I am politically inclined, and REALLY OPINIONATED. But, I also realize that "it is what it is", things come and go, and crap has happened throughout time. Most of it we don't know about, and while something might have been huge for a moment, it's forgotten soon after. I bought a scrap book at a thrift shop because it had some crime story clippings. This is the first I've come across. Camden NJ September 1949 - I'll post more as I see them.
you needn't bother ....... more than enuf bad news already here that , going back 70 years to dig up more... is unwarranted ... at best !
What a strange thing to keep, but before the Internet if you wanted morbid tales I guess you had to clip your own. I have a book titled "Death Scenes: A Homicide Detective's Scrapbook" and it's exactly as you might imagine. An LAPD detective kept a scrapbook with a multitude of "curiosities" but the majority were crime scene and related death photos from cases he worked from 1921-1950. A funny way of coping I imagine. (I don't recommend searching for it unless that stuff doesn't bother you because there are samples online.)
I think I have that book. I have quite a few death scene photo books. For some reason (it can't be good), these things don't bother me. True crime is fascinating. It must always have been, as there's many shows, podcasts, and even a few TV channels devoted to it. I didn't buy it (it was $1.25), way back when a school burned and over 100 children died. You would think something like that would never be forgotten, and yet it has. All the things people obsess over on the news will one day be a forgotten memory.
I grew up on rotten dot com and it was all downhill from there. It makes for very good reference to all the industries I ended up in though.
The things I've seen online, I can never unsee. Years ago when I was living in NYC, they had 2 cable access channels that anyone could send in videos and they'd be shown. I was recording a clips show and they had a NY politician who was being indicted. He comes into the press room, pulls out a gun, puts it in his mouth and kills himself. The camera didn't move. It stayed right on him. It looked like nothing until the camera started closing in on his face, and all of a sudden the blood flowed out his nose like a water faucet had been turned on. My mouth dropped open, and I immediately recorded over that clip. I've since seen much worse. The problem with this kind of video violence today is, in my time we had things like Andy Griffith, The Monkees, Donna Reed Show, Bewitched, shows, films and music with either some type of moral code or so deeply hidden a young person wouldn't get the negativity. Today, you have uber video violence and nothing moral to fall back on. So, the violence is the norm, and it's everywhere.
That was Budd Dwyer in PA during what was supposed to be his resignation. He had quite a speech beforehand. I've seen that clip. To your second paragraph, his suicide was replayed on some news stations in full, including twice on one. There were a lot of shocking things that were televized in news that aren't now. I watched some of those shows and they were not perfect. The number of times I wanted to punch Darrin from Bewitched in the face for being a jerk lollll... Many were especially backward towards women, to say nothing of other people. We have lots of great wholesome content now and I am constantly impressed by younger folk and what morals they've built from what came before. It's not everyone because we come in a multitude, but I think it's good to remember as in your news clip, we're very like who came before.
I have many times thought the Donna Reed Show, Ozzie & Harriet, Father Knows Best, etc., are to blame for the Baby Boom generation's unrealistic ideas of what marriage & family should be like. I suspect the vast majority of us did not grow up in home environments remotely like that. And have to wonder what the consequences were for our adult life choices about partners, marriage, children. I don't recommend a dose of true crime as a corrective, but most of us can be grateful our lives do not have these kind of tragedies. Single guy living in his mother's basement with access to a gun. Where have we heard this story before?
Yes to ALL of this. My MIL has said very firmly in the past that everything is worse now than when she was young. She grew up during the Civil Rights era, the draft and wars, lack of ADA rights, and lack of women's rights, etc. etc. I know we are nostalgic for the time when we were young, and there were good things of course, but the bad still existed too.
@Bronwen I wrote for a psyche class in college about this. Unrealistic expectations of young married couples vs. reality. I was 19 not married, but I was able to interview couples who grew up in that era. @mirana I remember my mother having to add my Grandfather on her checking account after my parents divorced. Considering how our rights have been decimated recently - it was better when we were younger,
