I used to know a guy in college who was a straight-A student but didn’t have the wherewithal to look both ways before crossing the street.
I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately because of recent events in the news that are indicative of this guy’s mindset — a mindset that has become so pervasive in society that it literally takes a plea from the president of the United States to get people to even think about changing it.
I’m talking about common sense. Or, more precisely, the lack thereof.
Evidence of this is everywhere. Gov. Paul LePage showed a lack of common sense last week when he told the NAACP to kiss his butt. Common sense tells us the economy won’t improve as long as banks are allowed to illegally foreclose on properties and hoard bailout money provided to them by the very people they’re now putting the screws to.
Certainly, members of Congress could do well with a good dose of common sense. If they did, they wouldn’t view members of different parties sitting together as some monumental achievement.
Lest you think you’ve opened a political magazine instead of GO, here are some recent instances in the entertainment world that show a complete lack of common sense:
• Insult comic Ricky Gervais is chosen to host the Golden Globes, and producers are shocked — shocked! — that he insults members of the audience.
• The use of a derogatory term for homosexuals in “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits gets the song banned from Canadian radio — 26 years after its release. Had members of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council actually listened to the song, they might realize that it’s poking fun at such bigotry.
• Live Nation, which has a monopoly on concert bookings, is allowed to merge with Ticketmaster, which has a monopoly on concert tickets, and the cost of tickets goes up. Executives with both companies are then surprised when concert revenues fall by almost 25 percent in one year.
The lack of common sense in American society has become such the norm that when it is used, it’s treated as the greatest thing since screw-top beer bottles. They don’t even call it common sense in the Northeast, they call it “Yankee ingenuity,” like when someone melts snow to make water during a power outage. (Snow becomes water when it melts? Who knew?)
In the process, the actions of those who are truly innovative are cheapened because the term is so freely tossed around. The same can be said for “hero” and “legend.”
But I digress. What I propose for the new year is that, before anyone opens their mouth, makes a proposal or decides on a course of action, they pause.
Not for long. Just for a minute or two. Just long enough to think about what they’re doing, and about what the likely outcome of their actions will be.
Maybe — just maybe — their common sense will kick in.
But somehow, I think instead we’ll be seeing stories about Congress proposing a bill that requires them to say “hello” to each other, “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” being banned from radio for using the word “gay,” and Ricky Gervais being hired to host the Teen Choice Awards.
Deputy Managing Editor Rod Harmon may be contacted at 791-6450 or at:
rharmon@pressherald.com
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