For three days I have seen this story and avoided commenting...what can I say this morning it just struck a chord with me and I have got to say something.
So you have got these two women arguing over something really important, nope, not a man, child, stolen article or even property damage (although that was the result) their argument was over the volume of a television set. I mean we are talking life and death here. The fate of the entire free world was resting on whether or not the one woman turned down her TV.
Apparently the argument did not have the outcome that one of the women desired. So instead of calling the police and reporting a disturbance or getting ear plugs, or simply letting it go; the woman without the TV decided that she had to punctuate her point in an extraordinary manner. She climbed behind the wheel of her 1985 Beemer and rammed it into the side of the apartment building...not before running down and sacrificing a lot of innocent patio furniture.
Yahoo! News - Woman Charged in Road-Rage Apartment Ramming
Alright, I understand being upset...I have one of those neighbors who does not seem to understand that his stereo's volume control goes down. I have been in my den on a number of occasions and found myself listening to his choice of music...which seems to be lacking any real taste. Sadly this is a neighbor who lives in a house across the street...real LOUD stereo. But I point out to you that no matter how upset I have become I have never considered taking my only mode of transportation and ramming it into his house. I might have considered the logistics of getting him and his stereo much, much closer...but that's just steam blowing.
I guess I just wish that people would use their brains a little more...with everything in the world that one could get angry over, why a television set? And think about what this woman could have accomplished if she had taken all that energy and applied it in a productive manner to one of the big issues is this world...oh well I guess some people just are not capable of focusing beyond the TV.
Article comments
1 - Margaret Romao Toigo
People who do things like that usually aren't just angry or upset about the particular incident or situation that drove them to take drastic measures. There is almost always some underlying factor such as a mental or physical illness.
Your fellow man is not losing his collective mind and the world is not really going crazy, even if the news makes it seem so.
We have a 24 hour news cycle and the business end of it is a highly competitive struggle for not only ratings shares, but specific audience demographics. So not only do the news organizations have to fill 24 hours with news, they have to find news that is interesting, entertaining and titliating to their targeted audience demography.
Sure these are great technoligical advancements and it is certainly convenient to have news that is updated around the clock, but the price we pay for it is the consternation and bewilderment that it causes us as we contemplate the numerous horrors that are reported.
Sometimes, it may seem that the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket. Heck, it might even drive some people to get into their cars and run over patio furniture.
2 - Eric Olsen
thanks Spiritdancer and Margaret! Fascinating examination of the micro and macro of a given random extreme event, and of course, you're both right. When you have 5 or 6 billion people on earth, there is nothing that won't happen over time, but that doesn't reduce the importance of the event to those involved