Light and hearty observations from a fat and ugly guy. Home of hackneyed drivel and ersatz-existentialist effluence. Choleric biliousness a specialty, since 1958.

TV coverage can buff my scrotum

Isn't it something how we lurch from subject to subject in the national discourse, nothing ever fully resolved, topics dropped like hot potatoes the moment the next gigantic event comes along?

Many years ago I got into an argument with retired president of CBS TV News, Dick Salant. I asked him a question and he got pissed: "how much does the presence of the camera change the nature of the story?" He called me an asshole.

But this is exactly the point. Example: genocide in Rwanda. For a short time back in 1994, CNN's Christiane Amanpour was there: wandering around refugee camps, blowing flies out of her mouth, examining amputated limb stumps...you know, basic tourism. Then all of a sudden she was gone, off to the next big thing. And *poof*, the story went away. But during her time there, we heard so much about Rwanda that, as a measure of its gravity, actual rock stars got upset and organized some something or other to provide "relief". This made everyone feel so much better.

Yes, in Rwanda, the world was watching! Compare that to what happened in Burundi starting in 1972, when a well organized genocide "cleaned out" 250,000 people. The difference was: no one in the West gave two shits back then, and there was zero TV coverage, and so it went on and on and on and on and on and nothing was EVER done about it. Certainly there was no rock star sing-along free auction concert telethon benefit satellite swap meet to help provide "relief".

Even though he's dead, Dick Salant can buff my scrotum.

posted by Nigel St.John Regina Smegmatica Howle-Raines @ 7:23 AM