Not a lot to talk about today, perhaps because there's a lot to think about. Or should be. Some behaviorists refer to our feeding frenzy within the 24 hour news cycle as the hamster on a wheel, because of how we seem to do the flop and twitch as we near a TV, double click on a screen refresh or receive a text or a tweet.
I tend to see it more as calling shotgun with AC because that's the kind of guy I am in all of this. If we got nothing else out of the Run, Orenthal James, Run! some eighteen years ago, it's that we love our celebrities and we especially love when they're in trouble. If you're not famous and still get into trouble, the best thing your attorneys can do is blow you up and make you infamous.
In a country with far too little Mayberry and way too much Jersey Shore, the media mantra now is go big or go home. If you're going to be vicious, then you may as well be be heinous because we might remember you more/better/longer, even if we lose track of why we 'know' you at all. Think I'm kidding?
Try me. A year ago, today-live 24/7 cable news coverage from everyone and I do mean everyone. The mainstream media outlets broke into regular programming over and over again to bring us updates. Still don't remember 'the story?' I had four, count 'em, four, text inserts by an other wise relentlessly plain vanilla news service that only offered me one update when the Navy SEALS bagged bin Laden.
Drawing a blank? And yet we promised one another we'd remember. There were miles of electrons consumed in threats and imprecations against the alleged perpetrator and 365 days later, sorry-leap year, 366, we've forgotten it was a year ago today that a young woman in Florida, Casey Anthony, was found not guilty by a jury of her peers of killing her daughter, Caylee.
How many miles do you think we've been running on this wheel? I try to keep track by counting the number of bottles of water suspended upside down in the corner, but in all the excitement, I've forgotten. What were we talking about anyway?
-bill kenny
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