Commentary

The power of the 'tube'

P AND I were discussing that long-standing issue of how damaging 'negative' music is on our society. There are some people who blame the murders, mayhem, degeneration of morals and the ills of the island on deejay music.

I have never been sold on this idea. For one I don't think that music is a cure for cancer ­ nope, actually before anything else it is entertainment, and at the end of the day, that is one of the driving things about music for the average Joe; they like the way it sounds or how it makes them feel. They are entertained by music. So I don't believe that the term 'negative music' makes sense. Much the same way that I don't believe the term 'negative news 'makes sense.

But let us not digress.

Ban the 'bad music'

If my argument is unsound, fine. Just ban all this 'negative' music and play the choir We Are The World 24-7 and see how many crimes that will stop. None.

But at the same time I told P I am fully cognisant of the power of media ­ particularly electronic media, especially television on the psyche of kids.

Young R and I were spending some down time the other day watching television. We were watching that Michael Jordan movie with Bugs Bunny and crew ­ Space Jam. We were thoroughly entertained. But at the end of it my young R declared that when he grows up he wants to be a basketballer. And no sooner had the show finished he was up and out trying to dribble his basketball.

Well, as my friend G has often told me, buy the boy a basketball and let him get the feel of it from early ­ if the talent is there then let it flow because the minimum wage in the NBA is half a million U.S. dollars. Hmm, put cricketer and basketballer on the scales and we don't even see the cricketer ­ even with a C&W personal endorsement!

Amazement

Anyway, I watched with amazement how driven the little man has been since watching that movie. It is not that he has not seen basketball before because on occasion we do look at a game or two, but the movie did something to him.

And then I got to thinking. What, perchance, might he want to be were he to see Scarface or the life of that mass murderer Charles Manson? That is why kids are not to watch shows for adults. And those idiots at Carib who previewed Blade and Meet the Fockers before the start of Sponge Bob with the theatre full of kids need to have their brains tested.

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