I've gotten tired of the news

I don't know whether it's a change in me, or that hearing the same bad news every day about Iraq and the GOP shenanigans seems like reruns.

The story about the King Drew (now King-Harbor) hospital is a good illustration. This hospital has had these kinds of problems for years. All attempts to remedy the situation have failed. Nothing makes a difference.

Our problems are an elephant in the livingroom, but we are impotent to fix anything.

I don't like that feeling. This gives me insight into why people tune out current events. They feel impotent.

As a child of the '60s I'm not used to feeling that way. Then we felt we could make a difference.

Another incident added to my growing sense of frustration. My tube of toothpaste was confiscated at Indianapolis International. It was fine going through the checkpoint at LAX, but was evidently a real no-no at INDY. Why? Don't all the screeners follow the same rules? I'm thinking these processes are defined by people of modest intellect, and enforced by folks who settle for near minimum wage.

In fact that's the bottom line. We are delegating huge responsibilites to folks who are just not up to the task. Bush is the best example of it.


Perhaps we should just let it all fail and start again.

The Impossible Conundrum

George's find of the day... Right On!

How to package an entertainment program that resembles a real newscast...

Today’s television news theocracy is steeped in mythology and palliatives that encourage a let’s pretend attitude toward news programming that creates an impossible conundrum.

The Impossible Conundrum June 11th, 2007
by Robert Butche

The fall of the fourth estate

It seems to me that MSM was ruined by the OJ trial. They had such riches delivered to them by this fiasco that they all grew lazy. They expected good stories to drop in their lap.
And since then, real news has taken a back seat to this kind of tabloid sensationalism.

They’re treating us like mushrooms. Keeping us in the dark and feeding us shite.

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…the mass media. What are they? They’re huge corporations, massive corporations, linked up with even bigger corporations. They sell audiences to other businesses, namely advertisers. So when you turn on the television set, CBS doesn’t make any money. They make money from the advertisers. You’re the product that they’re selling, and the same is true of the daily newspaper. They’re huge corporations, selling audiences, potential consumers, to other businesses, all linked up closely to the government, especially the big media. What picture of the world do you expect them to present? - Noam Chomsky, Sparrow Talks with Noam Chomsky
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“I deplore… the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them… These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our funtionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief… This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit.” –Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814. ME 14:46