Pribek

I’ve been away in the woodshed for a couple of days. It has been a check the caller I.D. before answering kind of mode. Out of touch. No T.V. here at the house on the hill, so I am not tapped in to the twenty-four hour news cycle.

So, I’m surfing around to catch up on what’s going on in the world. On the hard news (possible Mexican election fraud, Kofi Annan sucking up to Iraq, mass graves in Kirkuk filled with victims of Saddam Hussein’s regime) I feel helpless to do anything but observe.

Then there is the celebrities airing their dirty laundry, athletes running afoul of the law, Paris Hiltons’C.D. being sabotaged (that one’s kind of funny actually) items that I could discuss but I succumb to apathy.

I do feel a need to talk a little about this Steve Irwin matter.

Television personality and environmentalist Steve Irwin has died from a stingray wound while filming off north Queensland.

Friends believe he may have died instantly when struck by a stingray as he filmed a sequence for his eight-year-old daughter Bindi’s new TV series.

First off, my heart goes out to his family. It is tragic for an eight year old to witness this.

I have seen a few episodes of The Crocodile Hunter and I know that there are many shows of this ilk. We, as consumers, seem to have an endless appetite for seeing people risk their lives for our entertainment. So, Mr. Irwin’s death has been preserved on film. One could make a case that Steve Irwin would be living his life the same way if he was not being filmed. He comes across as that kind of guy. But, he was being filmed.

There will be more of this kind of thing. If we are paying more attention in our leisure to witnessing risky behavior, the behavior can only get riskier. It is a one way street.

I also think we will witness this type of tragedy in real time. One of these needless hurricane journalists or something of that sort. I am surprised that it has not happened already (to my knowledge).

I remember when I was a kid, maybe ten or twelve. I asked my mom if she had ever seen anyone die. She thought about it and said, “I saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on T.V. I only saw it the one time but I remember it like it was yesterday. It was horrible.”

We have become desensitized. We all saw 9-11. We all watched the Tsunami and Katrina. It would be impossible not to be desensitized.

But, do we need to encourage tragedy for our entertainment, or is that out of our hands?