Friday, September 23, 2005

Hurricanes, the media and entertainment

There is little I hate more than sounding like the typical "I hate such and such" blogger. I hate the government, I hate the media, I hate whatever. But I'm pretty irritated about the media handling of this Hurricane, and the media handling of just about everything right now.

I'll be quick. My problem is that the news has clearly become our number one source of entertainment. Somehow, Stephanie and I are the only people who see it. Seriously. People are in love with the news, now more than ever. And people's obsession with what is right and wrong and good and bad is just nonsense. It's just their way of participating.

People used to give me a hard time about sports. How I'm too much of a "sports guy" The truth is, its got nothing to do with sports. It's human nature. People have a need to follow something. They have a need to discuss and debate the merits of something that is not contrived. Something that is unscripted. Thats why we liked sports for so long. And now thats why people like the news. They want to follow whats happening. They want to pick sides and talk and fight with each other.

In another year or too, you'll start seeing NewsBars opening. Places called Hardline or Left Wings and on the marquee it will say "Ten Cent Wings and Bill O'Reilly on the Big Screen"

The difference between us sports fans and the newsies, is that we understand its just a game. We fight and argue and entertain ourselves over adults playing kids games. And at the end of the day, its all in the spirit of fun, competition and comraderie. We don't pretend that we care about people in Louisiana, just to futher our arguments. We don't act like we care about kidnapping victims or shark attacks or the war just so we can have new ammo for our blogs. And we don't hide our natural passion for excitement and entertainment behind a facade of talking about "something important"

The truth is. I care about issues. And I care more about Hurricane victims than about 90% of America. But I care enough to not use it to entertain myself. Tomorrow is football day. FOOTBALL SATURDAYS!! There is little on this planet more important to me than that. So you can bet that tomorrow I'll be sitting around watching Football and not glued to MSNBC and Fox entertaining myself with other people's misery and pretending to do it because I care.

-T

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