Death toll reaches six digits; market up in heavy trading
Swimsuit model survives tsunami; toll at 60,000
I think this headline speaks volumes about the state of the union today.
Since I've been home on vacation, I've either become more exposed to mass culture and the news, or have been ignoring it less. This is probably the first sizable exposure I've had to television news in five years or more, and it's just haunting. Maybe it's just me, but I detect a pronounced bias in the news these days. Detect isn't even the right word to describe it, since it connotes some level of subtlety. It's more like I've been unable to avoid it.
Perhaps this is a reflection of the supposedly rightward shift of the country signified by the election. I'm sure that's how the media want to explain everything, but the startling consensus in the mainstream media that the country is deeply divided by with a slight right-wing majority hellbent on moral values (nice paradox, no?) makes me inclined to think that they've gotten it all wrong. Maybe that's me simply projecting my hopes, but I think such a quick rush to judgment that cites such an amorphous yet oversimplified explanation is bound to be wrong. It's more complicated than that. There are too many nuances not being considered, and anyway is the country really that much different on Nov. 2 than it was on Nov. 1? Doubtful. Perhaps there's been a sea change (though you'd really have to find something novel to support that contention), but any change is more gradual, evolutionary rather than sudden and discontinuous.
Nonetheless, that's another rant....
To return to my main point, it's just alarming to see how transparently right-wing, or at least pandering, the media agenda seems to be these days. There's little questioning of the status quo. The ascendancy of evangelical Christianity and traditional family values is not contested. (As an aside, there's no essential link between those two as I've known many an evangelical who liked R-rated films, downloaded porn and had the vocabulary of a trucker. Hypocrisy knows no values except for depravity.) There's also a definite racial prejudice, if not quite on the surface.
The wrath of the earthquake and tsunamis that have truly and utterly devastated areas of the Indian Ocean coast has really illustrated this. And while I'm pleased to see newspapers and broadcast news devoting considerable ink and airtime to the story, their coverage is less than spectacular. Perhaps the headline cited above is a bit harsh, coming as it does from ESPN, but traditional news organizations are no better. Countless times I've heard news reports about how two Americans have died in the aftermath and many hundreds more are missing. Sure, this is tragic. And it has a local angle. But consider the scale. This could be an unprecedented natural calamity in the number of human lives lost, but our media prefer to dwell on the handful of American tourists caught up in the devastation who really amount to little more than a footnote in the grand scheme. Or take most of the interviews with witnesses and survivors. As often as not, they feature white faces, whether Americans or just English-speaking Europeans. There are plenty of English speakers in the countries severely affected, yet they don't get nearly so much face time. And when they do, it's presented in a condescending manner. Like the tendency to include subtitles for people from India or Sri Lanka who are speaking in English. Sure, they have unfamiliar accents. But they aren't impenetrable. If I close my eyes I can easily understand their speech. But since they're dark skinned, they must not speak our language well, so we have to include subtitles. Or there's the smugness with which most news organizations point out that a lot of the hard-hit countries lacked any sort of tsunami warning system, which the U.S., naturally, has. Of course, few point out that such systems are not only fairly expensive for poor countries, but also aren't necessarily effective, and that the Indian Ocean is hit by tsunamis much less often than the Pacific Ocean.
Prior to the disaster, I was feeling pretty cheesed off by the trends I noticed in this country in the last couple of weeks. This episode has only sharpened those views. I just feel increasingly estranged from American society. I don't share its values or prejudices, which I find ever more appalling. It's just amazing how truly bad things can be. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I think I'd prefer to retreat to my ivory tower while I contemplate it.
I think this headline speaks volumes about the state of the union today.
Since I've been home on vacation, I've either become more exposed to mass culture and the news, or have been ignoring it less. This is probably the first sizable exposure I've had to television news in five years or more, and it's just haunting. Maybe it's just me, but I detect a pronounced bias in the news these days. Detect isn't even the right word to describe it, since it connotes some level of subtlety. It's more like I've been unable to avoid it.
Perhaps this is a reflection of the supposedly rightward shift of the country signified by the election. I'm sure that's how the media want to explain everything, but the startling consensus in the mainstream media that the country is deeply divided by with a slight right-wing majority hellbent on moral values (nice paradox, no?) makes me inclined to think that they've gotten it all wrong. Maybe that's me simply projecting my hopes, but I think such a quick rush to judgment that cites such an amorphous yet oversimplified explanation is bound to be wrong. It's more complicated than that. There are too many nuances not being considered, and anyway is the country really that much different on Nov. 2 than it was on Nov. 1? Doubtful. Perhaps there's been a sea change (though you'd really have to find something novel to support that contention), but any change is more gradual, evolutionary rather than sudden and discontinuous.
Nonetheless, that's another rant....
To return to my main point, it's just alarming to see how transparently right-wing, or at least pandering, the media agenda seems to be these days. There's little questioning of the status quo. The ascendancy of evangelical Christianity and traditional family values is not contested. (As an aside, there's no essential link between those two as I've known many an evangelical who liked R-rated films, downloaded porn and had the vocabulary of a trucker. Hypocrisy knows no values except for depravity.) There's also a definite racial prejudice, if not quite on the surface.
The wrath of the earthquake and tsunamis that have truly and utterly devastated areas of the Indian Ocean coast has really illustrated this. And while I'm pleased to see newspapers and broadcast news devoting considerable ink and airtime to the story, their coverage is less than spectacular. Perhaps the headline cited above is a bit harsh, coming as it does from ESPN, but traditional news organizations are no better. Countless times I've heard news reports about how two Americans have died in the aftermath and many hundreds more are missing. Sure, this is tragic. And it has a local angle. But consider the scale. This could be an unprecedented natural calamity in the number of human lives lost, but our media prefer to dwell on the handful of American tourists caught up in the devastation who really amount to little more than a footnote in the grand scheme. Or take most of the interviews with witnesses and survivors. As often as not, they feature white faces, whether Americans or just English-speaking Europeans. There are plenty of English speakers in the countries severely affected, yet they don't get nearly so much face time. And when they do, it's presented in a condescending manner. Like the tendency to include subtitles for people from India or Sri Lanka who are speaking in English. Sure, they have unfamiliar accents. But they aren't impenetrable. If I close my eyes I can easily understand their speech. But since they're dark skinned, they must not speak our language well, so we have to include subtitles. Or there's the smugness with which most news organizations point out that a lot of the hard-hit countries lacked any sort of tsunami warning system, which the U.S., naturally, has. Of course, few point out that such systems are not only fairly expensive for poor countries, but also aren't necessarily effective, and that the Indian Ocean is hit by tsunamis much less often than the Pacific Ocean.
Prior to the disaster, I was feeling pretty cheesed off by the trends I noticed in this country in the last couple of weeks. This episode has only sharpened those views. I just feel increasingly estranged from American society. I don't share its values or prejudices, which I find ever more appalling. It's just amazing how truly bad things can be. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I think I'd prefer to retreat to my ivory tower while I contemplate it.
posted by Alexander Dubcek | 01:25
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