come up with
some astounding plans, though like my TV hero Anya, most have to do with vengance.
Heh. But still, I just can't bring myself to follow through on some of the plans I come up
with. Damn concious. I can’t even lie well. I melt into laughter with in seconds of trying to
pull something like that off.

Darn decent upbringing of mine.

Eclectic Musings