One Fine Day?!

Bless DBS, they sent me an email yesterday morning saying I could now donate to the tsunami victims through internet banking and their ATMs. Being a lazy person, I couldn't be bothered to take note of any addresses, etc. to send donations to before, so this came as a pleasant surprise; an opportunity to dispel some of the negativity that the Event-obsessed news media has caused, with their passion for guilt-tripping people.

So I logged on and did just that. There. Done.

Please, enough already. Stop trying to make me feel guilty for being alive and wanting to have fun. Enough of the news stories saying how people all over the world are in no mood to celebrate, thereby insinuating that if I still have a desire to have fun, I must be inhumane. Honestly, people, let's accept the fact that something fucked-up happened, do what we can, and move on. There is no point in dwelling on these things for too long. The New Year is supposed to be a time of hope, of putting the past year behind, of looking forward with optimism. Why spend it gazing down in despair and full of gloom? Would the victims want their friends, families and countrymen to be in a deep funk for ages? I don't think so.

Along the same lines, cancelling the customary fireworks, while annoying, is still justifiable. However, cancelling the live telecast of the countdown party is not. What's the point in doing that when the party is still going to go on regardless? Is Channel 5 saying that homeviewers aren't allowed to have even a bit of fun by proxy at this time? Or are they trying to say that the partygoers are lacking in basic human decency? And this isn't even the worst part of it, no.

The icing on the cake, the coup de grâce, the idiocy to end all idiocies: Showing One Fine Day in its place.

Oh, what a cruel slap in the face. By all means, show a romantic comedy to lighten the mood. But did you have to pick one with such an unfortunate title, given the circumstances? I always knew they were a bunch of morons at Network Programming, what with their obsession over minute details in ratings, but this is a whopper, even for them.

What's the point in cancelling the live telecast if you're going to insult the memories of the dead, even if it was unintended? A much better thing to do would be to incorporate a few minutes of silence in the party (three minutes would be ideal, I think), and go ahead and telecast it. Imagine what a powerful, moving statement that would be. The throngs of partygoers, all standing silent for three minutes in sombre remembrance and introspection. The DJs with their heads bowed atop their turntable thrones. Three full minutes of silence. Live.

Too bad, you had your chance, and fucked it up.

I'm getting really sick of the news media, but it seems that's the way things are. They thrive on paranoia, doubt, guilt, and this one desire within all of us - to find out that other people are having it worse than us, so we can feel better about our pathetic lives. They latch onto anything, the bigger the better, and create a media frenzy over it. Like a friend said last night, if they can be fascinated by the Huang Na (little Chinese girl who went missing and was killed) incident for two whole months, imagine the field day they must be having now.

Fuck them. I want no part of this.

Addendum: My apologies. They did observe a minute of silence at the event.

From the press release:

As a national broadcaster, MediaCorp is mindful of the sentiments of Singaporeans as well as those of our neighbours whose countries were directly affected by the tsunamis. The cancellation is in line with our initiative to use all our media platforms to drive the Red Cross' aid efforts.

And how exactly are you driving the aid efforts by showing that movie? You can still run ads during the live telecast, and even modify the contents to drive the message home, which you can't do for a movie. Seriously, I don't know what kind of brains these people have.