I'm All Over The Map

Our Latest Drama Duo

So, this morning, the BoobToob is filled with the clamor and commotion of MELSANADRAMA!  Did he?  Did she?  Expert opinion! Voice analysis! In DEPTH talking head analysis!!  More, following this commercial break!!!

All of which leads me to ask:
Why on  Gods green earth are we devoting so much time and attention to them and their issues?

They are broken.  They have personal problems.  So do a lot of other people.

Aren’t there more pressing issues that we should be concerned with?  Issues which might be brought to the public’s attention, let alone discussed and demystified, if we only stopped wasting precious media minutes obsessing over the train wreck of the latest celebrity meltdown?

“But,” someone says, “when the news is showing this, it just means that there’s nothing worse going on.  No one successfully blew us up today.  Isn’t that good news?”

No, it doesn’t, and no it isn’t.

Celebrity melodrama, infotainment, faux news, exists to do one thing.  Keep our attention away from issues that really matter.

Take BP as an example.

We all know about the continuing fiasco in the Gulf.  But is there any concern over the Arctic Ocean leases they have been given off the coast of Alaska where they intend on using unproven, experimental, drilling techniques?  BP intends to drill in an area  where the environment is exponentially more hostile, more ecologically fragile, and at further remove from any disaster support infrastructure, than any offshore drilling operation ever attempted before.^{1, 2}

Why isn’t mainstream network television using this opportunity in the wake of Deep Water Horizon to ask the hard questions, examine the potential fallout, ask about safeguards to protect us, instead of wasting time on personalities and allowing business as usual to be the order of the day?

And speaking of business as usual…

Are we considering the betrayal of our trust by the current elected Administration?^{1, 2, 3, 4}

Can we condone another bout of congressional gridlock in Washington?¹

Why can’t our elected representatives fix the economy, instead of playing political football with the lives of everyday Americans?^{1, 2}

Where is the thoughtful examination, the illumination, the revelation, by the Fourth Estate, of these and other matters that will affect all of us, long after the TV Tartlet, Star Schmuck, Runaway Bride, or YouTube® Sensation du jour have faded into obscurity?

Why do we continue to accept scandal and entertainment, as mainstream news?

Here’s a challenge for you.

Turn off the TV.  Turn off the radio. Unplug the iGadget. Walk away from the computer.

Now sit somewhere quietly for a while and think of something outside yourself that really concerns you.  Something in your neighborhood, city, county, state, nation or the world at large.  Truly, look at it.  Figure out how much you really know about that one issue.  Examine whether what you think you know is what someone else told you, or you heard on the TV, or radio, or read in chain email.

Now, go do your own research on it.  Consider both sides of the issue (because unilateralism never really solved anything).  After you’ve done that, do something.  Take action.

• Write a letter
• Post on a blog
• Tell someone else what you decided to do
• Ask if they’d like to join you
• Reach out to others who share your concerns
• Start a podcast
• Howl at the moon in your back yard

Well, maybe not the last one.

But you catch my drift?

This is how change starts.  It happened in India, South Africa, World of Warcraft, and it can happen where you live, if we stop being more concerned with other peoples lives and start living our own.