Weekday Stains

After sitting down and getting ready for my workday, I wrote up a quick list of topics I wanted to address here. However, those all went out the window when I heard about the Virginia Tech shootings. I'm sure there are roughly 6 million blog posts on the subject out there right now. I can't promise mine will be any different, but here goes nothing.

First off, it's a tragedy. This isn't shocking news to anyone so I won't belabor that point. To put it in perspective, the death toll nearly triples that of Columbine. I think a lot about how unfortunate it is. I'm not sure if this is normal, but it always gets me thinking about other tragedies. Rwanda, the Holocaust, deaths in Iraq, etc. That isn't to take anything away from the events today. It might be more comforting if it did. Instead, it only reminds me that it can and does become worse. One thing that I found really disappointing were the early comments out of the White House. While I understand one not quite isolated event should not widely distort long standing policies, but there are times when you can pass on hammering home a political point. Here's a transcript from Whitehouse.gov of Press Secretary Dana Perino's remarks, "Q: Dana, going back to Virginia Tech, what more does this White House think needs to be done as it relates to gun issues? The President says current laws need to be strengthened, anything beyond that -- you had a conference on school violence with guns -- what more needs to be done?

MS. PERINO: I would point you back to the fact that President, along with Secretary Spellings, hosted last October -- October 10, 2006 -- a conference on school gun violence after the Amish school shooting and the other shootings that had happened, because the tragedies are the ones that just collectively break America's heart and are ones that we deeply feel, because all of us can imagine what it would be like to have been at your own school, your own college, and to have something happen. And those of us who are parents, or brothers or sisters of people at the schools have to take that into consideration.

As far as policy, the President believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed. And certainly bringing a gun into a school dormitory and shooting -- I don't want to say numbers because I know that they're still trying to figure out many people were wounded and possibly killed, but obviously that would be against the law and something that someone should be held accountable for."

The right to bear arms is certainly a much debated issue in America. Some people argue for far more restrictions, others for far less. The question was somewhat loaded. I recognize all of this. And yet, I don't care. Give it a day. Talk about tragedy and the need for prayer more. The argument about gun ownership can wait. At least a day.

For better or worse, the media storm regarding the shootings will be incredible. I wish I was confident that it would stimulate debate about larger issues in our society. Whether we're dealing with gun ownership or what made this man do such horrible things, I'd like to see the media grapple with the issues. The far more likely result will be a detailed gripping play by play of the killings that brings us strong narrative but weak analysis. I hope to be proven wrong.

Looking back on the list of topics I jotted down, I realize how many of them dealt with my distaste for national media sources. From the recent Don Imus brouhaha (what a great and underused word that is), to the more every day emphasis on pitting one talking head against another, news isn't really news anymore. Arguably Don Imus was never fully news, but he was the unwitting inspiration for a lot of good media related thoughts.

It all started when I was sitting in a metro station talking to a friend about the Imus outburst. This friend is one of the nicest girls I know, but if you do something that she thinks is truly reprehensible (and this is not easy to do) she will call you on it in terms that could never be uncertain. Needless to say, she was pissed about Imus. Ever the promoter, I coyly referenced how S.Q. had blogged about it a little. Before I could mention I planned to chime in, she says, "I hate blogs. I never read them." Perhaps a little hurt, and certainly with my pride wounded I ask why. Her reply ran along the lines of, "it's hard enough to find objective news from major sources, so why would I waste my time reading blogs." That stung a little bit, but only because she had a point.

My response to this, which we didn't have time to discuss, was that I like blogs because people are more open about their biases. If you read the Stain Club, you know you're in store for some moderate to liberal discussion based on who you have posting on a given day. We're pretty up front about it. Until we "hire" a conservative columnist, or I find more time to ghost-write, we are not fair and balanced. I most enjoy the editorial page for the very same reason. It talks about events, but also what that person thinks. Through their openness, they encourage me to explore the issue and think critically. I read a great one by Robert Novak the other day on peace in the Middle East. And yes, I called him a hack in an earlier column. Despite that, I went in with an open mind and was pleasantly surprised. Whenever I compare that to the talking heads I find on 24 hour network news, I lose both the surprise and the pleasantness.

Here's an unconventional example. It's Geraldo vs. Bill O'Reilly. Raw is War. News is entertainment. Debate is shouting match. Sentence is short. You get the idea. Then every other news program out there is racing to match up talking head contestants to battle it out in the name of fair debate. There's no debate and you only get fairness when both sides have the same volume and willingness to interrupt the other. The result, invariably, can be reduced to white noise. Why can't they put one talking head on and ask them some questions, then another and ask them the same questions. To be completely fair, you could prevent talking head #2 from hearing what #1 said. Both could skew the news however they wanted and no one would complain that their position is being shouted down. Why don't they do this? Because its not entertaining. Here's another short sentence for you, News is Dead.

While we're staining about what's on tv these days, I want to point out something far more serious than the offspring of Crossfire. Maybe you've seen these, but they hit home like no ad I've seen before. Their website is Don't Almost Give. I plan to drop a more serious post that is devoted solely to this ad campaign later so we'll move on.

Lately I've been watching Planet Earth on Discovery Channel. It is incredible. That is all I can say about it. It can't come out on DVD soon enough. Watch it. Sundays at 8 on Discovery. You won't be disappointed. But that's not the real story. Yesterday, I watched the better part of an episode with one of my roommates. We were discussing the amazingness of the scenes before us and, ever the cynics, we wondered if perhaps some of the scenes had been set up. Something along the lines of "Oh look a swarm of piranhas... and here we have a big juicy dead fish... oh no it dropped in the river. I guess we have to film the feeding frenzy." That sort of thing. Then my roommate says, "it's like the myth about lemmings that Disney perpetuated." Now for those of you who don't know, lemmings are widely believed to have such a strong herd instinct that when one runs off a cliff, hundreds will follow right behind. This was even the inspiration for a cherished childhood video game. However, if you read further down the Lemmings article, you will notice the suicide myth entry. To briefly summarize, it details how Disney was making a nature "documentary" where Disney faked footage of lemmings running off a cliff in droves by throwing them over the edge. And so I will end with a familiar refrain... Hey Disney stop killing my childhood (and the lemmings).