[78-L] Michael Jackson. A Balanced View.

[Steven C. Barr]

(see END...WAY down there!)
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donna Halper" <dlh at donnahalper.com>
> And that has long been a pet peeve of mine.  Not about Michael per 
> se, but about what has been called (accurately) by other posters to 
> this thread our celebrity dominated culture.  McLuhan was right about 
> TV contributing to shorter attention spans.  I mean, Farrah Fawcett 
> (another celebrity) dies in the morning and all the major TV outlets 
> stop to mention and mourn her passing.  But by dinnertime, she's 
> yesterday's news and everything is all-Michael all the time.  Okay 
> fine, his story is perfect for the tabloid nature of cable-- it has 
> mystery, scandal, and a protagonist who (like him or hate him) was a 
> bit eccentric.  But what I found odd was how NEWS people and 
> POLITICAL commentators were forced into overdrive to suddenly treat 
> this like the most important thing that ever happened.  I mean Keith 
> Olbermann and David Shuster doing 4 hours each (!) of live Michael 
> Jackson coverage?  Anderson Cooper pausing to remember how he saw 
> Michael at Studio 54.  OMG OMG OMG.  Reporters (and fans) talking 
> about Michael as if he had been some kind of saint who walked among 
> us.  Even if his life had no scandals at all, he was in fact NOT the 
> saviour of mankind and NOT a major factor in world events.  Yes, he 
> made a lot of people happy and he sold a lot of records and he 
> absolutely did a lot of charity work.  But 24 hour coverage of his 
> passing and its effect on people?  Oh please.  I was not a fan of 
> Ronald Reagan, but I understood the need to do thorough coverage when 
> he died.  I'm not a Catholic, but when the Pope died, I totally 
> understood why this was an event worthy of lots of attention.  But 
> Michael Jackson?  Not so much.
> 
> And somewhere in South Carolina, Governor Mark Sanford was feeling 
> very lucky, since his own scandal got pushed off the front burner, 
> and whether the media should have given that so much coverage is an 
> open question as well.  (Disclaimer-- I never liked the guy, never 
> thought he was a good governor, and when my friends on the right talk 
> about how Republicans are the party of Family Values, my eyes glaze 
> over.  BUT, once the scandal had unfolded, I kind of felt it was time 
> to move on to whatever the next thing was.  My sympathies are with 
> the governor's wife and kids, none of whom, I am sure, ever wanted 
> their personal problems made fodder to cable news...)
> 
> But what really annoys me is that many of these cable channel and 
> newspapers have cut back their international coverage and closed 
> their international bureaus to save money.  Cover Iran?  Can't do 
> it-- paranoid regime, and the few reporters still there got tossed 
> out. Cover Africa?  No thanks.  Viewers don't care, or so we are 
> told.  Cover Latin America?  Yeah, if Hugo Chavez says something 
> crazy, we'll be there.  And if drug lords in Columbia are caught, 
> we'll parachute some journalists in to report, and then parachute 
> them back out again.
> 
> And the most frustrating thing of all-- Michael Jackson coverage got 
> Fox (!), CNN and even MSNBC some of the biggest ratings the three 
> have had since the presidential election.  People say they are 
> shocked and disgusted by all that tabloid coverage, but boy howdy, do 
> they all watch it!!!
> 
I was VERY fortunate (IMO) to have grown up WITHOUT television
(well, I did go to a downstairs neighbour's place to watch Howdy Doody
afternoons?!). I was twelve before my family FINALLY bought a new
Zenith 21" table model TV...and its programs NEVER fascinated me
to the point of "forget EVERYTHING! Such&Such is on!!" This in turn
has let me, over the years, take a "disinterested, uninvolved outsider"
view of television and its effect on western society!!

My conclusion?! Television has, since its early-fifties introduction, been
completely and totally responsible for the serious...nay, critical...
decline in human society we have seen over those decades!!

I grew up in small-town Illinois. What entertainment we enjoyed was
created by ourselves...pot-luck dinners, high-school plays and the
(square) dances, played by a live combo from the next village! All
of these gathered virtually ALL the citizens (usually at the local
high-school gym!).

Then, in late 1953, Waynesville could receive TV!!! By 1955,
the local "events" had faded out...no one showed up, since they
were all seated in front of their TV set! Further, the local children
did NOT learn morals and mores from their parents as they had
in previous generations...instead, they learned them from television
programs created with the aim of attracting as large an audience
as possible! The message given us by our TV sets was succinct
and simple..."GET MORE MONEY!!" This was 180 degrees
out of phase with what had held our little farming-based
community together...in fact, the FIRST step in "get more money"
was MOVE TO THE BIG CITY!

So...we now have a greed-driven chaos instead of a society! We
claimed to be surprised when bank executives issued themselves
7-figure "bonuses" out of their "bail-out" money...?! Well, TV
explains that quite well...?!

And one can now buy HDTV sets with screens only slightly
smaller than Ohio...and see XXI-Jahrhundert idiocy very nearly
LIFE-SIZE!

Fortunately, my predicted life span tells me I shall only have to
endure this b***roar for about two decades (unless society
TOTALLY collapses...quite possible...or the Muslim forces
elect to nuke Oshawa [gawdknowswhy?!])

Thus spaketh Steven C...?!

...stevenc