Boats Against the Current
A collection of the abridged rear-view mirrors and four-leaf clovers in life as I experience falling-up into the future. Stay weird. --Darrian
![[[MORE]]Recently, you’ve forced to make a sacrifice for you that I’ll disagree with for the rest of my life, and it’s done nothing but drove our family a part even further than it already was to start with. I thought we didn’t talk a few years ago, but the current start of affairs redefines what no talking actually means. One thing you’ve shown us is that parenting primarily involves a series of sacrifices, but you’ve dropped the ball on this one. And somehow, I still manage to say I love you.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4byh7h6M21qcc17ao1_500.jpg)
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Reblogged from yelyahwilliams
“Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking soundbites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, ‘that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘The Basketball Diaries’?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machinegun?”
The obscure 1995 Leonardo DiCaprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.
The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. Kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”
In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, “The NBC Nightly News” and other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them.
The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.”
— Roger Ebert (via albinwonderland)
(Source: yeezytaughtme)
