Good News, Bad News and Non-News
One. Dan Rather is signing off tonight, and, while I have obviously never liked his brand of "journalism," and frankly have never watched him regularly -- does anybody under the age of 65 with an iota of computer-savvy or a responsible, non-9-to-5 job watch the network news? -- the whole sign-off seems like much ado about nothing. A news reader stops reading news... big deal! Where's the story?
Two. A sad little ex-star, Michael Jackson -- when was his last hit record? -- turns out to have been just as weird and fruity as we expected, and appears to have perpetrated at least some nastiness on a little boy. But where were his freakin' parents in this scenario? What reasonable parent lets their little kid hang out with a nut job like this? All in all, a sad scene, but, again, why is this such big news? Bad parents neglect their children and bad men take advantage of that parental neglect to do nasty things. That sort of thing is happening every day in every city in America.
Three. A pathetic loser of a dumb jock, Jose Canseco, finds that no one thinks he's cool anymore since he's not playing major league sports, so he writes a book claiming that Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa and Raphael Palmeiro are or were all doing steroids. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't; maybe McGwire became Big Mac because of the juice. Do I care? Maybe a little. But why is this national news?
Four. Jen and Brad split. Jen and Brad get back together. 'Nuff said.
Five. Martha Stewart.... eek! It's not news!!
Meanwhile, democracy is on the march in the Middle East, the last place on earth that seemed immune to what President Bush has called the deepest longing of human nature. This is news. This is world-shattering, paradigm-shifting, life-affirming news. Why are we so distracted?
Let's keep our eyes on the ball, people.
Two. A sad little ex-star, Michael Jackson -- when was his last hit record? -- turns out to have been just as weird and fruity as we expected, and appears to have perpetrated at least some nastiness on a little boy. But where were his freakin' parents in this scenario? What reasonable parent lets their little kid hang out with a nut job like this? All in all, a sad scene, but, again, why is this such big news? Bad parents neglect their children and bad men take advantage of that parental neglect to do nasty things. That sort of thing is happening every day in every city in America.
Three. A pathetic loser of a dumb jock, Jose Canseco, finds that no one thinks he's cool anymore since he's not playing major league sports, so he writes a book claiming that Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa and Raphael Palmeiro are or were all doing steroids. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't; maybe McGwire became Big Mac because of the juice. Do I care? Maybe a little. But why is this national news?
Four. Jen and Brad split. Jen and Brad get back together. 'Nuff said.
Five. Martha Stewart.... eek! It's not news!!
Meanwhile, democracy is on the march in the Middle East, the last place on earth that seemed immune to what President Bush has called the deepest longing of human nature. This is news. This is world-shattering, paradigm-shifting, life-affirming news. Why are we so distracted?
Let's keep our eyes on the ball, people.
posted by PDB at 2:57 PM
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