Svalbardania
07-03-2006, 08:03
Right. Since everyone else is doing it, I thought I'd join the crowd and have a good old rant. This is one serious rant people, massive. While it is directly aimed at the Australian show Today Tonight, it applies to pretty much every low grade news or current affairs program out there. I'm sure you know of at least one.
You young hooligans! Stop messing about on my lawn! I'm trying to watch Today Tonight!
Yes that's right, my inaugural Today Tonight rant. It has been a long time coming, I have harboured this show much malice for a long, long time now. I cannot hold it in a moment longer!
Why??? Why can't we stop the madness that is Today Tonight?!?! This vile, ignorant, pessimistic, sexist, scaremongering load of tripe deserves less respect and care than the toy Hitlers I keep glued to the side of my microwave. I find it insanely offensive the way they almost completely ignore both the worlds important issues AND THE FACTS! I have seen, despite my limited exposure to this program, an overwhelming number of corrections to previous stories. Unsurprisingly, the stories that often get corrected are the ones which have a little bit more importance upon the world.
To illustrate, I give examples: [Some of these I just saw on the ads, and some I watched the program (despite knowing I would regret it later, I couldn't resist seeing how badly they stuffed it up)]
--TEENAGE HOOLIGANS! Destroying neighbourhoods with loud music, fast cars, and crime.--
Upon hearing this tagline on the ad, I was forced to watch it. As I said earlier, I knew this was going to be a bad idea, but I couldn't help myself. Besides, I needed some facts before I started arguing. This way I know what I'm talking about. Anyway, they showed gangs of people (supposedly teenagers, but how were we to know?) roaming the streets, supposedly being generally unruly. However, upon closer inspection, I realised something: in the footage, the people were doing NOTHING WRONG. Just walking along. I discovered the only reason they looked "unruly" was that it was very amateur looking filming, and the picture was very graining. The type of camera used when people film riots, that’s what it looked like, which is why it looked so bad for them.
Then they cut to some footage of young people (possibly teenagers, possibly older, probably a mix) fighting and chasing and running away from police. I noticed something straight away about this footage... IT WASNT AUSTRALIAN! I saw a police car, and it had the words "Hamburg Polizei" on it. That's right, GERMANS! This was a new low, even for Today Tonight. Funnily enough, they "corrected" this bit on the next episode. Then after talking with an expert (who, as the Chaser team described so well, both handed a document to a receptionist AND took a book off the shelf AND clicked a mouse! This was obviously a very experty expert) for a bit, they showed some footage of drag racing.
Funny thing is this: One part of the drag racing footage was taken from the INSIDE of a car, and conveniently you couldn’t see the speedometer. I'm not even gonna bother explaining about this one. The other footage was a little bit more subtle. It showed two souped up Commodores doing burnouts and then shooting off to drag, whilst the audience all cheered. This was legitimate, only more so than Today Tonight anticipated. This was at Calder Park, where they hold legal off-street drag racing, so that people don't do it ON the street and kill themselves, or someone else. I would have thought Today Tonight should encourage such a sport, but apparently not. Indeed, this entire feature article was a sham.
--MIGRANT ENCLAVES! Choosing to live with their own race in certain areas, not even bothering to learn the language. 20, 30, 40 years, so why can't they be like the rest of us?--
I'm sure many of you saw this, so I won’t go into such detail (besides, I must go to bed soon). But basically, all the images showed Muslims (scapegoat of the month, as it were) going to certain suburbs and staying as traditional to their own land as they could, many of them did not speak English (supposedly; they provided absolutely NO source for this information). I found this one of the most offensive things ever. Not only is it just stirring up the racial tensions (ala Cronulla), but it is completely hypocritical! We don't know the Aboriginal language(es), we don't often mix with them, and we certainly don't try to adopt their way of life. So how can we expect others to??
Not only this, as I mentioned earlier, they showed NO PROOF that what they said was truth. Just some random footage and impressive tables and (dundudundaaa!) an "expert". Sure, there are some suburbs with higher rates of non-Anglo people (Box Hill, anyone?) but these aren’t nearly as dramatic as they are made out to be. And just because they live with people who happen to look like them doesn't mean they don't learn english, or refuse to associate with other Australians. Even if they speak their home language to each other they will still speak english to others. We would do the same if we moved country.
--EVIL COUNCILS! The local councils outrageous attempts to deprive this 84 year old pensioner of her right to keep her pension!--
Admittedly, I didn't watch this segment, and I realise what I'm saying may sound a little callous, but here it is. This was an 84 year old, retired, and lived alone but for her 2 cats. She still had some living relatives, but she was quite lonely (again, no proof of this). After her husband died, her pension dropped to accommodate the lower expenditure. She was understandably unhappy about this, we all would. We like money.
But heres the kick: Her husband had been a very successful and intelligent man. He had left her, and only her (apparently the rest of the family didn’t like him, or something) his $3.4 million mansion in Toorak, his small but very profitable business management centre, and all his luxuries (great car, TV, etc.)
They estimated this woman’s worth to be above more than 99% people... in developed countries! And still Today Tonight argued for her sake, thankfully the council refused her extra $82 a week. Call me a communist, but there are better uses for that money.
Well, now I have run out of coherent things to say, I could go on about paedophiles and whatnot but I'd just be repeating everyone else.
I hope you will all avoid this show in the future. I know I will
Any other ideas or rants are welcome.
You young hooligans! Stop messing about on my lawn! I'm trying to watch Today Tonight!
Yes that's right, my inaugural Today Tonight rant. It has been a long time coming, I have harboured this show much malice for a long, long time now. I cannot hold it in a moment longer!
Why??? Why can't we stop the madness that is Today Tonight?!?! This vile, ignorant, pessimistic, sexist, scaremongering load of tripe deserves less respect and care than the toy Hitlers I keep glued to the side of my microwave. I find it insanely offensive the way they almost completely ignore both the worlds important issues AND THE FACTS! I have seen, despite my limited exposure to this program, an overwhelming number of corrections to previous stories. Unsurprisingly, the stories that often get corrected are the ones which have a little bit more importance upon the world.
To illustrate, I give examples: [Some of these I just saw on the ads, and some I watched the program (despite knowing I would regret it later, I couldn't resist seeing how badly they stuffed it up)]
--TEENAGE HOOLIGANS! Destroying neighbourhoods with loud music, fast cars, and crime.--
Upon hearing this tagline on the ad, I was forced to watch it. As I said earlier, I knew this was going to be a bad idea, but I couldn't help myself. Besides, I needed some facts before I started arguing. This way I know what I'm talking about. Anyway, they showed gangs of people (supposedly teenagers, but how were we to know?) roaming the streets, supposedly being generally unruly. However, upon closer inspection, I realised something: in the footage, the people were doing NOTHING WRONG. Just walking along. I discovered the only reason they looked "unruly" was that it was very amateur looking filming, and the picture was very graining. The type of camera used when people film riots, that’s what it looked like, which is why it looked so bad for them.
Then they cut to some footage of young people (possibly teenagers, possibly older, probably a mix) fighting and chasing and running away from police. I noticed something straight away about this footage... IT WASNT AUSTRALIAN! I saw a police car, and it had the words "Hamburg Polizei" on it. That's right, GERMANS! This was a new low, even for Today Tonight. Funnily enough, they "corrected" this bit on the next episode. Then after talking with an expert (who, as the Chaser team described so well, both handed a document to a receptionist AND took a book off the shelf AND clicked a mouse! This was obviously a very experty expert) for a bit, they showed some footage of drag racing.
Funny thing is this: One part of the drag racing footage was taken from the INSIDE of a car, and conveniently you couldn’t see the speedometer. I'm not even gonna bother explaining about this one. The other footage was a little bit more subtle. It showed two souped up Commodores doing burnouts and then shooting off to drag, whilst the audience all cheered. This was legitimate, only more so than Today Tonight anticipated. This was at Calder Park, where they hold legal off-street drag racing, so that people don't do it ON the street and kill themselves, or someone else. I would have thought Today Tonight should encourage such a sport, but apparently not. Indeed, this entire feature article was a sham.
--MIGRANT ENCLAVES! Choosing to live with their own race in certain areas, not even bothering to learn the language. 20, 30, 40 years, so why can't they be like the rest of us?--
I'm sure many of you saw this, so I won’t go into such detail (besides, I must go to bed soon). But basically, all the images showed Muslims (scapegoat of the month, as it were) going to certain suburbs and staying as traditional to their own land as they could, many of them did not speak English (supposedly; they provided absolutely NO source for this information). I found this one of the most offensive things ever. Not only is it just stirring up the racial tensions (ala Cronulla), but it is completely hypocritical! We don't know the Aboriginal language(es), we don't often mix with them, and we certainly don't try to adopt their way of life. So how can we expect others to??
Not only this, as I mentioned earlier, they showed NO PROOF that what they said was truth. Just some random footage and impressive tables and (dundudundaaa!) an "expert". Sure, there are some suburbs with higher rates of non-Anglo people (Box Hill, anyone?) but these aren’t nearly as dramatic as they are made out to be. And just because they live with people who happen to look like them doesn't mean they don't learn english, or refuse to associate with other Australians. Even if they speak their home language to each other they will still speak english to others. We would do the same if we moved country.
--EVIL COUNCILS! The local councils outrageous attempts to deprive this 84 year old pensioner of her right to keep her pension!--
Admittedly, I didn't watch this segment, and I realise what I'm saying may sound a little callous, but here it is. This was an 84 year old, retired, and lived alone but for her 2 cats. She still had some living relatives, but she was quite lonely (again, no proof of this). After her husband died, her pension dropped to accommodate the lower expenditure. She was understandably unhappy about this, we all would. We like money.
But heres the kick: Her husband had been a very successful and intelligent man. He had left her, and only her (apparently the rest of the family didn’t like him, or something) his $3.4 million mansion in Toorak, his small but very profitable business management centre, and all his luxuries (great car, TV, etc.)
They estimated this woman’s worth to be above more than 99% people... in developed countries! And still Today Tonight argued for her sake, thankfully the council refused her extra $82 a week. Call me a communist, but there are better uses for that money.
Well, now I have run out of coherent things to say, I could go on about paedophiles and whatnot but I'd just be repeating everyone else.
I hope you will all avoid this show in the future. I know I will
Any other ideas or rants are welcome.