I Read the News Today (Oh, Boy!), by Martha Thomases – Brilliant Disguise

September 4, 2010 Martha Thomases 0 Comments

A quick look at my calendar as I started this column revealed that next week, I’m publishing on September 11.

I hate that.  I hate that for so many reasons.  It’s such a big deal.

I’m also reminded of the week before.  September 4, 2001, was a happy time for me.  We had just returned from a long weekend in New Orleans to celebrate my husband’s 50th birthday, so we were groggy from food and music and love.  We had the normal back-to-school tsuris as our son started his senior year in high school.  Everything was comfy and cozy.

Losing that was still a week away.

The news media that summer was especially stupid.  The political battles between Republicans and Democrats were about stem-cell research, and whether or not religion had any business interfering with scientific inquiry.  Some people were also angry about Vice-President Cheney’s super-secret, closed-door meetings about energy policy.

The summer scandal concerned Gary Condit, and the murder of an intern in his office.  They had been having an affair, and the media was obsessed with whether or not he had killed her.

What did we have to fear? Sharks!  Sharks in the water, eating swimmers!  Scary, scary sharks!

How stupid was the news?  Here, and here. take a look.

Anything about the Taliban?  Not in August.  Previously, there had been a few, small items about how they had destroyed some stone Buddhas that were hundreds of years old.  Nobody in the United States much cared except for archeologists, historians (and, presumably, Buddhists).  It’s not like the Catholic League or the Anti-Defamation League objected.  The Taliban were a bunch of fundamentalists.  How much damage could a bunch of Bible (or Koran) thumpers do?

We now know that our intelligence agencies were busy at that time, warning our then-President that Al-Queda, a political off-shoot of the Taliban, was determined to attack the United States.  We also know that he paid no attention, preferring to spend his August vacation clearing brush from his ranch.

I’m not blaming the media for not reporting on the intelligence the President received.  I am, however, still quite angry at the shallow reporting about world events that, I had hoped, peaked that summer.

The news this summer has been so shallow, there should be diving warnings.

There is a terrible economic recession that spans the globe.  There are wars and military operations in South America, Africa, and the Middle East, killing thousands of people.  What do they talk about on the news?  Whether or not the President is a Muslim.

(Did you know a sizable percentage of Republicans not only think Obama is Muslim, but also thinks he is trying to impose sharia law?  How do they reconcile that with his Godless pro-choice position?  But I digress..)

We’re also somehow, as a nation, obsessed with Manhattan real estate.  Formerly the topic of cocktail party conversation only in Manhattan, New York zoning laws are now the most important issue in many mid-term elections.  It’s not that the nation wants to invest in my little island (although, if you’re interested, America, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you), but, once again, there are Muslims involved.

It’s not all-Muslim-all-the-time news.  There’s Lindsay Lohan’s rehab (or lack of it), and the dog who won the dance contest.  Brett Favre is playing football again.  The men stuck in the mine in Chile are allowed to have Bibles, but not cigarettes or wine.  Paris Hilton was arrested again.

Karl Marx said that history repeats, “first as tragedy, then as farce.”  We’re not laughing.

Martha Thomases, Media Goddess, wishes all a Labor Day blessed with unions of all kinds.