What A Wonderful World . . .

Posted on 28. Sep, 2009 by in Uncategorized

Halo 3: ODST is available in stores now for the XBox 360.

Halo 3: ODST is available in stores now for the XBox 360.

I woke up this morning in such a good mood.  I beat Halo 3: ODST (it was a short campaign, but one hell of a game.  8.5 out of 10), my Yankees clinched the AL East Division Title after sweeping the Red Sox this past weekend and I think I’ve finally found the future Mrs. Martinez.  (More on that later.  But, did you notice there’s no hyper-link clue as to who the lucky girl may be?  A great writer always keeps his audience guessing.)

Then, I turned on CNN and their broadcast demolished my enthusiastic mood: supposedly there’s a “right wing conspiracy” against President Obama and his campaign to fix the fledgling economy and the health care system.   Iran still has the world on edge over their newly disclosed nuclear enrichment plant and are firing off long range missiles as a show of force to the United States and her allies.

And despite his apparent guilt, there are Roman Polanski sympathizers that blasted Swedish officials after his detention , an arrest that came 30 years after he pleaded guilty to having sex with 13-year-old girl.

Check out CNN’s coverage of the arrest.

Some analysts blast Americans for their lack of attention to the news. When you look at our current state of affairs, can you really blame the public for avoiding CNN in favor of shows like Bravo’s Top Chef or E!’s Keeping Up With The Kardashians?

For example, no matter how many times President Obama’s speaks of the need for Congressional unison in regards to health care and the economy, the GOP tries their best to thwart him at every turn. I mean, the rabble-rousing seems to be at an all time high.

(Aside: For your efforts in smoke screening the issues and causing complete and utter confusion in Washington, ladies and gentlemen of the GOP, from this moment on I officially dub thee Joe Wilson and his Red-State Roughnecks.  Why do I give Wilson top billing?  Do you even have to ask?)

When you look at the conditions of the world today, namely the famines, the vicious wars and social injustice, can you really blame people for wanting to crawl into a hole, jam their fingers in their ears and close their eyes tightly? Can you blame Americans for wanting to know more about Jessica Simpson’s lost dog than the death toll in Iraq?

People of the internet, lend me your cyber-ears. I say that America isn’t a stupid nation, but is actually a country filled with the shrewdest citizens on this planet. For what we have here is not a matter of ignorance – – we have a matter of choice.  This nation chooses to avoid the constant status updates, not because we don’t understand the intricacies of politics, but in order to preserve our own sanity.

Now you know why I love video games more than I love politics – – when the going gets tough, I can just simply hit the reset button. I don’t think that feature comes included with the political system.

UPDATE: I think this pretty much sums up the point of my post . . . God bless you Freddie. We miss your talent dearly.

UPDATE #2: The ever classy Whoopi Goldberg weighs in on the Roman Polanski arrest . . . and makes a fool of herself . . .

If only she knew the facts of the case . . .

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3 Responses to “What A Wonderful World . . .”

  1. robert.voris

    01. Oct, 2009

    To answer your question: yes, yes I can blame my docile, apathetic, sedentary fellow citizens for fiddling while Rome burns. The news is never good, but that’s the point. We highlight the problems so that they can be fixed. If no one pays attention to the problems because they’re busy sating themselves with celebrity gossip and High Fructose Corn Syrup Sodium Bombs (Now With Less Fiber!), then those problems get progressively worse until they can’t be fixed at all. This isn’t to say that one can’t enjoy the lighter side of life. I’d say it’s imperative to not grow so concerned with all the world’s ills that you lose sight of why it’s worth fighting for in the first place. But that old saw about not turning your back on the ocean – the world is the ocean, and folks with their eyes on the flickering box have their backs to it.

  2. nicholas.martinez

    01. Oct, 2009

    Robert, some people just can’t handle it. Human beings are fragile creatures with limits. Honestly, I wish we all had your mental constitution because, good sir, we would get a lot more done with the little time we have on this planet.

    Sadly, we aren’t and thus we don’t.

  3. Collin Orcutt

    04. Oct, 2009

    I think the main reason I stopped playing video games a few years ago is that I decided it was a constriction for my world when I played. In essence, I felt the time I was spending tapping little colored buttons was time spent living in the small rectangular world of my TV. So I decided that leaving the confines of that box, big scary world out there or not, at least allowed me to take a crack at making a dent in the “bigger picture” of reality.

    TV and the like can be great escapes for a while, but more often than not I find that I should really be attempting to escape those vices instead.