| What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office. ~ King Lear ~ Act IV, scene vi ~ William Shakspeare |
| The collective media in this country has become so delusional they really must believe they are the center of their own universe. Is it me, or has this week become more bizarre by the day? Maybe I should've stayed in Vegas. It was bad enough there was a guy on one of my flights reading At Any Cost : How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election. When I saw it, while standing in line to check in at the Southwest counter at Burbank airport, I couldn't help laughing out LOUD. (And I mean LOUD.) Thank god most of the reviewers are saying it's a pile of crap. On my second trip in a month to and subsequently return from, Eden in the Desert, I was so exhausted and stressed from job hunting and talking to a million different people, that when Sunday night rolled around and I needed to get my proverbial shit together to go to work the next day, I found so much running through my brain I couldn't get it to shut up long enough to fall asleep. Sidebar: I get up at 4am, to drive the lovely L.A. freeway system at 5am to boogey down to LAX before the morning Starbucks junkies make it on to the road and cause most of the "Sig-Alerts" (major accidents that cause tie ups that last at least 30 minutes). So, at 4:30am, after I realize I am so sleep-deprived I can barely stand without feeling dizzy and have no business walking to my Jeep, let alone actually driving it, I sat down and turned on the television. Up to this point I had managed to almost completely obliterate Timothy McVeigh from my mind and file him into the NON-STAR file. Oh well, so much for that. As most of the world now knows, there was not a news or major broadcast station on that was NOT covering the execution. The execution that was not to be televised. No, instead we were treated to non-stop endless detailed descriptions from a mile long parade of media folk who even went as far as recounting the color of the curtains in the chamber, along with every head movement and breath McVeigh took. Who needs it televised? I sat there watching in utter disbelief at the sheer weirdness of the whole thing. It was as if nothing else of any importance was happening anywhere else on the entire planet. No hostages in the Philippines, nothing happening in the Mideast, no subpoenas about to be issued and investigation about to commence on the utility price gouging in California, and certainly no non-elected president about to make an ass of himself on his first visit overseas. The detail that was spent on this was absolutely mind-boggling. I still can't figure out what they think is a story and what isn't. Please don't get me wrong, I do think it is a story, and it has hurt the heart of most Americans, but it is certainly not the only act of violence or terrorism on American soil by an American. What about the countless workplace and school shootings? Yes, this man blew up a federal building and killed 168 people. Yes he was a cold-hearted freak. Yes, it was one of the most horrific things a single person has done to his own people, and no, I cannot imagine what my relatives in Kansas, who live only a short drive away have gone through since this happened and how it has effected them. Perhaps I can liken it somewhat, in a small teeny-tiny way, to how Princess Diana and John John's deaths affected me. Or the well planned out Columbine shootings, but again, not exactly. I know that is not even remotely close, since this was a blatant act of violent terrorism by an ex-soldier. But is he the biggest 'mass murderer in US history'? Cigarettes kill far more people; perhaps the CEO of Phillip Morris should be held so accountable. Yes, there were over 1000 people hurt in the bombing. But the entire nation's vote was taken away when the Hive of Five illegally placed GW in the Oval Office. Where were the details on CNN, et al, about that? I'm still waiting. Why does the press find it necessary to give a monster such star treatment? Why glorify such an horrific act? Why give someone so vile, even 15 seconds of fame? Why spend such time on such insipid detail of the killing of this man? Is it to “give closure”? Was it really “justice”? Who actually has the right to say? Does the nation feel better now that we ended his life in such a humane way? He certainly had nothing to do with such a humane act, nor did he seem to have an ounce of remorse. Perhaps that is something that comes with time and maturity, when you grow up enough to take responsibility for your own actions. Tim McVeigh will never get there now. So for the rest of the day it was difficult to not find anything but a constant rehashing from the witnesses. I must say I have the utmost respect for the victims who watched, and for those who elected not to let McVeigh take up one more second of their lives. We each deal with tragedy in our own way. Finally there was a report on a local affiliate about one of the American hostages in the Philippines who had reportedly been beheaded. Perhaps the reason such a minor (non-McVeigh) story was actually reported was because it was a local Southern California man who had reportedly been executed. There was no more than three minutes spent on such a minor blip on the radar. As the week has worn on, it's only grown more bizarre. For the last two days on the radio I've heard quite a bit about the protesters overseas at every place Bush has appeared so far, along with his completely botching his so called 'Spanish' and even mispronouncing the Prime Minister's name. Oh, so OVERSEAS protests will be covered, but the ones here at every appearance not only of GW, but the Hive of Five, Cheney, et al, and even some just for the sake of protesting like VoterMarch, are NOT. Foreign equals news, Domestic does not. I see! I keep trying to figure out just exactly what kind of animal the modern media has morphed into. When The National Enquirer starts to be one of the few sources of truth, you realize the entire world, as we know it, is no longer recognizable. I'd just like to know when they are going to spend time reporting on the Bush family instead of Jessie Jackson's. And when is a responsible news source going to report on all of the violent threats posted on a daily basis over on freerepublic.com? Enough with the harassment of the Chuy's manager who was only doing her job and protecting her business along with her entire staff's livelihoods. Obviously none of these people have ever worked in a restaurant where liquor is being served, or if they have it wasn’t their only means of financial survival. Does the modern media think we only know what they tell us? That we don't have access to other forms of news? Can they be that self-delusional? Are they beginning to catch the GW stupid disease where they believe that the rest of the world including Europe is one big ignorant backwater neighborhood? Is it their intent to make the protestors overseas look silly and naive? I don't believe I'm alone in that I've always looked at Europe as being a bit more civilized and sophisticated than we here in the US. Perhaps I formed that opinion from attending school there. After all, they've had a bit more practice at it than we have. They've been at this civilization thing longer, say by hundreds of years. Just now on the local ABC affiliate, there was a story about a four year old who went from his babysitter’s apartment to his own in the same small complex to get a jacket, (it’s close to the ocean), and got locked into his apartment. So he called 911, like his mother who was on a business trip had taught him to do, if anything bad every happened. This is somehow news, since the babysitter didn’t want to get into trouble that she had let him out of her sight for five minutes while she was caring for the six-month-old baby, all of which had resulted in a call to 911, she had denied she was in charge of the child. Child protective services got involved. Why weren’t this child, and the mother congratulated for doing the right thing? Why was blame immediately assigned to people, instead of an inanimate object? For four years old, this child has amazing presence of mind. THAT should be the story. Why can’t we have Voter Protective Services, or Citizen Protective Services? When did our priorities get so askew that a babysitter is in fear of telling the truth, assuming she will be blamed, and a mother is taken to task for supporting her family, and being responsible for arranging care and teaching her child to not panic? Or that our media, once revered as one of the most principled of estates in this country, is now one of the most reviled? So many questions. I wonder if the answers will ever come. |
| Media Delusion |
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| © 2001 Tally Briggs |