Austrians are currently bombarded by news of Josef Fritzl and his crime. While freedom of press is dire to me, a little bit of self-imposed constraint might be more helpful for the victim’s recovery. Alas in a perfect world where that would happen the crime itself would never had taken place. Unfortunately there was another similar case not too long ago where the media coverage rather reminded me of cynical movies.
One also witnesses international coverage of the events through the Internet. They ranged from good (thank you, BBC) to poor. My personal favourite was some Swiss paper that claimed after those two sad cases that Austria is collectively mentally ill and somehow created a correlation to the second world war. Another interesting thesis was that Freud (an Austrian) could have only pioneered psycho-analysis in Austria as here are enough mentally-ill persons as test cases. Being a mostly healthy person this feels a bit estranging. But this is only small compared to the irritation from facebook groups. Why do people think it’s hip to create groups whose names reference to the crimes or try to joke about it?
Is being dumb really the new black?
The other piece of news that covered Austria recently is our glorious failure to keep up with the Kyoto protocols. Interestingly I didnt’ get any news coverage of that from national news companies. Not flashy enough?
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
Rolling Stones - Paint it Black
