news

[miriam_e]

Amazing! Just heard some news headlines and the things that the stupid mainstream media consider most important are the horses in the Melbourne Cup, a luxury boat catching fire, and someone stealing another boat.

No mention of the recent research showing that marriage and religion paradoxically worsen your chances of getting sexually transmitted diseases, and places with many sexual partners are safest.
No mention that NASA has decided to send another mission to the Hubble Space Telescope to do another repair job and further extend its lifetime.
No mention that SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) may be linked to some brain abnormalities.

And I wonder... we are the smartest generations in history, so why do the media treat us as morons?

Comments

[damien-wise.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the SIDS study/announcement was on the TV news here in Melbourne over the weekend.

The Hubble news is fantastic, but I've only seen it on slashdot. :(

I hadn't heard the research linking the prevalence of STDs with religion and marriage. I can see how they could coincide/correlate but don't know enough on those topics to say whether one leads to another...you got links?
(REminds me of recent news that tooth decay and heart-disease correlate -- can you say that a sick heart could mess-up blood-flow to your teeth/gums, or that chronically decayed teeth produce some bug that attacks the heart, or that it's something else, such as poor diet being bad for your teeth and heart?)

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I read of the research showing up the link between religion, marriage, and STDs was in New Scientist, the current issue 4th Nov. Unfortunately it is only a brief piece about it, but as you can imagine, relates to religions making condoms and other safety measures harder to obtain under the mistaken theory that they'll encourage naughtiness.

The connection between dental problems and heart/artery disease is some years old now. I first read about it in Scientific American a few years ago (can't remember the date). It seems the bacteria that cause problems in teeth also turn up in diseased arteries. The old idea of fatty deposits simply accumulating on the walls of blood vessels is wrong. It's more complex than that and those bacteria and inflammation look like they're playing a pivotal role.

If we could bring about a universal health care system (after heaven knows how many times tried -- each time sabotaged by ideology) which included dental health then we would massively cut the costs to society in terms of death, suffering and, yes, money too.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

But... Clinton got a blow job!

[satyapriya.livejournal.com]

When I tell my belly dance students to practice their shimmy to the 6pm news, I say: "Start with the weather, then gradually add in each of the commercial breaks. Then do the headlines, then the main part of the news, and finally the twenty minutes of sport".
Is it any wonder I don't watch the news any more, or read it? I figure the ignorance I suffer is about equivalent to what I would have if I watched or read the mainstream stuff.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I worry about that a little bit.

I don't watch the news anymore, and people all over the western world have lost trust in the news services and are not buying newspapers or listening to commercial radio (especially during the news) nor watching TV current affairs programs or news. That is probably a good thing because of the incredible amount of propaganda embedded in all those things.

The thing that bothers me is that if something truly important happens we might not learn of it as efficiently as we could because so many of us are not listening anymore. But as most of us use the net a lot I expect the word would spread quickly enough there, so there is probably nothing to really be concerned about.
:)

[sharpblonde.livejournal.com]

An amazing number of people don't WANT to know what is going on out there. They are too busy to want more stress and/or just like to live in their own little world. People being forced to have a decent education to get a decent job does not necessarily mean that people have broadened their minds that much... It means they are capable of understanding if they care to look and it means they aren't quite as easy to lie to.

I can see how marriage and religion could increase instances of STDs... I mean, if you aren't educated about sex and religious people often only get the abstane before marriage speech, then your chances of getting an STD rise. And if you're married, if you or your partner do something with someone else it's usually being lied about which just increases risk in a relationship in all kinds of ways... Not to mention if one person had an STD coming in to a marriage, whether they knew it or not, both partners are more likely to end up with it as I would assume that not using condoms/other STD preventing protection is more common in a marriage situation, especially when trying to have a child.

The SIDS thing doesn't surprise me, but it would be interesting to learn more about that because if it is a brain abnormality maybe it could be tested for in infants and prevent deaths or even be tested for in utero.

Elementary my dear Mieiam

[revbobbob.livejournal.com]

we are the smartest generations in history

You found out about this from the media, right?

There's yer problem right there.

Re: Elementary my dear Mieiam

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

heheheh :)
No. It even has a name... which I've forgotten just now... named after the guy who accidentally discovered that each generation is smarter than the one preceding it. For a while it was thought to be due to nutritional improvements, but it turns out to operate even in places where nutrition is poor and has been for generations.

My feeling is that it is simply that the memes which are the basis for our minds become more complex with each generation as they are handed down, amended, added to, and cross-fertilised. And as countless experiments have shown: stimulate the mind and the brain's wiring grows to greater complexity.