D Mahoney wrote:
I don't understand why any decent person, who doesn't harm anyone,
should ever get negative media attention - regardless of appearance,
intelligence, or any other noteworthy features or talents. The kind
of cruelty she's had to endure is inexcusable. If her singing were
less impressive, that wouldn't have made it more excusable.

Unfortunately society as a whole is deplorably insensitive and cruel. It
seems that as time goes on our society becomes less and less civil.
"Common sense" and "common courtesy" are both very UNCOMMON commodities.
The more I see of society, the more I appreciate my cats.

Dan

Society is simply humans. Human nature has some rather nasty aspects
that we have to be trained out of. Some societies develop rules of
behaviour or moral codes that strongly repress the innate tendency of
humans to emphasize how much they're part of their group, or that
they're 'normal", by attacking anyone who is different, unusual, weak,
or in some other way 'not one of us'.

Our society seems to be moving more and more away from even trying to
treat everyone as a human being; from even arguing or teaching that
people should do so. Look at the popularity of a lot of the reality
shows which, from the little I've seen, are actually designed to
encourage people to mock and abuse others.

It's not in the least surprising that Susan Boyle was treated the way
she was. Everyone who buys the papers and watch the shows that set
people up to be publicly humiliated after luring them in with promises
of fame and fortune participates in a system that's bound to hurt people.

Cheryl