Hang 'em High

In the papers in the past few days, there have been reports of children killing themselves while re-enacting the hanging of Saddam Hussein.
This made me wonder (as one does while sitting on the tube for twenty minutes staring at your feet)about a few things.
Firstly, why did the authorities choose to show the hanging on television?
Secondly, why would children want to re-enact the death of a dictator?

Let's look at the first point, shall we?
Executions around the world, and more specifically seem to capture the public's imagination. Barely two hundred years ago, one couldn't walk through a city without literally bumping into a hanging body in the streets. But, maybe i'm being naive on this point, haven't the human rights societies of the world decreed that executions of any kind be done in private with only people close to the case bare witness to the hanging/electric chair/beheading etc? What is it about an execution that fascinates people? Have we as a society reverted back to the days of old when a good hanging in a public square was high entertainment? As if reality TV isn't bad enough, they air what should have been a news clip, as a full length prime time feature. I believe that the executives who made the decision to show the footage, made a very bad choice. If ratings were so bad that it demanded an execution, then I say - Bring Back DALLAS!

On my second question: Children re enacting the hanging of Saddam Hussein. I wonder, in the past, were there a string of cyanide related deaths amongst children re-enacting Hitler's death? Or a case of beheadings amongst children trying to re enact the headless state of one of King Henry's wives? I doubt it.
It's puzzling, scary and rather revealing of society today.

I guess adults forget that children are the greatest imitators. Ask the girls in rehab for eating disorders after trying to imitate Posh's latest minute size, or re enacting Lindsay Lohan's skeletal phase. Or the youngsters recovering from trying to imitate Cobains heroin addiction, or Moss' cocaine habit. She bounced back to becoming one of the highest paid models today. Cobain wasn't so lucky, and niether are a lot of thier imitators.

The point, and i promise i have one, is that children are sponges, absorbing everything they see and without anyone there to tell them the difference between the good the bad and the ugly, i believe we'll see a lot more re enactment related deaths amongst kids.
So Mr TV Exec, i highly recommend you review your show line up. Cut out ALL reality TV save for the News and Discovery Channel, and replace the unwatchable with fun, escapism. after all, isn't that what we originally bought our tvs for?