Culture

Space Clown trumps Afghan war: study

by Barry Artiste | November 15, 2009 at 06:51 am

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Barry Artiste Op.Ed

Yep, pretty much explains most Canadians in a nutshell, including other important issues, even the environment, politics, social issues. Attention span of a piece of fruit.

When you have a generation growing up on Reality TV, American Idol, Zombie killing games for armchair warriors is it really such a big surprise to anyone?

Like I once said on Now Public, when a poll of college students was taken by Angus Reid about Obama during his 1st visit to Ottawa to see our Prime Minister Harper. the majority of college students who are our leaders of tomorrow were asked if they would prefer Rock StarObama as our Prime Minister, (when President Obama was in Ottawa), the resounding answer was yes! As I teach on occasion, I was surprised and asked quite a few college students in Vancouver, British Columbia if they knew what political party Obama was tied to and who was his running mate? Less than 5% knew any of the answers, including some who thought his wife was his running mate and some thinking Obama's political party ranged from the NDP to the Green Party, the majority had that Deer in the Headlights look! Our future blindly saying Yes, cause some celebrity like Oprah told them to vote Obama. Bandwaggonry, a Vancouver staple of life.

I can only assume the American college students would fare just as worse.

Yep, Reality TV and Video games, perhaps they should get the important issues and make them into Canadian Idol or American Idol, Rap Videos and Reality TV.

Cause if we don't that will be the future of our country, and the terrorists will surely win, cause I am damn sure they knew about our complacency and ignorance all along as their most valuable weapon.

MONTREAL — A new study study suggests Canada’s space clown — Guy Laliberte — got at least 23 times more world media attention this year than this country’s mission in Afghanistan.

At least that’s according to a calculation done by a media research group hired by Laliberte, the Cirque du soleil founder who recently became the country’s first space tourist.

The Quebec billionaire hired Montreal-based Influence Communication to look at radio, TV, newspaper and Internet coverage from 71 countries of his cosmic voyage.

The media monitoring firm began its tracking on June 4th, when Laliberte held a news conference to officially announce his 11-day space trip.

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albertacowpoke

at 07:18 on November 15th, 2009

Actually, it.s amazing this same thing happened in a quick street survey in LA. They didn.t know who the VP was and a had no clue on any other issues. When it came to pop culture you couldn.t beat them. Goes to show what is important:)

PIM of SPAIN

at 07:29 on November 15th, 2009

Indeed the geographic and political knowledge of people all over the world has a memory span of about 5 minutes. Not much more. When G.W. Bush became President of the USA, he was questioned about Iraq and Iran and when precisely asked where those countries were located on the globe, he didn't know the answer either. That was all before 9/11to be correct. When he had to receive the Prime Minister of The Netherlands Jan Peter Balkenende to thank him for his Afghan military assistance, Bush II didn't even know to pronounce his name and where Holland was located on the map. I did the same in the past with my study colleagues and that was a long time ago, but they knew exactly all the political movements and geographic attached with. But after the 60s it went down hill with the general public knowledge. I think you have to go to China or Japan to find better response. The whole world people education is like a herd of sheep follow the pack leader and don't think too much for yourself. Sad but true.