We'll scare you to death, but we won't say "urinate"
CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," minus Anderson Cooper, featured Our Five Biggest Fears tonight. I watched it in a kind of "can't take your eyes off the roadside accident" stupor. I would really like to know what fears were presented in the survey. All I know is that the top five winners were:
Dear CNN: Babies do not go to the bathroom. They cannot walk or stand. They can urinate, however. If we have to have a euphemism for "urinate," how long until we avoid talking about table legs, like the Victorians?
It will disappoint the White House to know that terrorism came in fifth in this survey. People in Washington are probably fooling with color codes as I write this.
Americans' fear of violence is justified, but the many of the same citizens who are afraid of being attacked by gang members are whacking their children, punching out soccer coaches, kicking anti-war protestors, and putting out death threats against judges.
I didn't know we were still so afraid of cocaine. The news media has been stirring the crystal meth pot for a while now, so that wasn't quite as much of a surprise. Of course, nowhere in the report was there mention of the joke that is known as the War on Drugs, or of the high percentage of drug-related violence that is caused by the illegality of drugs. Or of our failure to find suitable treatment modalities. That would be too much reality.
Child molestation probably rose to the top because the Catholic Church scandal kept it in the headlines for so long, and because it is an easy thing to pin on gay men, despite the fact that they do not commit most of the child sex abuse in this country.
Our Five Biggest Fears was plastered on a sign and flashed over and over during the course of the dreary program.
Scared yet? I am, but my list is a little different.
- Child molestation
- Crystal meth
- Cocaine
- Violence
- Terrorism
Dear CNN: Babies do not go to the bathroom. They cannot walk or stand. They can urinate, however. If we have to have a euphemism for "urinate," how long until we avoid talking about table legs, like the Victorians?
It will disappoint the White House to know that terrorism came in fifth in this survey. People in Washington are probably fooling with color codes as I write this.
Americans' fear of violence is justified, but the many of the same citizens who are afraid of being attacked by gang members are whacking their children, punching out soccer coaches, kicking anti-war protestors, and putting out death threats against judges.
I didn't know we were still so afraid of cocaine. The news media has been stirring the crystal meth pot for a while now, so that wasn't quite as much of a surprise. Of course, nowhere in the report was there mention of the joke that is known as the War on Drugs, or of the high percentage of drug-related violence that is caused by the illegality of drugs. Or of our failure to find suitable treatment modalities. That would be too much reality.
Child molestation probably rose to the top because the Catholic Church scandal kept it in the headlines for so long, and because it is an easy thing to pin on gay men, despite the fact that they do not commit most of the child sex abuse in this country.
Our Five Biggest Fears was plastered on a sign and flashed over and over during the course of the dreary program.
Scared yet? I am, but my list is a little different.
posted by Diane at 7:23 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Great take, Diane... our national ethos has become so dependent upon sensationalists to tell our story that we've lost the ability to discern even the most basic concepts of what is and is not important. Frankly, I'm surprised that the Michael Jackson trial didn't make the list.
By
broncobob, at
6:50 AM
And, of course, the *reason* there is so much violence, drug abuse, and molestation in this country is because we are beating up and molesting our kids.
See Mike Males' work on this. Also the woman who did all that work on how Nazis were brought up -- I'm forgetting her name at present -- but she draws the same conclusions.
We're a violent culture because we treat our children with such violence -- because (most of us) were treated with such violence as children.
By
delagar, at
9:25 AM
Actually, Americans are very likely to be killed by strangers, so this fear is justified. It's just that for most people, most of these killings just don't count, for reasons that I cannot fully comprehend. Namely, those killings where the stranger kills you with his/her car.
By
Ilkka Kokkarinen, at
8:49 AM
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