Bryan W. Alaspa 1Easily distracted
September 12th 2009 18:42
It is amazing to me how easily distracted people can get. This seems to be particularly true in the media. It is like the entire media of the world has been taken over by hyper-active two-year-olds. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a two-year-old? They are distracted by anything and everything. This is particularly true of the media, especially with the twenty-four-hour media desperate to fill every single hour with something.
As such, the media is constantly distracted by shiny things. You know, like when you pull out your keys and start jingling them around to distract the kid who won’t stop crying? Well, the media is that crying kid who sees the keys and immediately drops everything to chase after them.
Last time I checked the country was still struggling economically. The healthcare debate was still raging and people were still struggling to find health care coverage. At the same time some knuckle-heads are suggesting making health care coverage mandatory like car insurance, as if this will somehow make it so poor people can afford coverage. It’s like telling a starving person it is now against the law to starve and he has to eat something, without first giving him any food. There were also two wars going on, not to mention crime, poverty, hatred and all of the myriad of other problems.
So, what is the media harping on this week? They are harping on the guy who shouted “you lie!” during the President’s speech. This guy, whom I had never heard of, has now gotten more press out of this than just about anyone else since Paris’ video turned up online. You would think that this somehow had any relevance on the actual issues.
The fact is, it doesn’t. Sure, it may have been rude, but other countries do stuff like that all the time. Have you ever watched Parliament in the UK even when the Prime Minister speaks? They shout and they whistle and they make all kinds of noise. It’s really rather entertaining.
OK, so the United States has a kind of tradition that, no matter what you think of the man and his policies, when the President is speaking to a joint session of Congress, he gets respect and you don’t heckle the man. At the same time, the congressman in question was simply feeling very passionate about this issue. He apologized. The President accepted the apology. In any normal context, people would just move on.
These days, no one is allowed to apologize. If Nixon gave his famous “Checkers” speech today it would then be dissected twenty-four hours straight for days by every twenty-four hour news channel. At some point ever gesture and facial twitch would be analyzed, dissected, and discussed to the point where anything of relevance he might have said would have been lost.
So it is with this incident. Look, what the guy said and why he said it is not the issue facing this country. What is important is what our leaders do to resolve the healthcare crisis in this country. What matters is what this country is going to do about the economy and the thousands and thousands of people who are out of work.
So, let’s all get a grip. People make mistakes. He made one, he apologized. Let’s move on and focus on what’s really important and not the keys jangling in the media’s hands over there trying so hard to distract you.
As such, the media is constantly distracted by shiny things. You know, like when you pull out your keys and start jingling them around to distract the kid who won’t stop crying? Well, the media is that crying kid who sees the keys and immediately drops everything to chase after them.
Last time I checked the country was still struggling economically. The healthcare debate was still raging and people were still struggling to find health care coverage. At the same time some knuckle-heads are suggesting making health care coverage mandatory like car insurance, as if this will somehow make it so poor people can afford coverage. It’s like telling a starving person it is now against the law to starve and he has to eat something, without first giving him any food. There were also two wars going on, not to mention crime, poverty, hatred and all of the myriad of other problems.
So, what is the media harping on this week? They are harping on the guy who shouted “you lie!” during the President’s speech. This guy, whom I had never heard of, has now gotten more press out of this than just about anyone else since Paris’ video turned up online. You would think that this somehow had any relevance on the actual issues.
The fact is, it doesn’t. Sure, it may have been rude, but other countries do stuff like that all the time. Have you ever watched Parliament in the UK even when the Prime Minister speaks? They shout and they whistle and they make all kinds of noise. It’s really rather entertaining.
OK, so the United States has a kind of tradition that, no matter what you think of the man and his policies, when the President is speaking to a joint session of Congress, he gets respect and you don’t heckle the man. At the same time, the congressman in question was simply feeling very passionate about this issue. He apologized. The President accepted the apology. In any normal context, people would just move on.
These days, no one is allowed to apologize. If Nixon gave his famous “Checkers” speech today it would then be dissected twenty-four hours straight for days by every twenty-four hour news channel. At some point ever gesture and facial twitch would be analyzed, dissected, and discussed to the point where anything of relevance he might have said would have been lost.
So it is with this incident. Look, what the guy said and why he said it is not the issue facing this country. What is important is what our leaders do to resolve the healthcare crisis in this country. What matters is what this country is going to do about the economy and the thousands and thousands of people who are out of work.
So, let’s all get a grip. People make mistakes. He made one, he apologized. Let’s move on and focus on what’s really important and not the keys jangling in the media’s hands over there trying so hard to distract you.
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