As IF Times

Source: Jailed Instagram model wants to trade secrets for freedom

Hardly a day goes by without some breathless headline about the tribulations of some ‘model’ or ‘rapper’. A detached observer will note that the ‘talent’ which these individuals purport to possess are rather marginal at best and likely delusional at worst. If every youngish woman who has ever posed with duck lips and a bikini are models then the USA must be overgrown with models.  If every black person who has ever managed to rhyme two words in verse is considered a rapper, then also, the US is filled to the brim with music talent.

That the media continues to characterize and glamorize the misadventures of very ordinary people as being somehow interesting is a reflection of the ‘look at me’ culture that has taken hold in the last decade of social  culture.  We can lay the blame partly at the feet of the explosion of media conduits that need to fill their pipelines with sensational stories, but really, the root is the proliferation of social media.  Thanks to certain infamous people with no useful skills other than to point a camera at themselves in various stages of undress, an entire generation of impressionable youth, mainly women, have been emulating that kind of narcissistic exhibitionism.

Young women are seemingly obsessed with posting images of themselves, usually in coy or provocative poses. Some are attempting to emulate the template of the Kardashians by pushing the boundaries of tastefulness in order to gain ‘followers’.  Yes, this is a real thing. As we know, much of this is clearly fake news.  A recent article exposed the resulting sad reality behind the fake world that this kind of delusion can cause.  The majority of people would never be able to emulate the kind of lifestyles portrayed by social media stars…including the social media stars.  In the linked story above, would anyone care if the headline read ‘jailed person wants to trade secrets’?  Probably not, but put the word ‘model’ in there and it captures a prurient audience.  If we want a more truthful headline, it may be, ” reasonably attractive woman wants to get out of jail by telling a story”.

Similarly with the liberal use of the label ‘rapper’. When a story emerges about the most recent criminal activity by someone who happens to be black, they are invariably characterized as rappers.  As if that would make their criminal activity less heinous.  Violence in the Black community is so rampant that reporting on it loses its impact day after day after day.  However, if the headlines somehow include ‘rapper’, it may cause some to actually click on the story.  Sensationalism and hyperbole sells and this truth has never been more evident than in today’s zeitgeist.  These days it seems as if people don’t as much make the headlines as headlines make the people.

Source: As Gunman Rampaged Through Florida School, Armed Deputy ‘Never Went In’ – The New York Times

In case anyone missed it, there was a shooting at a high school in Florida recently, claiming the lives of 17 people.  The perpetrator was an ex student who was previously ejected from the school for numerous instances of unsociable behavior.

How unsociable?  Well the police had been called to his home no less than 39 times by his neighbors for various incidents over the years.  There were other subtle clues to his mental state, namely, self posted You Tube videos in which he publicly professed interest in becoming a mass shooter at a school, accompanied by images of his numerous weapons.  Oh and apparently he had been torturing animals as well.  Other students knew this kid to be disturbed and at least one publicly reported him to the authorities because they felt Cruz was such a menace.  Her exact words were, ” I think he’s going to shoot up a school.”

As we now know, the FBI were given specific directions to his online activities but somehow, no one took it seriously enough to even send an agent to knock on Cruz’s door.  The fact that Cruz used his real name for his online activities obviously confused the law agencies since they couldn’t figure out who or where he was.  At the time of the shooting, at least one and maybe 4 armed deputies were at the school but declined to engage the shooter.

After the horrific event, when fingers began pointing like sunflowers to the setting sun, somehow it was determined that it was the NRA who were the villains.  Like circus ringmasters, the shameless media led by CNN began ginning up the grief of the parents and children and redirected it towards the evil NRA.  Predictably, images of sobbing children filled the airwaves imploring that ‘something has to be done’.  For some reason, the knee jerk response to anything tragic defaults to “the government has to do something”.

In this case, governments were involved at every level.  From the district school level, which had revised their policies to not accosting students for infractions because of racial sensitivities; to the local police who were aware of Cruz from all the disturbance calls; and to the federal level of the FBI who were virtually given flashing red arrows to the existence of this young man.   Even the sheriffs who were posted at the school specifically to provide protection were of no use. There’s a television ad presently running which depicts a bank being robbed; as the patrons look to a uniformed guard, he states, “oh I’m not a bank guard, I’m a bank monitor”.  In the case of the Broward county deputies, life imitates art.

But it’s the NRA’s fault.

Predictably, every time a tragedy of this type occurs, there are the expected shrill wails from the same quarters that ‘government must do something’, which is essentially dog whistle for, ‘take away all guns’.  In this case, government was involved at every step…and they failed at every one of them.  This is the same mentality as blaming restaurants for obesity and then having governments regulate them.  Heck, may as well outlaw forks.

Blaming the NRA and expecting the government to guarantee everyone’s safety perpetuates a level of willful ignorance that seems to draw in more naïve people all the time.  As Rahm Emmanuel once stated, ‘never let a good disaster go to waste’. How do we know this tragedy is being used for political leverage? Dana Loesch, a spokesman for the NRA made the observation that crying white mothers made for very effective TV.  But does anyone see images of crying black mothers from a weekend, every weekend of shootings in Chicago?