One Track Mind

Last night while I slept, a suspicious package was retrieved from a cargo plane.  I know this because I watch the news from time to time.  In fact, given that I was not at work today, I watched the news on several occasions and even flicked from CNN, to MSNBC and even Fox.  On each and every channel, at the times I tuned in, there was nothing but blanket coverage of this event.

All because someone in Yemen decided to send something a bit weird in the mail, the media goes into panic mode and instantly ignores all the actual newsworthy events of the world to focus on this.

Focus really may be a bit of an overstatement of what was going on.  What really happened is the news stations merely repeated the same story over and over again, and then tried to add their own twist to the story by wheeling out one 'expert' after another and then simply presented one 'theory' after another, which really included no end of unsubstantiated drivel from the presenters trying to fill the time.

I have to say, this is something I've always had quite an issue with in America.  Having been raised on a diet of BBC news, the American cable offerings fall a bit flat by comparison.  It's all driven by greed, money, and ratings.  There's no desire to educate and inform the American public, if it bleeds it leads, as the old saying goes.

The scary thing is that this isn't even a story.  This package could have been sent by anyone, and nothing actually happened.  And while there is a legitimacy to reporting on the story, does the coverage really have to be absolute?

I watched an old Penn & Teller Bullshit tonight about Ground Zero.  Nine years after 9/11 we still can't get our shit together and rebuild the tower(s).  And when some retard in the Middle East sends us an unusual package in the mail we shit ourselves and talk about it endlessly for days.

I really wish I could turn on the news, and see some actual journalism.  I really wish we'd stop panicking every time someone said the word 'Muslim.'  There will always be crazy terrorists out there, and while we continue our meddling in International affairs with our military we will always have enemies.  But when one silly package sends the media into a frenzy, we are playing right into the hands of the 'evildoers' who want to hurt us.