Waxing Poetically: Addressing Culture with a Twist of Poetry

Writer’s note: The following is unapologetic rant in the name of free speech for you, the readers to dissect as you wish… enjoy.

For most writers, as a general rule, they stay on top of societal trends, opinions, changes and any random informational breeze that may blow capriciously onto their desks on a given day. For me, this chaos is quieted by focusing on a particular kind of news, be it, public affairs, business, arts and entertainment and the like.  This is also the logic behind the labor divisions of any newsroom or print medium. The business editor does her thing. The arts and entertainment staff does their jobs and so on and so forth and various ideas are mingled only where necessity calls for collaboration. So in keeping with the same principle I find it annoying and completely naïve and constricting that the television news media has put such a grand importance for the past year on an election that we won’t actually be finished with for another eight months!  Every time I see news, whether it’s a morning talk show, a late night newscast, local news The O’Reilly Factor, The Today Show, The View, CSPAN, Hardball, Frontline, Dateline, Nightline, 20/20, Anderson Cooper 360 or 60 Minutes, these shows seem to be fixated on some aspect of Barack Vs. Hillary or John McCain’s health or Barack’s pastor or Bill Clinton’s infidelity, the Black vote, the White vote, the Latino vote, the illegal Latino vote and on and on… and on!  Seriously, Folks, I’ve estimated both in the of my own casual skimming of TV as well as my  more intense viewings that 90% of current Television news is gluttonously gobbled up by the 2008 race for the White House. All of it can only lead a viewer to wonder, “What else might actually be happening on Planet Earth?” 

Sure, in recent weeks we’ve seen China in the news over its human rights record and the Chinese refusal to give autonomy to their Tibetan neighbors. We’ve seen pundits and eggheads of all types speculate as to when our economy might stumble into the gaping abyss that they all expect as they wait with baited breath to see if the $800 dollars the government dishes out like school lunch to John Doe and his four children this Spring can pull us out of it. There are as well the standard stories on global climate change, the war in Iraq and four-dollar gasoline in constant rotation. Yet even those issues, as real as they are have become so routine and perfunctory that they have become like the tangy bubble gum from our childhoods that we’d been chewing and popping all day just because we could but by the end of the day, the former bubbly paradise had become completely flat and tasteless. I just wonder sometimes, “What else is really out there?” On a planet of seven continents, five oceans and an estimated six billion people there simply has to be something else to talk about.  Have you ever thought of all the stuff the news is not telling you? What’s the status of Darfur? Why is Kosovo angry with the United States?  What are the differences between Islamic terrorist’s views and those of peaceful Muslims? What do soldiers really think of our progress inIraq? What are the latest advances in medical science? How many other people are suffering mental breakdowns just like Britney Spears?  And finally, “Did anything good happen today in my local neighborhood besides all the crime and immorality? 

Questions such as these are ones that I as a writer/journalist, think people deserve answers to. I just don’t see television journalists taking an interest in asking thoughtful and dare I say even controversial questions. Nobody in the mainstream networks or cable press seems interested in Barack Obama’s childhood spent in a madrasah in Africa and what he might have been taught. Nobody ever dares point out that while good intentioned in his foreign policy, President Bush seems content not to read about current event but rather prefers to read about past ones in history books and speaks very seriously of “the Internets” and “the Google.” This is a time when Paris, Britney, K-Fed and Gubernatorial prostitutes take center stage all while topics such political responsibility, smart Federal spending and common sense fly into the annals of history and we as a country care more about American Idol than American education! I just don’t feel informed by TV anymore at all. Do people care? I mean, the news must report what people want to know otherwise who would watch, right? Right. 

The final question is at least for me, “What is TV News coming to when a blogger such as myself has to feel this way?” I guess that is where you, the readers come in with your take. So go ahead be the first to comment and make a blogger smile!

…. Until next time, this is Michael LaPenna reminding you to keep your minds waxed!  

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