Is that enough blahs for you?
When there is some dead space in my overactive life*, I Watch television. Sorry. Hope this doesn’t affect your vision of me as a hand-on-the-chin Rodin thinker, but television/media is the Window to the World.
Sidebar: Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” was meant to be a clothed, self-portrait of the sculptor sitting atop the Gates of Hell, admiring the Circles of Hell and pondering Dante’s poem. Rodin, to his credit, noticed the figure had a more powerful message and purposely stripped it naked. It is thought to be the first artistic expression of an intellectual with muscles. It was publicly unveiled in 1904. Yet, to this day we still think of brainy people as nerds and weaklings. Since intellectuals are so smart, how did they let that image proliferate? Or…is it an image they prefer, so they get underestimated? We all know, now, we can’t trust those intellectual types and their woke ideas, but are they playing us, leading us around by the nose? Take your clothes off, sit on an uncomfortable granite slab, and give it some thought.
I left Upstate New York and traveled south by car a few weeks ago. The trip began with long pants, solid shoes for walking in the snow, two layers of clothes, and gloves. 24 hour later—after an overnight rest—I was in shorts and sandals and cranking up the AC. Durham, NC is going to set a record today of over 90 degrees. When I drive home in a few days the weather in NY will be snow, sleet, and freezing rain. The range of climate is not the impressive part. What is impressive as hell is how easily we can move between these varying climates. We take it for granted. If it was Gunsmoke days, it might take weeks, even months to find a different biome. It is a wonderful world.
But not for News, and Information is slowly rotting, as well. The first problem with our news and information disseminating systems, is Capitalism. The ever-present need for profit means, these days, commercial time in our media centers is paramount, content be damned. Forget the need for a commercial every three seconds and note the timing, when something neat is about to happen or be revealed, your media cuts to an advertisement. We see you, you capitalist shites. We know what you’re doing. But can we do anything about it? The Window to the World is covered over with bumper stickers.
But hold on, what about that damned “content”? It is apparent** there is a lot of money to be made by…talking. Blah blah blahing. Spitting words. Mangling sentences. Mouthing opinions either believed or tailored for certain information silo consumption. News is now 5 seconds of fact and 23 hours and 55 seconds of talking heads, each with his own ass-inine(sic) take on some ass-inine(sic) subject. News head: “America dropped $10 million dollars worth of bombs on the Middle East, today. Here to discuss it is our Talking Head Panel (THP) of experts.” Of note, there is always at least one female with the flowing tresses of modern fashion, and at least one man with a beard hiding his wattle. (Don’t pretend you know what a wattle is. Look it up.)
With our information silos, you can find any THP discussing any subject you want and offering any opinion you agree with or would like to argue against from the safety of your living room, you troll. And how about CNN actually including on-line comments in their news reporting, now? Should anyone care about the opinion of one lazy, partially informed, but supercilious listener/watcher/critic/snark? (For full effect google “supercilious.)
Thank, God, this essay ran out of room before something stupid got printed.
I’m going to watch me some Gunsmoke on Grit*** and hope the world goes on without me.
*”Dead” is probably not a good word for a senior to use, but you all know what I mean.
**”At this point in time going forward to the future.” Ha.
***Or Rich Steves travel show on PBS. A true Window to the World.
The Aging Man 