(Long Island, NY) This morning I was looking at Digg.com headlines posted by Breitbart.com, waiting for my caffeine buzz to kick in. “Fed Chief Signals Another Rate Cut“. Don’t need to read anymore on that one, the economy is behaving as though someone whacked it on the back of the head with a board. With nails sticking out of it. Ouch.
Ditto for “Clinton Ex-Campaign Manager Backs Obama”. Are we shocked by this? Never underestimate the power of sour grapes to do more than get you drunk. After reading that headline, the article entitled “Mysterious Creatures Found In Antarctica” seemed a bit out of place. I didn’t want to read it, I had my own movie unspooling in my head about former presidential hopefuls frolicking together in one of the coldest places on earth. Romney, Huckabee, John Edwards…they all qualify as mysterious creatures in MY book.
“Cop Drugged With PotBurger Outraged Over Punishment” also sent my brain into overdrive. Here’s another case where actually reading the article would be a letdown. The true facts of this story couldn’t possibly be as entertaining as what I was imagining. I went against my better judgement and read the clip. Sure enough, the article was a dud. The gist of that one–the cop’s anger stemmed from the fact that the pot-burger chefs got no jail time. I was hoping for something a little less ordinary here.
Then there was the video clip titled “Man Faces Life In Prison For Stealing $.50 Pack of Donuts”. I already guessed the reasons behind this one even as I clicked “play”. This just HAD to be a California controversy over the “three-strikes” law where you can get potentially disproportionate prison time for minor infractions if you’ve already had two convictions. When the clip began to roll, all my guesses were right and the headlines stopped being fun to read.
How we got to such a state anywhere in a land called America, I’ll never know. We have good laws that go unenforced, and bad laws that are used with such regularity that it’s not even depressing anymore. Some fat-cat Senator may as well introduce legislation to re-establish debtor’s prison, the way things are going. But I promised myself I would NOT get going on some kind of ill-advised political rant here, so I’ll let that one drop for now. Instead, I’ll move on to the last headline I read in the hopes that I can wash all that “three strikes” business out of my head.
“Comedian Goes On Anti-Fox News Rant During Live Broadcast” should NOT be classified as news, but it must have been a slow day when this hit. An unidentified comedian asked a Fox News Anchor “What is Fox News?” He called the program a “festival of ignorance” and then admonished people to stop watching TV and “go outside”. It was pretty funny because there was no context for the remarks other than the fact that the network was caught completely off guard by this mini-rant.It was fun watching the anchor acting like a deer caught in the headlines. Or a rat in a Skinner box waiting for the test to begin.
Personally, I agree with the comedian, whoever he is. People should turn off the tube and go enjoy something that involves actually using brain cells. But I am bewildered by the attention this got as a news headline, however small. As I pondered the news value of the clip, I took another look at the website. Closer inspection at Breitbart.com clued me into something I had missed originally. The headline on the actual video clip itself read “LIBERAL Comedian Goes On Anti-Fox News Rant During Live Broadcast”. A-hah!
Whoever wrote that headline seems to have meant the word “liberal” as a pejorative. The use of these labels as insults has always amused me because it displays a naked, willful prejudice somewhere in the zip code, if not the actual neighborhood, of using racial slurs. Call me silly, but I disapprove of blanket labels as convenient ways to pigeonhole people. It’s lazy thinking, and intellectually stunted. It also seems to be used most by people smart enough to know better.
What’s even sillier is the fact that the comedian got news value out of doing something so ordinary–criticizing a television program. It’s the sort of nonsense that makes skimming these headlines so amusing, but I suppose that’s the nature of the game. Find something more or less sensational, blow it all out of proportion, and attract as much attention to yourself as possible while doing it. Just about the same sort of thing I happen to be doing here.
I love life’s little ironies.
