You call that News?

Since we moved to the UK, I have tried to warm up to the much beloved and internationally acclaimed BBC.

For the first two years, when we still had a TV, I used to tune into its numerous roundtables and panel discussions while all the time wondering how slowly stuffed up males could talk and still be paid for it. 

I watched endless History programs on World War II and I tried to see the benefit of turning old horrors into news without adding any more insights.

Very occasionally I still am adventurous enough to tune into the morning news like today  when I was once again reminded why I usually shun the media. It’s always the same story, just in a new wrapper.

Here it is: men sexually abuse whenever they get a chance - most often their targets are women and girls.  The way this "news" was tailored this time was that "eighty percent of rape victims in war zones are children under the age of sixteen, both boys and girls." The men committing these horrible acts were, however, carefully shrouded by refering to them as "combatants" as if they were some kind of abstract figure, like a Darth Vader.

But then, one would not want anyone to draw any connections to the scandal about the sexual abuse of minors that was so skillfully covered up by this most venerated institution for many decades.

Here is the the news - the only one really worth reporting: We still cannot admit that there is a problem with men although they regularly use violence (on varying levels) as a means to achieve their goals.

Stubborn Splendor

In a Europe where everyone feels the need to move closer despite good reasons not to and in a world where the US taste for fast food and highways has found many followers, the Brits like to differ. For the better. Nothing wrong with making friends, but why follow their lead or be bullied?

Are you Blond?

While busy making pumpkin soup and attending to my red-eyed snot-dripping family, I was listening to another round of ol’farts talk on the BBC. The subject was North Korean where missiles have recently been moved from one corner to another. Well, guys, why are you peeing your pants now when sixty years ago you welcomed nuclear weapons as a means to consolidate dominance by the “good guys”. Really, how naive can you be?

Fooled - again!

Digesting a generous helping of Belgian Chocolate truffles while basking on the sofa in our sun drenched cove in a sort of post Easter celebration, I could not help but contemplate welcoming the arrival of daylight saving hours by venturing out on an early evening stroll through the fields without a carefully chosen combination of hat, scarf and gloves. Fooled indeed!

A Shadow Hanging over Them

When I was in my late teens and got wind of a dad who had bailed out to seek erotic rejuvenation on virginal shores, I used to raise my eyebrows and dryly diagnose a case of “mid-life crisis.” Not that I have any deeper insights into the torn souls of mid-forty males now that I have reached that critical age myself, where lives notoriously implode, bank accounts disappear, and paperwork is processed assiduously. In fact, I seem to be more puzzled now than in my sagacious teens whenever I hear of someone who walks out on a life they so laboriously created. Clearly, spouses, mortgages and kids can be a real mill stone around the neck, but then, who ordered the pie? How can one suddenly proclaim that it is all too much after diligently adding to it day after day, week after week and year after year? Or rather, how can one suspect for years that they are not the family type, while at the same time fathering offspring, buying second and third cars, and industrial barbecues? Is it that they just thought they wanted it all? Is it maybe that they lack the critical prefrontal cortex activity that would quickly confirm the disastrous effect monkeyish behavior usually produces...? Or is it some sort of awakening, along the lines of “I’m not the man I used to be....” I would agree with that.

Emotional Illiteracy

Needless to say, spending a lifetime with the same person requires a lot of readjustments. Finger pointing won’t get you very far, just as biting your tongue won’t. Part of the exercise will always consist of carefully taking an emotional inventory. That is by far the trickiest task, since emotions usually run alongside our daily all-important routines. They are shoved aside regularly, or else glossed over in photoshop albums and drowned in Shiraz and yet, as far as relationships are concerned, they are the most important factor to take into account when analyzing how successfully we relate to each other - especially over half a century. But they can be uncomfortable like tight shoes or traveling economy and so we tend to avoid facing them and hope that by avoiding them, by not even acknowledging their existence, they will go away. A common fallacy. Instead they fester and end up tormenting us like a rotten tooth. They foul up our lives, they impact our health and they usually mess up our relationships way before we end up on a couch. Understanding our emotional states and finding solutions to identified problems which will take into consideration the larger context is a real skill. In fact, it is part of what makes us human and yet, we mostly fail at it miserably.