To read the tribute to SFC Marcus Muralles, please click here
Friday, July 15, 2005
No Sense of Humor...
Let me set the scene for you. It's late March, and a local radion station's morning show is having a contest. You're supposed to figure out how far a couple of H2s have traveled around the city. If you're one of the first 2 at the radio station on a specific date and can tell them the answer, you get a brand spanking new H2.
So... you faithful listen to the morning show, and you track the progress of the 2 H2s. You hire a babysitter so you can be at the radio station bright and early, hoping to win. And the DJs show up... and hand you a remote-controlled Hummer. Look at the calendar... what's the day's date?
April 1sr, of course.
It seems as if we've lost our sense of humor. There is such an atmosphere of entitlement that people can't just take things in stride anymore. We're too serious... too touchy... too quick to claim victim status... too quick to sue to get "our fair share."
Maybe we should outlaw practical jokes. Or April Fools Day, at least. It's only fair, right?
So... you faithful listen to the morning show, and you track the progress of the 2 H2s. You hire a babysitter so you can be at the radio station bright and early, hoping to win. And the DJs show up... and hand you a remote-controlled Hummer. Look at the calendar... what's the day's date?
April 1sr, of course.
A listener is suing a radio station she said promised her a new Hummer H2 and instead gave her a remote-controlled model as an April Fools' Day prank.She's joking, right? Radio stations (morning shows, in particular) are always humiliating people on the air- especially on April Fools Day. It's their jobs, for goodness sake.
..."They put us on the radio all week long, just portraying how they couldn't believe that we believed they were actually giving away real cars," said Castillo, a Bakersfield housewife. "I just couldn't believe that they would actually humiliate someone like that."
Castillo's lawyer, Scott Perlman, said the station's misrepresentation of the prizes being offered violated state law and Federal Communications Commission regulations. The lawsuit, filed June 21, seeks $60,000, about the cost of a real H2.OK... if they were running a real contest, then the lawyer would have had a point. But they weren't running a contest- it was a joke. Nothing more. Nothing less than a practical joke.
"Any time you conduct a contest you have to be brutally honest about how you're conducting the contest and what you're giving away," Perlman said.
It seems as if we've lost our sense of humor. There is such an atmosphere of entitlement that people can't just take things in stride anymore. We're too serious... too touchy... too quick to claim victim status... too quick to sue to get "our fair share."
Maybe we should outlaw practical jokes. Or April Fools Day, at least. It's only fair, right?
