Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Tuning Out

I just can't take it. Terri Schiavo all the time, followed abruptly by the mega-Pope-athon, as if Ms. Schiavo hadn't existed. The way popular media picks up and drops issues reveals an attention span of a preverbal infant. And, of course, nothing requiring any actual analysis or thoughtful debate will be shown, so we watch a dizzying merry-go-round of relatively meaningless stories cycled so as to distract us from war, taxes, and the price of melons, which all do in fact affect the average citizen. The Terri Schiavo deathfest, the Pope orgy, and Michael Jackson are essentially meaningless exercises...well, meaningless unless you are a whore news agency quaking in terror at actually informing the citizenry of the moral, ethical, and fiscal bankruptcy of the national leadership.

Between the corruption of the Republicans and the equally corrupt gutlessness of the Democrats, we should be ripe for revolution. But so benumbed have we become by the endless parade of non-stories, that it's actually possible to kill 100,000 Iraqis, conduct systematic torture operations, lose 1540 American lives, all done for reasons proven to be absolute lies, and have that relegated to the back pages. No, what is vital news is the fact that the dead Pope will be dressed in a white cassock, a scarlet chasuble, and red silk shoes and that, according to Sylvia Poggioli of National Public Radio, the Pope appears quite serene.

No shit, Sylvia. Um, he's dead. Such is the state of journalism in these United States.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

not to mention the fact that Prince Rainier and Saul Bellow get slighted by the vagaries of the pope/Schiavo news cycle

Olaf said...

Damn right. Aside from a passing mention, they were completely overshadowed. Well, that's corporate media for you.