ITEM: President Bill Clinton came out of the Beltway this week to celebrate the achievements of his welfare reform legislation. For Mr. Clinton, this was a way to point to the legacy of his Administration and try to put a positive item in that unpredictable audit called his "place in history."

When we finally erect a statue to this man, we should be sure to depict the decimated generation of women and children he produced with welfare reform huddled around his feet of clay.

ITEM: Another frustrated suburbanite "went postal" in a desirable Georgia neighborhood last week, hammering his wife and children to death before going on a murderous rampage in a couple of day-trading offices nearby and ultimately killing himself.

Three things are notable about this particular "bleed/lead" item:

1. It didn't actually lead for very long, despite the high bleed quotient. Our Mouthpiece Media has decided that the American public is a little inured to their "own kind" going postal these days. So this story only led for two days, unlike the JFK, Jr., story which had cum-Princess Di' "legs" and ran at the top of the hour --- if not dominating it --- for two weeks.... despite the fact that it had questionable news value.

   The murder of fourteen "ethnic" Serbians in Kosovo at the hands of KLA Albanians, which happened the same week, had more news-value as far as a public policy item, but suffered a U.S. news blackout.

2. As I've editorialized before, media "mediate." In other words, journalists provide a biased representation of reality, not the actual event. G21 is biased, so is the New York Times. We admit our bias, they don't. An example of this mediation is how, invariably, from Columbine to Mr. Barton's killing spree, the focus is on the number of people killed rather than on the fact that these killing sprees are, most often, elaborate forms of suicide. "The largest killing spree in Georgia history..." was an oft'-used phrase. The phrase could easily have been replaced with this one: "The X-thousandth suicide in America this year."

   The problem (for the Mouthpiece Media) with using that second phrase is this: it focuses you on the fact that incipient rage about conditions in American society today has produced not only lonely, pathetic suicides in pandemic proportions, but also the growing phenomenon of raged-engendered suicides who take other people with them. It's easier to joke about another person "going postal."

   Ted Turner doesn't want you to start thinking that suicide is a problem in the United States. Michael Eisner certainly does not.

   Just go out and buy more shit. You'll feel better.

   You Can Make A Difference

   FEED THE HUNGRY. You can help someone else in this world and IT WON'T COST YOU A DIME. If you simply remember to drop by The Hunger Site every day that you surf and click a simple button ONE LESS PERSON WILL GO HUNGRY. The food is distributed by the United Nations World Food Programme and paid for through the sponsorship of companies that care. Do your part.

3. Why doesn't "the media" ever do commentary on the fact that, 99.7% of the time, it is suburbanites, from communities which supposedly represent The American Dream, who "go postal?" When's the last time you saw a brother from the 'hood, or a Korean grocery store owner, or a Haitian immigrant, go postal? Conditions in their lives are certainly desperate and precarious, they only go to the mall once in a blue moon when they have some windfall. Why are the "right people," the people whose votes are being courted by George W. Bush and Al Gore, the people who the 6:00 o'clock news can provide admirable family photos for, the same people who are going postal?

Wait a minute! Isn't that FLUFF?

"Well, not exactly," some smarmy corporate-conglomerate Suit-Editor might tell you, "because the premiere issue of Talkfeatured the Hilary Clinton interview. Hillary is running for Senator from New York, and the poor reception among The Powers That Be of her 'Bill's problems spring from the "abuse" he suffered being torn between his Mom and Granny' defence is news. Hillary's bad showing gives Rudy Guiliani the boost he needs. Hey! Pataki just endorsed Rudy and he hates the little Nazi's guts!"

But isn't that saying that basically re-hashed gossip tangentially related to an important election is being made the major focus, even though it has nothing to do with the policy issues facing New Yorkers? Isn't that saying that the press is tittilating us about the celebrity doings of itself, instead of trying to inform us?

"Who asked you for your opinion anyway?"

ITEM: The big headline in most papers yesterday was about the indictment of a U. S. Army Colonel's wife for smuggling Colombian cocaine into New York City using her U.S. embassy mailing privileges.

Let's get this straight: The Colonel is down there as a tax-payer financed advisor to the Colombian government to end "narco-terrorism" and STOP the flow of drugs from Colombia to the United States. His wife is an alleged cocaine addict, the drug he --- among other highly-financed U.S. officials --- are supposedly eradicating. Meanwhile, she is using our tax dollars to mail pounds of cocaine to New York City.

Hmmn.... Hasn't G21 been writing for more weeks than we can remember about the failed Drug War in Colombia? Why are we wasting our time?

Now here's a very radical thought:

WHAT IF AT LEAST ONE OUTLET, ON ONE MEDIUM, STARTED PROVIDING YOU WITH REAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY ABOUT IMPORTANT ISSUES IN YOUR LIVES LIKE, WELL,

• ECONOMIC REORGANIZATION WHICH PROVIDED INCENTIVES FOR SUSTAINABILITY ON ALL CONTINENTS,
• THE PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES INVOLVED WITH BIO-TECHNOLOGIES & EXPANDING COMPUTERIZATION,
• THE MEANS OF LINKING PEOPLE FROM VARIOUS COUNTRIES WHO HAD COMMON GOALS INTO A BRAIN-STORMING/PROBLEM-SOLVING (INTER)NETWORK,
• MEANS OF HALTING OR MITIGATING THE DECIMATION OF SPECIES,
• THE LONG-TERM SOCIAL DYNAMICS & CONSEQUENCES OF GLOBALIZATION?

What if it encouraged YOU to take part in the public policy discussion again --- rather than pandering to the Usual Talking Heads and "experts?" AND what if it re-embraced the notion of democracy as not some completed utopia of market mechanisms, but an on-going experiment in better human relations tied to universal human progress?

Wasn't it in Athens, the birthplace of demo(s "The People")cracy that everyone gathered in the Forum to discuss public policy and chart the course of their lives? Hmmn...