Ok.... so newspaper articles have to take an angle.
But I got a little annoyed reading this one about the guy who got hit in the bus-tunnel. The article is completely sympathetic to him and his herioc recovery, even allowing him to be gracious about the police not having found the baddie that hit him in the tunnel.
My thoughts are
1. Not once does it mention that you are not ALLOWED to walk through the tunnel - there are clear signs that it is not legal. Everybody knows this. The guy was drunk. When you walk through there drunk, you know you're playing chicken with oncoming traffic. If you're doing something dumbass like that, you shouldn't then play the victim (and you should probably hide your head in shame and not court more media attention).
2. He had 20 operations, so his little drunken short-cut cost our health system a bloody lot of money. I'd much rather those doctors had spent time fixing people who didn't deserve to get hurt or sick.
I thought the journalism on that one, making him out to be some kind of hero for recovering from being a drunken idiot.... was a little 'generous'.
And yes, I sound a little whingey and righteous.... but I don't care. I live quite near the tunnel and I have had two boyfriends who drunkenly texted me after midnight bragging about having walked through it and both times I thought, 'You idiot' and had serious moments of doubting my own taste. Maybe you do that when you're in your early 20s, at uni. But these guys were both well into their late 20s and mid 30s. I guess I'm personally not that kind of thrill seeker and I tend to try to avoid ending up in hospital or dead.
The guy who actually got hit, from the newspaper article, he was 42. Idiot. If that was me, I'd be hanging my head in shame and trying to get name suppression, rather than prancing around on the front of the paper in my hospital gown saying, 'Look at me! 20 expensive operations later, I have wasted the time of many many health workers and the police officers who had to try and tidy up my drunken accident scene and find the car! I am a role model and inspiration!' Grr.
OK... again, I am aware I sound like a crackpot who calls up talk-radio at 3.30am in the morning to moan about something minor. But that one really bugs me.
I know people can be dumbasses, but should we celebrate them on the front of our capital's newspaper?
3 comments:
I felt similar when on Breakfast yesterday, there was this 13 year who had been banned from school for her green hair. Trying to get sympathy from the public that hair colour should not matter...it was good to see that Ali Mau pointed out that she signed a contract that she would adhere to the rules when she attended and that the uniform and having natural hair colour was one of them. Stupid kid..the mother was just as bad too!
Yeah - I think Kirsten shared your viewpoint.
I personally don't give a hoot what way kids wear or dye their hair. But you're both right - if you signed up for the school, knowing those were the rules.... you shouldn't make yourself some kinda poster-child for oppression when you break them.
Still.... I don't care. I think it's cool when I see kids with crazy hair. Good on them for having the confidence to be different! But our school doesn't seem to be as strict on hair - very strict about ties being done up properly and not wearing the wrong coloured scarf, though.
Stupid tunnel walking guy. I agree with you.
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