No word of a lie, he didn’t mention GE but Mr. Goofball did say, while doing 10 minutes of newspaper poses, “Hey, Pap, What’s up with this Economy anyway?”
Where’s your father keep the scotch, honey, and then I’ll explain it.
©Pat Coakley 2009
PHOTOGRAPHS CANNOT BE USED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION
That is sooo cute. you have a future economist on your hands. Me loves the mouth expression! Great candid, Pat!
Great photo! He looks just the way I feel when reading the news on the economy — or most other subjects for that matter. Sooo… I’m not sure. Is this reference to the news make it part of the “fear” series? Yes, a little scotch is a good idea, then we can talk.
Who’s the scotch for, him or you?
Renee, he is a true goofball. He posed, all of his own doing, shaking the paper out…turning around to me as if I was bothering him while reading….saying things like the economy or “Oh, those Wizards! They lost”. A perfect mimic of his father, I believe!
Don, almost everything these days is part of the “Fear” series as it turns out!
Razz, for some reason he prefers “Mountain Dew”. He’ll learn the error of his ways a bit later on in life.
Has he seen himself on your blog header yet? He’s a ready for prime time player.
So my question is: do headlines exacerbate the real news?
Do they promote a mass response that’s irreversible? What if we didn’t watch or look or read for a few days?
OK, so it’s more than one question.
Anybody?
Bonnie girl, I have lived without watching or looking, or at least tried to…besides being damn near impossible unless you are the Unibomber holed up in a Montana shack without running water…the effort it takes to “not listen” or not to watch the news or turn off the radio in the car or just keep it on a CD …..keeps reminding you that you are trying to avoid something. And, that in a way exaggerates the situation and its importance. The trick is to be detached from the information that comes at you…reducing exposure helps but doesn’t on its own do the trick, at least for me.
Would be happy to hear other opinions, too! I’m a preparing a blog on newspapers as a result of my photo session with age 8 superstar.
I think you’re hitting on some vein of elevated states of existence here.
To overtly avoid does take effort.
Maybe limiting the intake like it used to be before news was 24/7 and in need of constant filler most of it coming from anchor/actors with coiffed hair, would be a better approach.
Where for art thou Walter Cronkite when we long for your avuncular wisdom and delivery…..
oh i am so guilty of not listening to the news, or reading the papers. i go sometimes for weeks without tuning in. its a habit i seem to have cultivated, i did not plan it, at first, or think about it, i just was so short on time, thats my excuse anyway, though there are two psychologists in my family who would say that everything, including defaulting on the news, is a choice. ok ok, its a choice. but i notice, the times i do actually sit and watch the evening news after a long absence, the urgent and disturbing sensational aspects of some of it. i will go and see my mother, in her eighties, and she will be full of some horrific tale of something horrible that happened to somebody because they did or didnt do something that none of us would ever have predicted could occur. sad things, tragic things, even downright idiotic things. on the daily news programs. and my mother is upset by it. its not entirely that i dont want to know about these things, it is the way they are delivered, with a twominute sound byte and an image in the top right corner, some headline, some panic or fear surrounding it, and then POOF! gone, like it never happened, or like what happened was ‘just news’, highly suggestive, but substantively bereft of feeling. and on to the next headline. that’s what bothers me about the news. and i wonder, the many years i spent hours listening to the news did that in fact have a desensitizing effect? not in the days when sensationalism was not used to gain viewers to sell advertising, but i wonder, because when i watch the news now, i get goosebumps, maybe because of a general lack of daily exposure, i feel a kind of staccato energy around it more than ever, see it in a different light somehow, and often find myself feeling scared. so i dont want to go around feeling scared all the time. the heck with it. so i dont watch the news again. i find if there is an issue i need to know about i will find articles to read on the web. or i will go looking for information on some idea or thought or influence or story, an active pursuit. that way i can weed out things like sorry cases of human idiocy. oh, i forgot, that would be most of the news now wouldn’t it?
and, the photo is stunning. absolutely stunning. and your comments, so full of fun, insight, intelligent speculations. thanks!
I can’t help but wonder if he is not hiding a cartoon booklet inside that serious looking newspaper. Either that, or he’s a real good actor.
Out of the mouths of babes is all I can say… how come they seem wiser than I was at that age??? Time to be young again for sure!
Bonnie, Isn’t it interesting that we have 100 more talking heads and not one seems to be on Cronkite’s level of gravitas and influence.
Tipota, oh, I want to be like you. I’m not kidding. I can’t imagine being able not to tune in for weeks. Seriously, how do you avoid it?? You do constantly amaze me.
San, time to be young…if only!