WE ARE WHAT WE SEE: VIOLENCE, ADDICTION AND MAINSTREAM MEDIA
The effects of violence in media on the American public is a loaded topic I have not been alone in considering for some time. My perspective is that of an avid consumer of literature and film, a poet and writer who is not mainstream, and someone who is a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, which promotes mindfulness and peacefulness. These are the vantage points from which I come while examining my visceral, emotional and intellectual responses to violence via various media. Monday through Sunday, any viewer can get their fill of blood and gore watching FBI, CSI, Law & Order, Dateline, and many other TV shows that feature true and imagined stories of killings and other atrocities. This is what we go to bed with folks. Bloody murder on our minds, filtering into our nervous system and dreams. In 2007, years before the Las Vegas or Orlando or Virginia Tech or Sandy Hook shootings, New Scientist reported that "by the time the U.S. child starts elementary school he or she will have