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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Disasters and Donations and the Media

When disasters happen like the recent one in Japan, it reminds me how much I hate the news media.  The major news sources in the USA are so hungry for money that they will sensationalize everything to the point of lunacy.  While we all agree it's a disaster of epic proportions do we really need Fox News trying to out do CBS News?  I think not.  I swear they make stuff up to make people watch.  Because the more people watch, the more money they can charge for advertisements.  It makes my head hurt.  What makes my head hurt even more is that people watch it and believe everything they hear.  But, if someone came out and said, "In the grand scheme of things, it's really not that bad.  Just over 6 years ago when the 9.2 quake hit Indonesia, 230,000+ people lost their lives."  Of course, that wouldn't get you any viewers.  People would turn the channel trying to find out what Charlie Sheen is up to (who is a genius by the way).

So the donation pushes have also started rolling in trying to get us to give money to Japan to help with the recovery.  I'm all about helping.  I have a small problem with it which will make me seem a little callous, but I'm going to share it anyway.  The government is taxing me at a very high rate. I quit looking at how many trillions of dollars the USA is in debt to the rest of the world.  They'll give money to Japan.  They've already sent military ships over there and are aiding in the nuclear power plant problems.  We're directly paying for that.  If anything it should kind of irritate you that we Americans spent more money bailing out GM than we'll spend helping Japan.

However, if you still want to add a personal touch, I've heard that you can text REDCROSS to 90999 and that'll put a $10 charge on your phone bill and send $10 to the Red Cross.  Hopefully you'll get to add it to your tax deductions.  I'm thinking AT&T will probably be the ones who get to write it off.  More tax dollars at work.

Perhaps I should have saved this rant for a less cynical day.

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