10 posts tagged “news”
On the one hand, I don't suppose you need to believe in evolution to count the number of snails in a tide pool or stick transmitters onto seals or whatever, but if you go out into the world and say, "I did my postdoc at Woods Hole and I believe that a magic man done it!" their reputation is shot.
Dr. Randy Pausch, diagnosed with terminal cancer, delivered a last lecture on life lessons that has been viewed online over a million times. What would be in your life lessons lecture?
I was wondering, since in all my obsessive blog reading I only saw a single mention of it: We all know that Paris Hilton was released from jail today, but how many of you knew that the food and drug minister for China who was largely responsible for allowing the bad wheat gluten to make it to manufacturers and cause a pet food scare was sentenced to death almost a month ago. What does this say about our respective courts and their sentencing? What does this say about our media, who've made a big show out of one and said nothing about the other? And what does it say about us that we have strong feelings about Paris and whether she's in jail or not, but we either haven't heard or haven't formulated an opinion on the death sentence for a public official over a food scare?
And what else does it say about what should or shouldn't be in store for Matthew Amorello, who wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on sub-standard indrastructure in order to pad the pockets of contractors, or Dick Cheney and his ilk who, through deception and an abuse of their powers of office have led to the deaths of thousands of Americans and an order of magnitude or more deaths of foreign civilians?
You know me, though. I don't have answers, only questions.
Perhaps Andy can check my facts on this one, I am sort of extrapolating from nothing more than the ABC's web site.
Anyway, Soldier of Misfortune sent me a link to this YouTube clip the other day without any kind of preface and for about five seconds I thought it was real news coverage. It's fucking hysterical. By the end, the Senator could very easily have come from Pythonia or... uh... Montyberra, or something. You really can't convince yourself any more that this is on the level.
The marvellous thing about it appears to be that it is a reasonably regular segment in a perfectly legitimate news program. The statement made by mixing news-satire in with your actual news speaks to something in the character of a nation that I can really get behind. When John Stewart gets dragged in front of real interviewers, he often hides behind the excuse that his show is nothing more than comedy. In effect, this legitimizes satire as a means of conveying meaningful information. In other words, "It's funny because it's true."
Or at least, basically true, albeit caricatured. But, come on, do we, in this day and age, really think we're not getting trumped up versions of the facts from our news media? I think a segment like this (hinging, of course, that my assumptions about it appearing within a regular news program) also serves as a reminder-- a poke in the ribs-- to the regular news media working alongside Clark and Dawe of what they could become.
Sure, sure, as an outside observer, I'm allowed the luxury of reading this like any other text, when, maybe, nothing will ever dissuade the sort of egomaniac who becomes a television news anchor that his is a holy mission of truth, but a man can dream, can't he?
I envision a beautiful future where even our spam is beautiful. I imagine something like this...
"So many houses aren't what they appear to be. They have fake siding and fake window shutters. They try to imitate something other than what they are," he said. "I couldn't get motivated to work to pay a mortgage for an architectural Muzak."
While I've been taking care of a sick (but still incredibly lovely) girl, what has the rest of the world been doing? In Finland, the green party has been translating their websites into Klingon, in Brazil, the Israeli embassador has been waking up naked in bondage gear, and in New Zealand, the sheep are restless. Yep, that's all I've got.
