Sunday, June 25, 2006

News

According to my Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, News is: 1. A report of recent events 2 a: material reported in a newspaper or news periodical or on a newscast b: matter that is newsworthy.

By these definitions I guess you could claim that CNN meets the first two. But the first two are trivial compared with b. I used to watch CNN pretty faithfully. I no longer watch it at all, unless I want a quick look at how the market is faring. I don't watch it because it doesn't meet the definition of "matter that is newsworthy." I guess the idea of a 24/7 news channel might have been a good idea. It might still be if it, indeed, traded in news that is newsworthy. And if they didn't take news in the sense of a report on recent events rather than news that is newsworthy. What is newsworthy about another car chase in Los Angeles? They have car chases in Los Angeles virtually every day. But when CNN focusing on one you can be sure they will spend the greater part of the day on it. And when there is a story that is somehow newsworthy, like the phony terrorist plot in Miami, they not only tell you about it, and tell you that it didn't amount to much, but then tell you more and more about it until you want to scream for mercy. Okay, there were these seven nutcases in Miami who talked about blowing up the Sears tower, but they had no money, no explosives, no contact with terrorists, no way of possibly doing anything, but we have to listen to detail after detail after detail about something that didn't even happen, couldn't happen, and was basically nonsense.

Then we have the endless news about a disappearing white girl. I think announcing that a white girl disappeared is news. But does it deserve days and days of attention? I'm sure that more than one white girl disappears fairly regularly, and there is no doubt in my mind that black girls do also. But these routine disappearances are not even announced let alone obsessed on for days on end.

Now we have Anderson Cooper, in prime time, conducting a two hour interview with a woman who just had a baby (apparently an absolutely unique event, not only in general, but also in Hollywood). This at the same time there is a pitched battle taking place right outside the Green Zone in Iraq, about which they say nothing, or certainly next to nothing. True to their Republican owners they tell us about the horrors of gay marriage, flag burning, and abortion, but nothing about the disaster that is Iraq, Afghanistan, the national debt, our completely dysfunctional medical system, the stolen elections, and so on. And if and when they do mention some of these problems it is always uncritically biased toward the administration.

As far as news is concerned, CNN, and the other major networks are hopeless. They might as well not exist. In fact, we'd be better off if they didn't exist. Once when I was living on the Big Island I tuned in the local news every morning. The news usually took the form of Mrs. Ikeda's son ran over one of Mrs. Wong's chickens, or some otherwise notable event. I was surprised one morning when the announcer simply said, "there is no news today." That's exactly the way I feel about the MSM at the moment. They are an absolute disgrace, engaged in the same criminal enterprise the Republican party is engaged in. They are no more news organizations than Bush's fake ranch is anything other than an old pig farm.

3 comments:

Laura said...

You write a good blog. This has been the best read I've had from a blog in a while. I'm from the UK and feel so much the same way about the BBC and their shallow coverage that suggests there's not much that is newsworthy apart from a paedophile doing what paedophiles do.

They've got me so scared to marvel at the activities of anything vaguely youthful, in case someone thinks I'm gawking at their children in a sexual way. (I'm a 29 year-old female that is beginning to feel the biological clock ticking).

And the sickness I feel inside as the celebrities whore themselves at every event to cancel third world debt, G8 pledges, give aid to disasters. Oh and how everyone patted themselves on the back for the generosity they showed towards the tsunami victims while the earthquake in Pakistan is still effecting women, in particular, who their husbands refuse to be seen by a male doctor. 60% of aid promised there is allegedly still not forthcoming.

phew, there's my rant. Anyway, came across your blog cos I like Tortilla Flat too. Make's my trivial blog seem a bit lame.

Watch 'n Wait said...

M...there's hope on the horizon. Read today that The Guardian...London's best paper...is going to have an online presence in the US. Michael Kinsley will be editor. :))

Seven Star Hand said...

Hello Morialekafa and all,

You may not initially agree with everything I reveal, but please be a little patient with my long-winded presentation of what I have waited a very long time to be able to say. I promise to amaze and enlighten.

Now for the worst part of this horrendous equation.

Pay close attention, profundity knocks at the door, listen for the key. Be Aware! Scoffing causes blindness...

Bush, Cheney, and the NeoCons are Vatican operatives hell-bent on impoverishing and indebting the USA. Looks like their plans have worked like a charm while the brain-dead American public remains duped, deluded, and addicted to money, religion, and politics. Who says you can't fool most of the people, most of the time...

Humanity has long been deceived and deluded into thinking that money is a positive means to manage life, societies and civilizations. Chapter 2 of Revelations from the Apocalypse, Volume 1: Here is Wisdom thoroughly exposes the foundational deceptions associated with the concept of money and how it is actually a severe hardship on every aspect of life and every endeavor that must bear the burden of its unnecessary overhead and resulting stifling complexity. Money severely impedes the quality of life, society, and civilization by spawning myriad horrendous side effects (poverty, crime, wars, pollution, waste, greed, stress, etc.) which are all traced directly to its presence, purposeful shortage, and imposed requirement.

Here's a real hot potato! Eat it up, digest it, and then feed it's bones to the hungry...

Money was conceived millennia ago by the priesthood of ancient Babylon to subvert the resources and energies of entire populations for the benefit of a rich and powerful few. Chapter 2 further pierces the ages-old smoke and mirrors surrounding the scourge of money, banking and credit (usury) by exposing their core logic and common denominator math. It exposes the purposeful and well-sculpted math and logic trap imposed upon humanity by the Vatican, its ancient predecessors, and their secret-society cohorts.

It is abundantly clear that imposing money upon the entire world and then forcing people to participate in usury, pay taxes, compounding interest on national debts, and then to struggle their lives away for the sake of money, is extortion and great injustice on a grand scale. To cause suffering and despair for profit on such a grand scale can only be described as abominably evil. The time has finally arrived to demand a full accounting from the Papacy, Vatican, and all of their cohorts and chief supporters. They have no right to cause such overwhelming despair and suffering for millennia. They have no right to deceive practically everyone on such a grand scale. Why do our national leaders conspire with them and participate in such great evil while pretending to serve the Creator? Why do people still have blind faith in such obvious deceivers and their deceptions while they continue perpetrating such widespread and horrendous evil and abominations?

The time has come to wake-up and prove to these duplicitous scoundrels that you are only temporary marks and dupes.

Money: The Greatest Lie Ever Told

Peace...