The other day I came across an article on the Herald Sun website, about a 14-yo girl who fell on her face while hanging on to the back of a tram, ON THE OUTSIDE, with a friend. And while I hope she’ll soon recover and the injuries on her face weren’t too serious, I must admit my first thought was, “Now that’ll teach them!”
Well there would have been nothing else to talk about — kids will be kids — until I saw some of the comments. And as expected, there was a dude right there whinging about how THE TRAMS AREN’T BUILT WITH PROPER SAFETY MEASURES! IT’S CONNEX’ FAULT! Yup, do you all want to join me and we can yell WTF? together? On the count of three. One, two…
I mean, seriously, what did he expect? That they put oil, lots and lots of oil, on the outside of the tram to stop idiots from climbing on to it? Or maybe there should be a permanent watchman on each tram? Actually, maybe there should be two, one at the front, one at the back. Or FOUR. Two for the two sides?
I’ve always loved reading Readers’ Letters / Opinion / Comments section because of the diversity in perspective. But maybe to save my sanity, I should stop doing that from now on. Or perhaps ignore the news altogether! Because this whole culture of pointing the finger on anyone else but ourselves is really getting on my nerves. When things go wrong, it’s never our own fault. Someone ELSE did it!
The government seems to bear the grunt most of the time. Everything is the government’s fault! Job loss, financial crisis, parents neglecting their kids, people beating up police, police beating up people, drunks parading on the streets, drug use, traffic accidents, people having too little money, people having too much money. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Even the bushfires were the government’s fault. They didn’t give enough warning (HUH? So The Guy Upstair decided to blow the temperature up to 47 degrees and our Prime Minister missed His call?), their evacuation plan is outdated, their emergency response wasn’t effective. Countless.
Some dumbwit left her baby in a locked car in 40-degree heat and someone would blame DOCS (Department of Children’s Services) without batting an eyelid. Parents failing to discipline their kids but wouldn’t hesitate to blame it on the school. A lesbian couple went through IVF for ONE kid, ended up with TWINS, and decided to sue their doctor for breach of contract, stating EMOTIONAL STRESS! Could anyone tell me, what the freakin’ hell is THAT?
Whatever happened to owning up to your actions? To tolerance? To responsibility? To compassion? To plain old common sense?
Gosh, I’d better go calm down. There are days I wish I didn’t get so easily fired up. Oh, I know, it’s the Internet’s doing! Yup, definitely ITS FAULT!
~t2~
Amy's little soap box 