Advertisers are increasingly using various cartoonish characters who are sometimes almost indistinguishable from real actors or models to hawk their products. Computer simulations are used for all sorts of imaging. This is a way to avoid having a specific parent make a sacrifice and a specific real victim’s body being depicted in a publi…
Advertisers are increasingly using various cartoonish characters who are sometimes almost indistinguishable from real actors or models to hawk their products. Computer simulations are used for all sorts of imaging. This is a way to avoid having a specific parent make a sacrifice and a specific real victim’s body being depicted in a published photo. The visual imagery can be as graphic and horrifying as the photo editor or graphic artist chooses to make it, and the message would be just as powerful and searing. Once it is in circulation, it will be difficult to ignore and more likely to make an impression on people who haven’t become aware of the stark reality of this insane violence.
While we are on the topic of school shootings, I would be remiss if I did not talk about the one thing that is totally glossed over in this discussion EVERY SINGLE time. Schools have been targeted in every single case that I know of because of bitterness, rancor, and rage by students or former students because the way they were treated in those specific places. Most were rejected by others and many were bullied. Much of the frustration, humiliation, anger, and anxiety that these tortured souls experienced came from the clear failures of authorities, officials, and bureaucrats who knew certain of their students had major issues and problems but who chose to do nothing or felt powerless to do what should have been done to deal with alienation and marginalization. WHY DON’T WE TALK ABOUT THAT ON THIS SHOW SOMETIME???? Is talking about school failure too much of a sensitive topic even though it leads to mass murder and myriad other social conflicts and dislocations? Is neglecting that very real aspect any different than the Republicans blowing off the idea of gun proliferation as a root cause?
This is part of our neglect of both mental health issues and of the support of bullying. The schools do very little to discipline those kids who attack others, then the same kids grow up to brutalize their way to the top of our Corporations and Government. The focus is power, might makes right over service and morals.
You are right about the focus being power and might makes right over service and morals. However, the ancient canard about disciplining students and “mental health issues” is precisely how we got to this pathetic state of affairs. Discipline is absolutely essential. However, the application of “power” and the principle of “might makes right”, as in what the teacher says goes and authority is in place to enforce proper conduct is bass-ackwards and 180 degrees off the mark. The lesson of a top-down, authority-based paradigm is that bullying is okay as long as the bullies are smarter and superior and the whole enterprise is about sorting out those who are good and better from those who don’t quite measure up – and then administering negative consequences to the lesser individuals. Meanwhile, teachers and authorities are too preoccupied with their appointed and anointed duties and roles to notice that one-third of the class is not up to snuff and that some kids are receding into the background, while others are asserting their superior status. Even if they do notice and care, their hands are tied and there are other priorities upon which their very survival in the field depend. When school is about behavior modification and “education” mental health or other actual social services and compassionate attention are too complicated and insignificant to matter. The lives of children will never matter as long as the laws are in place which specifically establish their insignificance and subservience.
Advertisers are increasingly using various cartoonish characters who are sometimes almost indistinguishable from real actors or models to hawk their products. Computer simulations are used for all sorts of imaging. This is a way to avoid having a specific parent make a sacrifice and a specific real victim’s body being depicted in a published photo. The visual imagery can be as graphic and horrifying as the photo editor or graphic artist chooses to make it, and the message would be just as powerful and searing. Once it is in circulation, it will be difficult to ignore and more likely to make an impression on people who haven’t become aware of the stark reality of this insane violence.
While we are on the topic of school shootings, I would be remiss if I did not talk about the one thing that is totally glossed over in this discussion EVERY SINGLE time. Schools have been targeted in every single case that I know of because of bitterness, rancor, and rage by students or former students because the way they were treated in those specific places. Most were rejected by others and many were bullied. Much of the frustration, humiliation, anger, and anxiety that these tortured souls experienced came from the clear failures of authorities, officials, and bureaucrats who knew certain of their students had major issues and problems but who chose to do nothing or felt powerless to do what should have been done to deal with alienation and marginalization. WHY DON’T WE TALK ABOUT THAT ON THIS SHOW SOMETIME???? Is talking about school failure too much of a sensitive topic even though it leads to mass murder and myriad other social conflicts and dislocations? Is neglecting that very real aspect any different than the Republicans blowing off the idea of gun proliferation as a root cause?
This is part of our neglect of both mental health issues and of the support of bullying. The schools do very little to discipline those kids who attack others, then the same kids grow up to brutalize their way to the top of our Corporations and Government. The focus is power, might makes right over service and morals.
You are right about the focus being power and might makes right over service and morals. However, the ancient canard about disciplining students and “mental health issues” is precisely how we got to this pathetic state of affairs. Discipline is absolutely essential. However, the application of “power” and the principle of “might makes right”, as in what the teacher says goes and authority is in place to enforce proper conduct is bass-ackwards and 180 degrees off the mark. The lesson of a top-down, authority-based paradigm is that bullying is okay as long as the bullies are smarter and superior and the whole enterprise is about sorting out those who are good and better from those who don’t quite measure up – and then administering negative consequences to the lesser individuals. Meanwhile, teachers and authorities are too preoccupied with their appointed and anointed duties and roles to notice that one-third of the class is not up to snuff and that some kids are receding into the background, while others are asserting their superior status. Even if they do notice and care, their hands are tied and there are other priorities upon which their very survival in the field depend. When school is about behavior modification and “education” mental health or other actual social services and compassionate attention are too complicated and insignificant to matter. The lives of children will never matter as long as the laws are in place which specifically establish their insignificance and subservience.