Volume 40, Issue 4. Today is
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Volume 40, Issue 4. Today is
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Back to Top | Previous Page | Home Back to Top | Previous Page | Home Back to Top | Previous Page | Home Back to Top | Previous Page | Home Back to Top | Previous Page | Home Back to Top | Previous Page | Home Back to Top | Previous Page | Home Normalized or moralized?By Elias Rodriguez Guest Columnist 
In this fast world the information that we receive is thrown at us in a curveball style of instant freeze dried-media transferred magically to us via heavenly sentinels; ever watchful of the next transmission of air born news breaking viruses. As Airwolfesque helicopters with Blue Thunder surveillance cameras bring to you first hand footage in slo-mo play by play of the "tragic" shooting of some Valley person caught live for your voyeuristic pleasure. There's a sickness here kids. Is it the media, or the community it serves? The eternal chicken or the egg question, I suppose. Perhaps the problem is me. I don't enjoy at all the onslaught of junk news, or the unholy trinity of media; murder, rape and violence. Perhaps I'm out of step with the rest of modern society who seemingly lust for hedonistic cesspools of "just add tragedy" instant news formulas; fed to us by the cathode ray nipple. The other society, a dark world where those same values are tied up with Steve Earle and Marilyn Manson at the stake as the villagers rally with pitchforks in hand; hungry for the smell of burning flesh and desperate to see once again the streets run red with the blood of those who would dare to move against the grain of a "normalized" society. I feel more and more that double standards are growing as wide as the Montana skyline. Live footage of cop chases, fatal accidents, hidden cameras in places your mother warned you about, televised blood splatters on sidewalks and chalk drawn around a society gone mad for up to the minute fast food news. I recall once a few months ago, the pilot of a small plane was having difficulty with the planes landing gear; which was suspect of a flat tire. All daytime drama stopped and the world stopped turning as we were thrust first hand into the black night of live news coverage; what? So that we could watch for 30 minutes as a plane circled around a landing strip? What did the news team hope for; the possible fatal crash of a pilot? Like ambulance chasing vultures waiting to swoop down on the table scraps of human suffering? As that plane landed safely I could almost imagine Betty Hairspray shaking her head and saying, "pack it up boys, there's no news here." The issue is very simple; we as a society love the macabre underbelly of the human experience. Or is it that media feeds us this dark fodder in hopes that Mikey will like it? I say neither are the only issues afflicting these questions. We just don't "get it" and quite possibly will never "get it" until we huff this toxic tailpipe to our very end. What about the media, what sort of role do they play? Well kids, that one is pretty darn simple. A little chum in the pool of American society, a camera or two and you have all the elements of rating poppin' action that would make even the shrewdest skeptic sit on the edge of their seat, tongue wagging for more juicy sound bites. All the while, the real news, the struggles for humanity, the most profound stories that would force Odysseus to fall to his knees and make Zeus cry, go neglected and tied to the stake prime for the fire. |
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