r.i.p. habeus corpus, 1305-2006
but don't cry, because you didn't really need it. it was only a goddamned piece of paper! that ridiculous bit of nonsense was just tying the hands of the judicial process and playing into the hands of the terrorists, the only ones it was protecting. endangering you, protecting them, don't you see?
…normally it's all fun and games until someone yells 'gestapo', but ask yourself: what happens when you become the next "them"?
the bad news is that germany invaded poland and plunged the world into war.
the good news is that it happened in 1939, and it's all over by now.
the rest of the good news is that the internet is awesome.
in this exciting episode, thanks to a special request by ted, i'll be beating a dead horse.
television is crap in general. television news is crap specifically. and i'll tell you why.
television news has a way of egregiously hyping asinine topics, taking screen time away from actual news. while local news stations can probably be forgiven on account of there being not much happening locally, the national/world news cannot, because there is a lot going on in the world that really really matters. a prime example is the airplane whose landing gear recently failed to act properly after takeoff, which then circled the runway for a few hours to burn excess fuel before landing in a cascade of sparks. that's the entire story and the full extent of the drama. yet last wednesday when this was happening, a majority of the stations we receive through our rabbit-ear antenna had looping moving pictures of the plane figure-eighting around the airport split-framed with a still image of the offending landing gear. turn off the volume and remove the station logos and the viewer wouldn't have been able to tell the stations apart—and it was like that for the better part of three hours.
some commentary: this incident had no bearing on my life in any way whatever, nor, i would argue, yours. it will impact the passengers and their families; the company itself, certainly; the rest of the industry and all involved. but all of these would have found out eventually and by means much more direct, targeted, and meaningful than the 5 o'clock news. to you or me or the man on the street this isn't news. it's happening, it's current, but it's insignificant. it qualified for 'special report' status because it was dramatic and people would watch it, because deep down, people are voyeurs for things going wrong. we want to see disasters and smoke and things breaking and we want to see it now, dammit, and we want to see talking heads saying how this will impact the global blah blah blah. oh of course we don't want anyone to be hurt or much less have anyone die, but a little disaster fix every now and again calms the monsters deep down within us all demanding some excitement, demanding a little live-action drama that we can turn off when it's time for bed—because in the end, we want them all to live happily ever after.
actual news flashes! iran is pursuing its nuclear program in spite of the eu's opposition. north korea has on the surface given up its own nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic aid and gestures of peace, though there exist serious doubts. germany's election remains in the air. any of these affects us infinitely more than the event above, but you'll never see breaking news, nor indeed any more than skeletal information, about any of them. i claim this is because television is a visual medium, and there are no dramatic images of any of these stories.
as a population, we are becoming more inclined to act emotionally rather than thoughtfully, and more inclined to be entertained than to be informed. one can see it in the prevalence of entertainment news—shows that keep you up-to-date on all the latest celebrity gossip, fashion, and marital status. it doesn't matter that renée zellweger and kenny chesney got a divorce (annulment?). it doesn't matter that angelina jolie broke up brad pitt and jennifer aniston and now wants to adopt a child. refer to my above comments about insignificance. it seems to me that this type of show is so pervasive because the viewer develops a kind of emotional attachment to his/her favorite celebrity/ies. it can happen as easily as by watching, say, a good film, and in the viewing, the viewer associates the screen personality with the emotions brought about by that film. the viewer feels that s/he has been through something with, say, tom cruise, and afterwards feels the need to keep up the relationship. it's worthless, needless heavy petting of the right hemisphere. the same emotion-strokers don't want to be enlightened; they want to be entertained. these are the ones who want to see the dramatic images rather than learn something, however disturbing or unpleasant.
related to this is the tendency to have ludicrously in-depth reporting for a week or so, followed possibly by an update report or two, depending on the importance of the original story, and then absolutely nothing. i've heard it called the cnn effect, and the evidence is anecdotal: when is the last time you heard about the tsunami rebuilding efforts? they've been going on at a feverish pace for nearly nine months. 150,000 people lost their lives and tens of millions were displaced, requiring the biggest reconstruction of my lifetime, but those stories don't make headlines anymore because it's old news. karl rove/valerie plame? same situation. somalia, the results of the g8 summit, the ongoing clear and present genocide in sudan, or indeed anything about africa? ibid. the selectivity of the news has grown staggering; i submit for your further consideration the horribly depressing missing white woman syndrome. the mainstream television news programs would do well to have some sort of checks and balances system (other than themselves) to catch things like this. letters to the editor and other types of viewer/listener/reader feedback are well and good, but it is hard to imagine a letter to the editor changing the reporting policy of the news source. everything is so driven by ratings and the bottom line that the entire idea of informing and educating the public has been relegated to the bottom half of section c, page 2, next to the used car ads and the obituaries.
the point of all this? watch / listen to / read a news program that is informative rather than sensational. do not watch jerry springer, nor any of the other horrible drivel on the daytime telly. be selective in what you believe: take everything through the filter of skepticism—not just news, but everything you hear, from advertising to the word on the street to what your parents told you as a child. perhaps even get the news from a source that differs ideologically from your own views. truth will stand up to reason. so please, reason. be cautious when jumping to conclusions. and most importantly, make the talking heads shut up.
**
further reading (while the soapbox is hot):
top 10 ignored news stories. hot.
does this worry anyone else?
"[The revised Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations] was drafted by the Pentagon in March and posted on the internet, but did not attract widespread attention until a report on it in The Washington Post yesterday. It has since been removed from the Department of Defence website."
lucky you; i have the full story.
deskjob general: lackey geek! make this nominally available to the public but in a place where no one will ever read it! also mention peace is our profession! and also obfuscation
DoD webmaster: i have just the place! the inter-thing!
deskjob general: the inter-thing! i read about that yesterday on the web! that is an excellent idea for a location
[time passes]
washington post reporter: this is a veritable goldmine! pulitzer prize you are mine! I MUST WARN ONE MILLION LIBERAL BLOGGERS
[time passes / heads explode]
obfuscated DoD server: my ram! too many hits! i'm melting! oh what a world
DoD webmaster: BOSS the terrorist hackers have googled for 'doomsday warmongering wmd doublethink policy changes' and decrypted our so-phisticated multilevel jargon ciphers!
deskjob general: LACKEY GEEK fall back to DELETION CIPHER
…
the neutrality of this article is disputed.
what follows is emotional resonance with the hbot3000.
the united states government is the largest, wealthiest entity in the world, and yet it doesn't have the resources to provide food/water/sanitation/evacuation to a drowned city, even when we knew it was coming and the governor had declared a state of emergency days in advance, even when we knew we knew that the city of new orleans is below sea level and the poorly funded levees wouldn't withstand anything above category 3 (katrina was 4 upon landfall and had been 5), even when fema listed a major hurricane hitting new orleans as one of the three most serious threats to the nation (in early 2001, about the time their funding was cut)?
'i don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.' ahem.
'now is not the time to be partisan or to cast blame; we've got lives to save.' whereas they might have been saved already, had the government acted with proper speed and authority in the first place. it's easy to say 'don't cast blame' when the blame is being cast upon you.
'we're doing the best we can. it's hard work.' well, perhaps. or perhaps you need to evaluate the effectiveness of your 'best.'
what i've been hearing recently i'd expect from the ministry of truth. accountability has been replaced by excuses, spin, ignorance, empty rhetoric, bloated bureaucracy, lethal inefficiency, and borderline criminal incompetence.
peter jennings was the first thing about television that i remember. i've already not been much of a fan of the news lately, and this certainly won't brighten things up at all. when my revolution comes, every one of those tobacco executives who testified that tobacco use was not addictive will be first against the wall. give me back my peter jennings.
we leave tomorrow for the middle fork of the salmon river for nine days. or thereabouts. so when you call and find i'm not answering, you'll know why.
in the meantime, leave me lots of nice comments to come home to. and subscribe to a podcast that enlightens.
next time on wifeswap: we swap a wife from a family of terrestrial authoritarian yuppie democrat midget sea-traders with a wife from a family of martian libertarian redneck republican pirates with elephantitis! see the sparks fly as these two families strangle each other in a sixty-minute bloodbath! grab a double bacon cheeseburger and fries and a 64oz coke, turn off rational thought, tune in tomorrow night and decay your brain just a little more, you embarrassing overweight country of sensationalist reality tv-watching sloths!
you foolish, ridiculous people.
and while I'm on the rant about evil television: when and why did the news get so needlessly entertaining? when I take my tea in the morning I want to hear about what's going on with john bolton's nomination, iran, afghanistan, guantanamo, the u.s. overseas military base closures (which, for the record, is just about the only thing I can agree on with the u.s. military), what pope benedict xvi is up to, the local drought, the deficit, and maybe, for a sense of completeness, the price of tea in china. it doesn't have to be a feel-good experience for me. in fact it should be as cold and heartless as possible. I do not want to see pretty pictures of giant balloons and laughing children. I do not want to hear the latest gossip about what some mayor did or did not do with his secretary. I do not want to hear another damned word about michael jackson. (repeat after me: michael jackson has no bearing on our lives. none whatsoever. go on, repeat after me. say it out loud. how happy it makes you feel! how free! now say it every hour on the hour from now on. in this way you shall brighten the world with the light of reason.)
gah. my temper rises, contrary to my every hope and desire and predisposition.
I feel this post has started on the wrong foot. let me fix that:
'now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.'
-dark helmet, 'spaceballs'
I want a lightsaber.
