To the tune of America the Beautiful:
O cynical!
For Amber Frey
For airwaves rife with pain
Tsunami souls commercialized
and the Florida hurricanes!
America! America!
blow up your TVs!
(ba ba ba BUM)
They're playing you
from 60 Minutes II
to MSNBC
...and I would go on, but who know America the Beautiful only had about 10 lines to it? And short lines at that. Or at least the version I know from TV ("We now conclude our broadcast day...")
Seriously, do the numbers of tsunami dead in one afternoon, are they even conceivable? If it was twice as many would we have felt twice as bad? Or is it all just the cause du jour, for one to pride oneself on one's compassion for those poor unfortunates?
I saw a promo for a news show last night that went something like, "Tonight -- we'll take you behind the scenes on the tsunami disaster, and uncover the real tragedy!" It's a bonanza.
While I'm at it, can anyone recommend another blog that does a good job of covering, in an honest way, things that matter?
Not that I don't care whether Billy Bob Buttnut can be sheriff of Missoula AND run the best damn bait shop you ever did see, but it doesn't strike me as compelling as what Representatives Conyers & Tubb-Jones did today. If I were not cautious, I might even suggest that having one's photo on the cover of the New York Times magazine may get one fretting over appearances and forgetting honesty and integrity. I mean, shit, did that really happen the other day? That was pretty fucked up.
The unifying theme here, of course, being that it's hard to find a news outlet that speaks to a mainstream progressive. Not a typewriter analyst computer hackery progressive, not a pro-Brad Carson gives-a-flying-jigger about Montana's 3 EVs, but a straight down the line Howard Dean type (I think) progressive.
Any good blogs left for me?
Or am I just too cynical.