I Just Don't Care
I don't care what happened to Stacy Peterson, or the girl who is missing in Aruba, or the one missing in Spain. I don't care enough to remember their names. Although as I learned yesterday after spending a day at home without anything much to watch on tv, this is all the cable news people care about. And why I don't watch cable news. But I thought I'd give it a few hours in a day, just to see what's out there.
In a system that has world-wide coverage capabilities, that is looking for news to feed the 24-hour cable habit, apparently what is important are missing white women and missing white girls. No surprise to most of you I know. But one of those things that just triggered a mini outrage in my yesterday.
Do you want to know what is not important? Iraq and Afghanistan wars are not important anymore, although photographs and heartwarming stories of the troops are good pre-commercial filler. The long-lasting middle-east crisis is not important anymore (ok by me, I never know how to deal with that mess). Europe is not important, unless somebody torches a US embassy, then it gets to be all we hear about until somebody spots a little girl that looks like one missing in Spain. Darfur is definitely not important, and the entire existence of Africa seems to depend on Bush dancing while visiting there. And although Mexico and Canada share borders with us, they are not important. Although rounding up Latinos and sending them to Mexico (regardless of where they came from) does seem to be occasionally important. I am still awaiting the round up of Canadians when we finally send William Shatner back over the border. And despite the fact that many of the Latinos we're rounding up seem to come from Central America, that area is not only not important, but for all intents and purposes, invisible. Cool trick! South America is not important, although Venezuela will continue to be of occasional interest as long as they've got a leader who bashes our leader. After all, if the news doesn't reflect our view of the world, in essence, our dominance of the world, then could it really matter? And while southeast Asia was very important in the last election (or at least our last war there was), it's also managed to obtain that cloak of invisibility. South Korea used to exist only in reference to North Korea, but both of those have decided to co-exist in non-existence. Cuba managed a blimp on the screen existence when Fidel decided to officially give power to his brother, but then everyone decided that after decades of focusing on getting rid of Fidel, that wasn't what mattered at all, since Raul = Fidel now. China and India get to exist from time to time, thanks to either their increasing economic power or increasing bad environmental status. (Which is to say, how they impact us.) Russia depends on Putin doing something out of the ordinary insane or bombastic before it matters, but who can blame the news for ignoring Russia, after all, it's just a little nation with no nuclear capacity or threat whatsoever. Europe exists from time to time, but usually as a footnote about the US economy and what we can or can't afford in France this summer. As for the rest of the world (and yes, there is a rest of the world, believe it or not), we await a terrorist strike, a natural disaster, or a nice, bloody coup to attract our attention. Because unless we get that, how on earth can you expect us to tear ourselves away from the breaking news that Stacy Peterson is STILL missing!
In a system that has world-wide coverage capabilities, that is looking for news to feed the 24-hour cable habit, apparently what is important are missing white women and missing white girls. No surprise to most of you I know. But one of those things that just triggered a mini outrage in my yesterday.
Do you want to know what is not important? Iraq and Afghanistan wars are not important anymore, although photographs and heartwarming stories of the troops are good pre-commercial filler. The long-lasting middle-east crisis is not important anymore (ok by me, I never know how to deal with that mess). Europe is not important, unless somebody torches a US embassy, then it gets to be all we hear about until somebody spots a little girl that looks like one missing in Spain. Darfur is definitely not important, and the entire existence of Africa seems to depend on Bush dancing while visiting there. And although Mexico and Canada share borders with us, they are not important. Although rounding up Latinos and sending them to Mexico (regardless of where they came from) does seem to be occasionally important. I am still awaiting the round up of Canadians when we finally send William Shatner back over the border. And despite the fact that many of the Latinos we're rounding up seem to come from Central America, that area is not only not important, but for all intents and purposes, invisible. Cool trick! South America is not important, although Venezuela will continue to be of occasional interest as long as they've got a leader who bashes our leader. After all, if the news doesn't reflect our view of the world, in essence, our dominance of the world, then could it really matter? And while southeast Asia was very important in the last election (or at least our last war there was), it's also managed to obtain that cloak of invisibility. South Korea used to exist only in reference to North Korea, but both of those have decided to co-exist in non-existence. Cuba managed a blimp on the screen existence when Fidel decided to officially give power to his brother, but then everyone decided that after decades of focusing on getting rid of Fidel, that wasn't what mattered at all, since Raul = Fidel now. China and India get to exist from time to time, thanks to either their increasing economic power or increasing bad environmental status. (Which is to say, how they impact us.) Russia depends on Putin doing something out of the ordinary insane or bombastic before it matters, but who can blame the news for ignoring Russia, after all, it's just a little nation with no nuclear capacity or threat whatsoever. Europe exists from time to time, but usually as a footnote about the US economy and what we can or can't afford in France this summer. As for the rest of the world (and yes, there is a rest of the world, believe it or not), we await a terrorist strike, a natural disaster, or a nice, bloody coup to attract our attention. Because unless we get that, how on earth can you expect us to tear ourselves away from the breaking news that Stacy Peterson is STILL missing!
posted by Anonymous at 12:12 PM
2 Comments:
What do you mean, you don't care about celebrity news? If you keep on in this curmudgeonly fashion, you're going to endanger the entire celebrity-industrial complex, including People, Us, GQ, Vanity Fair and Oprah magazines, most cable networks(with the possible exceptions of C-Span and the Military Channel), a clear majority of local news shows, the livelihood of paparazzi photogs and the preferred leisure-time activities of millions of your fellow citizens.
Why, you could precipitate, from THIS VERY FORUM, a cataclysmic socio-political-economic crisis, a complete national meltdown.
Are you SURE you want to continue in this vein, pursue this line of societal attack?!
"Celebrity Industrial Complex" HA HA HA LOL @ M moville! Good one!
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