The Rabbit Hole: You Can't Handle The Truth!

[Warph]

Remember the movie, "A Few Good Men" .....

Col. Nathan R.Jessep: Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.  Whose gonna do it? You?  You, Lt. Weinburg? I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post.  Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.  You see Danny boy, I can deal with the bullets, and the bombs, and the blood.  I don't want money, and I don't want medals.  What I do want is for you to stand there in that faggoty white uniform and with your Harvard mouth extend me some %#?$# courtesy.  You gotta ask me nicely.  I run my unit how I run my unit.  You want to investigate me, roll the dice and take your chances. I eat breakfast 300 yards from 4000 Cubans who are trained to kill me, so don't think for one second that you can come down here, flash a badge, and make me nervous. 
Col. Nathan R. Jessep: You want answers?
Lt. Daniel Kaffee: I think I'm entitled.
Col. Jessep: You want answers?
Lt. Kaffee: I want the truth!
Col. Jessep: You can't handle the truth!

WOW.... what a role Jack Nicholson played in that film.... Check 'em out:



Or the Movie Original:


But seriously, the Colonel is right.  These days, truth in the Media has been pushed further into the backseat than loose change during a shuttle launch.  Hell, we don't know what to believe anymore.  I think it's a problem that you can't watch the ABC, CBS and NBC nightly news without longing for the relative intellectual integrity of those thought bubbles on 'Blind Date.'  Remember 'Blind Date?'  I try not to.

If you're looking for empirical truth on TV, you're watching the wrong kinescope, my friend.  TV news wants you entertained first, informed maybe.  There's more useless eye candy in ten seconds of Headline News than in 24 hours of the Cartoon Network.  And don't try to argue that all that junk on the screen is information I need to know.  Nobody cares about the hotter than hell temperature in Phoenix AZ, not even the people in Phoenix. That's why they've moved to Phoenix. They've given up. 

Look, the truth is that in cost conscious, bottom line America all the major cable news organizations.... CNN & HEADLINE NEWS, FOX NEWS, MSNBC.... have been removing key positions like they were editing an Iranian edition of the Kama Sutra.  Instead of reporters on the scene gathering facts, what we're left with is an overstuffed, oxygen starved fish farm of opened mouth trout swimming in circles with absolutely no idea what they're talking about.  The other night MS/NBC loudmouth Chris Matthews had a leading authority on Al Qaeda and it turned out his only credential was that his name was 'Al Qaeda' ... from Pittsburgh, I think.

In today's information economy, the old journalistic mandate of 'Get it fast, first, and right' has been downsized to just getting it 'fast and first and to hell with the right.'  Today's idea of an 'investigative report' is one they remembered to run a spell-check on.  And the line between fact and opinion gets stepped on more frequently than the feet of a circus clown slow-dancing with a scuba diver.

Also, I don't trust anything said by a news anchor who doesn't have a believable hairpiece.  How am I supposed to take seriously any guy with hair that makes the molded plastic thatch on a G.I. Joe's head look natural?  Why should I believe his mouth when his scalp is screaming 'liar?'  And the women, everyone has the SAME hairstyle. Long, Stiff and Overblown.  They could stand in the middle of a tornado and their hair-do would survive.  And those blown-up,  puffed-up lips... the poor girls talk like they have a mouthful of spittlebug %$!$#.....  and I'm supposed to take you serious too, fish lips?  And, come on, does anyone really believe that chick at the TruTV/CourtTV news desk, Ashleigh Banfield, has an agenda that goes any further than launching her own line of eyewear?  Yeah, I see you too, Ashleigh.

And nothing is more skewed than local news during sweeps. The I-Team takes their hidden cameras down to any business that doesn't advertise with the station to ferret out the potential dangers to the consumer.  You never see them do a story on new or used car salesmen because they pump in too much ad revenue.  Instead they storm the barely English speaking mechanic who is trying to feed his eight kids, who charged the undercover reporter with a forty thousand dollar surveillance briefcase, an extra buck for a sparkplug. And it's all hyped with overly dramatic upcoming-story teasers that sound like Adam West reading 'War Of The Worlds' to the blind.

Look, we know each of our major newspapers comes with an established point-of-view.  The New York Times' is that of a liberal Northeastern academic.  The Wall Street Journal is that of conservative corporate America.  And USA Today is that of Sean Penn's character in 'I Am Sam' after inhaling paint fumes.

The sad truth is, we don't object to the slanted nature of our news because being told how to think is easier than figuring it out for ourselves.  But on the whole, there is no liberal or conservative bias!  Just kidding.  Media bias is just the latest in a long line of American labor-saving devices that began with the cotton gin and will likely end with us swaddled in our full-sensory La-Z-Boys, while a holographic Wolf Blitzer gnome dances on your man-breasts and yips, 'Bad stuff happened to other people in the world today, but not to you, Pumpkin. That's the news. Have another bear claw.'

So where is the class in news?  And where is the class in the talking-heads who give us the news?  Seriously, if your looking for class, check out my favorite talking-head anchor and his family as they hit an all-u-can-eat buffet on saturday nite.  This is for real, people.  He has a family of four box-shaped individuals, one has side-burns, four don't, who barrel in wearing matching pre-stained jogging suits and high-fiving each other when they score a table within arms reach of the food barges.  They all line up and bow before the adversary like sumo wrestlers, then engage in a five-minute flurry of polyester and animal fat that would make Dr. Phil wince.  They then mule-train back to base camp and proceed to dig in like trapped miners running out of air.  After 20 solid minutes of communicative grunting, only briefly interrupted to spit gravy on a napkin fire started by cutlery sparks, the sated quartet of carbo-toadies pushes back from the table, chair legs screeching like a stopping train, eyes the dessert bar, and lets out a long, loud, hauntingly harmonious burp so filled with yearning that it would bring tears to the eyes of an opera critic.  Then the one with side-burns says, 'Does my lady care for jello?'  Now that's what I'm talking about.....  That's Class, baby!

Let's be honest with ourselves.  You want the truth, belly man?  You can't stay awake for the truth.  Come on, you know you want police chases, mudslides, and world leaders caught on tape having sex with their daughter's piano teacher.  You don't give an embryonic rat's ass about illegal immigration; the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard; Hannah Montana's photo shoot; who's running for the prez spot or the new Campaign Finance Reform bill, or Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure.... because it's way too complicated to figure out and depressing as hell.  When we come home from a hard day at the office, all we want is to kick our feet up on the coffee table, pop open a cold one, turn on the television, and be reassured that everyone in the world is more screwed up than you are, especially the TV talking-heads reporting on it.  ..... Warph

[Wilma]

Where are the applauding hands?  I need them.  Warph, I don't know who you are, but you must have been reading my mind, except that I am not able to put it in words.  Thank you.  That is exactly the way I feel about the news, if you can call it that.  So many times the news is reported and I know it didn't happen that way, but what can I do about it?  Maybe that is why I don't pay much attention to any thing except the weather news and I don't believe that until it happens.

[Teresa]

Warph..... It's going to Down Range..
(and I will give you the credit.. ( as usual)   

[flo]

well written and the truth as told on ECF (Elk County Forum).  Remember, folks, you read it here first .When it got to the part about the "buffet eaters" I laughed till I had tears running down my make-up.  That is certainly a "visual".  I agree with you 100%.  I enjoy your posts so keep 'em coming