SANTA ROSA, CA. - 23 August, 1998: It obviously takes a lot to drive sexual innuendo off the covers of national newspapers and magazines, and off the television airwaves. This week proved it takes even more than one hundred thousand pounds of explosives delivered by scores of cruise missiles.
Because our national news organizations in the U.S. are taking their leads from the likes of Rupert Murdoch and Matt Drudge, the bawdy and salacious have become the order of the day. Only grudgingly is our news elite giving up their valued air time and column space to a breaking international news story.
But what most appalls us here at the GENERATOR 21 is how they are doing so.
Rather than providing thoughtful reporting on the international political circumstances which have led to the U.S. strikes in the Sudan and Afghanistan, a quick perusal of most television news programs this past Friday revealed the tendency to --- once again --- beat the drums of FEAR. Given the opportunity, it appears to us, the national Mouthpiece Media will never resist the chance to play on anxiety and fear. That can be the only rationale for "If it bleeds, it leads," and the only rationale for the inordinate fixation on replacing True Crime magazine as an organ of discourse which is evidenced by their content.
A Los Angeles Times poll this week reveals that even while actual violent crime is down in this country, most people's Fear Index is going through the roof. Coincidence? We think not.
So this week, the Story Du Jour is that Osama bin Laden is under your bed.
Step back with this commentator for a moment, Gentle Reader, and make a calculated consideration:If it took the most powerful, ubiquitous, technologically advanced country in the world a full thirteen days to launch its massive retaliatory attack on these --- face it! --- fanatics living in tents in the Afghan wilderness, WHY THE HELL should we believe the fanatics would be capable of responding in less than 48 hours?
The very prospect of such a thing is surreal in the extreme.
Yet, any person watching television news in any major metropolitan television market at the end of last week was being led to believe that international terrorists would be striking any minute now. Airport advisories were being issued, there was irresponsible talk of poison gas in the New York City subway system, followed by camera shot after shot of police and security forces arming like the 101st Airborne.
In other words, a climate of near-hysteria was being created over a non-existant threat. Logic dictates that any sort of terrorist retaliation will take weeks to occur.
But let us not let logic interfere with what passes for journalism and commentary in the United States of America today.
What Happened to the Dog Days?
What usually is lamented as a slow news period by most American journalists, the month of August, failed to materialize this year.
From Northern Ireland, to Albania, to Russia, Japan, most Asia economies, the Dow, east Africa, Washington, and Afghanistan there has been more than enough news for any organization to report.
During the time I lived in San Francisco, under the dome, I grew accustomed to expecting the climactic Dog Days to arrive in late September, in time for the annual Blues Festival. The weather in that fair city of my recent departure is at its most crystalline at that time.
Now, as Labor Day looms large, and many I know here and in Europe are rushing to squeeze in quick holidays, I must look forward with some dread to things speeding up again as the world rejoins me in getting busy.
My conclusion: El Nino must have made the Dog Days disappear, too...
ABOUT THIS EDITION: Sometimes synchronicity hits this magazine, it seems. In this kick-off issue, both JENNIFER BLUE's DAY ONE installment from Santa Monica, and ADAM J.SMITH's ON DRUGS talk about aspects of the War on Drugs. Meanwhile, KRIS OLSON's KO'S CALL should have the tongues of Sports fans wagging for weeks. KO gives us the first of his two-part predictions of the upcoming NFL football season. RAHEEM has finally updated his HOT LINKS(Not from Louisiana) page with a new addition to the Link Partners Program. And Loyal Reader BOB PURVIS supplies us with a new Joke of the Day in HOUSE OF CARDS. And that's just today.
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