Map of life expectancy at birth from Global Education Project.

Sunday, September 11, 2022

Breaking News: Queen Still Dead

Since they are required to talk about nothing else, wall to wall, 24 hours, the TV news networks can't tell us what else is happening in the world. Actually yesterday was a great day -- Notre Dame and Russia both lost. 

I can't imagine any more damning indictment of the corporate media than their absurd obsession with the British monarchy. Here is the entirety of the story, which did not require a full hour and three panels of dweebs with plummy accents to explain. An obscenely wealthy 96 year old idler with not a single meaningful accomplishment to her credit in her entire life has died, and now her dipshit son gets to ride around in a 19th Century carriage surrounded by guys in 18th Century costumes carrying 15th Century weapons. That's it. Nothing else has happened.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the climate crisis is becoming, well, fairly terrifying. I think people have such a hard time processing it that they just dissociate. The Teevee producers know if they talk about it seriously it will bum people out and they'll lose viewers. On the other hand the collapse of the Russian Army in Kharkiv shows that in one respect, at least, the world is not as dangerous as we thought it was -- well, as long as the Russians lay off the nukes. On the other hand, the Republicans have nominated several certifiable lunatics for high office, and you do have to wonder what will happen if many of them win, and also wonder how anybody could vote for these malignant clowns. So yeah, there's a lot to talk about, but empty spectacle is a lot easier.

1 comment:

Don Quixote said...

Well, they had 70 years to talk about her incessantly. They just waited too long.