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Napoleon in the Garden
May. 12th, 2009 05:16 pmI have unbounded contempt for local TV news - it has changed during the course of my lifetime from an honest, if amateurish, attempt to report on local events, to a shameless effort to get the viewer to sit through one more used car commercial, using half-truths and teasers.
A case in point: The other day, workmen building a school in Texas dug up what was pretty plainly the skull of a Baboon. It's obviously been there for many years, perhaps centuries, and nobody can account for it. It's a genuine, fascinating mystery, of the sort that I love.
So - last night I'm changing channels, and here's a news reader in front of a picture of this skull. Cool! News about the Mystery Baboon! I stopped to hear what she was saying. I caught the last part of a teaser "How could such a dangerous animal get near a school!?! Stay tuned to find out!", and then to the commercial.
It's not news, and it's not news in the most cynical and exploitive way possible. They do everything they can to undermine the public's confidence in journalism, yet they're the first to raise a panic anytime there's a proposal to regulate the media.
*****
This year is the 92nd Indianapolis Five Hundred. The first one I actually recall listening to on the radio was 1967, when I was six years old, and Parnelli Jones drove the turbine. This year, then, will mark the 43rd Five Hundred that I've seen. In 2015, assuming that I live that long, I will personally have seen half of all the Five Hundreds ever run. That's a weird realization to have.
*****
Charlie Crist's opponent for the Senate is being dubbed "The Anti-Crist" :D
A case in point: The other day, workmen building a school in Texas dug up what was pretty plainly the skull of a Baboon. It's obviously been there for many years, perhaps centuries, and nobody can account for it. It's a genuine, fascinating mystery, of the sort that I love.
So - last night I'm changing channels, and here's a news reader in front of a picture of this skull. Cool! News about the Mystery Baboon! I stopped to hear what she was saying. I caught the last part of a teaser "How could such a dangerous animal get near a school!?! Stay tuned to find out!", and then to the commercial.
It's not news, and it's not news in the most cynical and exploitive way possible. They do everything they can to undermine the public's confidence in journalism, yet they're the first to raise a panic anytime there's a proposal to regulate the media.
*****
This year is the 92nd Indianapolis Five Hundred. The first one I actually recall listening to on the radio was 1967, when I was six years old, and Parnelli Jones drove the turbine. This year, then, will mark the 43rd Five Hundred that I've seen. In 2015, assuming that I live that long, I will personally have seen half of all the Five Hundreds ever run. That's a weird realization to have.
*****
Charlie Crist's opponent for the Senate is being dubbed "The Anti-Crist" :D
