Every time I see televised news, I’m reacquainted with
the contempt I feel for those ingratiating parasites of human tragedy, folly
and foible who are spoon-feeding America this abominably irrelevant trash
which currently disguises itself as the news. One might argue that it
is genuine information, which is sort of true in the way that "I did not
have sexual relations with that woman" and other public statements also
masquerade as truth, and then news. The fact that my dog chased a squirrel
this morning is also information, and it’s true as well, but it’s not
something that anyone needs to know.
What has provoked my contempt this time is the manner
in which a local news channel recently passed off a popular television show
event as... news. "Extreme Home Makeover" has chosen to remodel a
dilapidated urban shanty, an event now disguising itself as relevant news.
To me, however, it’s just a plug for a program. An advertisement
sandwiched in between other commercial advertisements and garnished with
occasional filmed brutality and shocked eyewitness accounts. Is this area
really so bereft of newsworthy events which have a tangible bearing upon our
lives? I hadn’t realized that I lived in a portion of the nation that was so
absolutely boring, but that’s probably because the news here is calculated
to slap me out of my deadening torpor so that I continue to rouse myself in
the morning, go to work, and behave like a functioning citizen, instead of
lying in my bed and perishing from crapulence and lack of stimulation.
Consider the manner in which I was mentally swarmed and
debilitated by the shocking, groundbreaking news that featured this family
hovel, burdened with debt and blistering with decay. My impoverished squishy
brain was rendered defenseless against the solemn pronouncements of these
newscasting butt spelunkers once the flickering lights and swiftly changing
TV images possessed me and then suggested in a subliminal undertone that I
give the person next to me a wedgie and scream "Praise Allah!" in their
ear! Seeing as how I was in the staff break room at work, I bravely fought
this base impulse by sitting on my eagerly twitching, wedgie inspired hands,
and so subjected myself to yet more of these urgent and relentless
vaudeville antics.
We all watched with suspended breath as the camera
closed in on the nostrils of a man who was both grieving over the recent
death of his long-suffering wife and visibly nervous lest the camera add ten
pounds to his head. In the interview he expressed wistful gratitude that his
house would finally be remodeled in a fashion which would make his property
look garishly opulent and out of place beside the surrounding dilapidated
homes. Coincidentally, his recently departed spouse’s last words were
reported to have been her desire to have their home rescued by this home
makeover show, and, albeit posthumously, her cherished final wish was really
coming true! Wow! Can anyone ask for a more rousing vindication of the life
accomplishments of the dearly departed, aside from actual resurrection?
