tHiNkEr’S rOoM

19 Responses to “Insanity Is…”

1. 1. Riba Capital (4 Comments) | June 9th, 2007 at 4:47 pm

   This is plainly insanity.
   But sadly thats the world we are in and thats the same reason why every country needs an international station to pass its story.
   CNN - US
   BBC/SKY - UK
   DW - Germany
   ALJAZEERA - sorry but. Islamic World

   We need an African Solution.
   ::: PROUDLY AFRICAN:::

   But then again would we be any different? Would we be treated to a steady fare of gossip and innuendo about ‘celebs’?

2. 2. Riba Capital (4 Comments) | June 9th, 2007 at 4:49 pm

   Am a Tennis Fan and man Serena Williams must have been a man in her past Life.

   Tsk tsk!!

3. 3. farmgal (96 Comments) | June 9th, 2007 at 6:48 pm

   aki that william’s pic….toooo deadly!

   Clearly the gym regime is paying off!

4. 4. Global Voices Online » Sudan: Darfur conflict vs. Paris Hilton on Google (No Comments) | June 9th, 2007 at 7:16 pm

   [...] Thinker’s Room defines insanity as Paris Hilton vs. Darfur conflict on Google: “That’s right. There is almost FIVE TIMES as much content about some nebulous nobody than one of the biggest tragedies every to befall this earth. We pay more attention to issues of nuisance value than serious catastrophes that we could avoid but don’t.” Share This [...]

5. 5. toiyoi (100 Comments) | June 10th, 2007 at 2:10 am

   I think people( even well meaning ones) get tired of ALL the bad imagery they get from Africa (who would not?), more so especially since they know most of these problems in African are man-made (Mobutu, Mugabe,Kabuga, Mungiki) and can be avoided. Really, we should be drumming for AU to evolve to be able to deal with Darfur-type African issues without waiting for the WEST (or especially realizing that it is not a top priority to the WEST )

   But how long has the AU been pussyfooting about the matter the whole time …. they are no better!

   Also, no matter what we wish, the reality is that entertainment (Paris Hilton) is mostly better than thinking ( Darfur and reality of the evil of humanity )

   And that is why we are always in so many problems!

6. 6. Ben (1 Comments) | June 10th, 2007 at 5:37 am

   In a sense, you are right: the world is not paying attention to Darfur. However, your search method is all wrong. If you want a precise search in google, the search terms need to be in quotation marks, otherwise a search for paris hilton is eventually going to bring up results for the French city and the hotel chain. Secondly, a straight google search is not a barometer for the amount of coverage afforded to either case since you’ll get fan sites etc. you need to search google news. So, if you go to google news and do a search in parentheses of “paris hilton” I return 9,084 results. The same for “Darfur” and the result is 15,184… That’s about 9,000 too many articles on hilton…

   Ben, you underestimate the abilities of the google search engine algorithm. Go to plain old google and repeate the search with the quotes … there is a slight dip indeed, but as of right now I get 78,000,000+ hits.

   Secondly, I disagree with your second point. I did not say coverage. I said content about the two issues. In fact, your argument could further be twisted to ask why don’t people feel passionate enough to set up awareness sites about Darfur?

7. 7. bankelele (38 Comments) | June 10th, 2007 at 12:36 pm

   Sad, but true. Maybe we need to make a celebrity out of a native of Darfur (not an actress who parachutes in) - someone who is photogenic & articulate (which Paris is NOT) to tell the world the story of Darfur.

   I also wonder what the big deal is about Ms Hilton … But the thing is, photogenic and articulate folks like Angeline Jolie and George Clooney have talked about this issues but whatever they said was forgotten by the time they stepped down from the podium

8. 8. Ni2 (105 Comments) | June 10th, 2007 at 1:23 pm

   @Riba (your second comment)
   Huh?

   Go Serena!

   @M (RE: The photo)

   Seriously, what kind of comment is that

   He?! Can you look closely at that woman? She could break you in half with one hand!

   As for Paris Hilton… ARE YOU SURPRISED?

   Not really I guess … after all, almost everyone knows the finalists of Idols but the number of people who know their local representative is another cup of tea altogether!

9. 9. Kirima (60 Comments) | June 10th, 2007 at 2:24 pm

   I consider the Paris Hilton saga as just an amusing sideshow but its amazing the amount of coverage she gets for doing the smallest of things no wonder people describe her as being famous for just being being famous. Darfur on the other hand is serious stuff despite all the coverage it has gotten in the press (which is substantial for an African story) there is sadly very little action to end the mess out there.

   All i keep hearing is various windbags in the various institutions like the UN, AU, etc “condemning” the goings on. What bloody use is “condemning?!!!”

   Serena is definitely a tough mama, wouldn’t like to face her on a Tennis Court but I still like her game.

   I wonder how hard she hits them balls…

10. 10. Shiroh (33 Comments) | June 10th, 2007 at 2:53 pm

    Most Americans are obsessed with celebrities than they would about Darfur.

    It’s not just Americas. I bet Kenyans are just as bad, fussing over celebs!!

    As Jesus said “Let the Dead bury their Dead”. Sudan could as well be in that situation.

    A lot of blogs have a story about Hilton but not Darfur that could be the reason. Insane as it is

    And therein lies the problem … why can’t we as a society get our priorities straght?

11. 11. egm (68 Comments) | June 10th, 2007 at 6:04 pm

    One of the reasons I don’t watch much tv is the inanity pretending to be news coverage. On Friday in the cafeteria at work the tvs had “Breaking News” type coverage of the Paris Hilton she’s now in jail, she’s now out of jail saga for the entire hour.

    I was also amazed that CNN were interrupting headline news for such absurdity!

    Serena is a tough tenis player. Those biceps, yawa!

    Arm wrestle with her at your peril

12. 12. acolyte (174 Comments) | June 11th, 2007 at 3:16 am

    It was rather sad the fact that there was breaking news on the whole Paris Hilton saga, to the fact that helicopters were flying over the court house when she was sent back to prison. While in the meanwhile Darfur is slowly fading into the background of our awareness.

    Then in like 10 years we will commemorate the whole thing, like we did for Rwanda and Kosovo, standing with faced twisted with emotion and hint of tears in our eyes saying “never again!”.

    As for Serena Williams, she serves the ball faster than some male tennis players do, so imagine what would happen if her tennis racket connected with the side of your head!

    She’d make a good celebrity character in Mortal Kombat

13. 13. wathiifm (64 Comments) | June 11th, 2007 at 10:07 am

    It’s coz we are black!

14. 14. Explosion In Nairobi : Follow-up - tHiNkEr’S rOoM (No Comments) | June 11th, 2007 at 8:14 pm

    [...] If it turns out the explosion was a mere gas cylinder, the damage will already have been done. Once you put something on the Internet, there it stays. For instance, do a search for suicide bombers Kenya or suicide bomber Nairobi and see what turns up. Since it is already apparent that sensationalism generally wins over facts, our reputation will have been needlessly sullied [...]

15. 15. udi (72 Comments) | June 11th, 2007 at 9:00 pm

    She is one highly publicized porn star

16. 16. munyanta (14 Comments) | June 12th, 2007 at 5:14 am

    maze serena ameshona tu vi’ nasty !! it looks really bad……

17. 17. Luna (10 Comments) | June 22nd, 2007 at 11:17 am

    Sadly true….!

    Serenas getting Compton gangstar on that tennis racket….

    i love your blog M…officially one of favourite internet stopovers…

    love that kimya kimya song

18. 18. WIMN’s Voices: A Group Blog on Women, Media, AND… » Blog Archive » Paris Hilton vs. Michael Moore? What about Paris Hilton vs. DARFUR? (No Comments) | June 28th, 2007 at 10:28 pm

    [...] Our media system is broken. Recently, the blogosphere was buzzing about the fact that a Google search turns up five times more references to Paris Hilton than to the deadly humanitarian crisis in Darfur — approx. 68,200,000 Hilton hits to approx. 13,500,000 mentions of Darfur. That’s an interesting stat, but Google includes livejournals, entertainment zines, celebrity fan forums and the like; what I care about is actual journalism. So, today I did a “major newspapers” search in the Nexis.com news database, and found that over the past month Paris Hilton was mentioned in 2246 newspaper stories, while these same papers referenced Darfur in only 919 stories. [...]

19. 19. Bad Girls Rule « Postcard Headlines (No Comments) | October 7th, 2007 at 2:29 pm

    [...] Again I would opt for the simplistic here. I won’t ask why a Google search would turn up with five more items about Paris Hilton than the deadly humanitarian crisis in Darfur. Instead, I’ll sarcastically say that most of us secretly want people like her “to do anything” so that we would have someone to blame for the world’s woes. [...]