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The News is Disturbing
Elberon, NJ April 20, 2000
Aaron H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on issues, ideas and reflections on the times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.
THE NEWS TODAY IS MOST DISTURBING
The news today is most disturbing because I am not disturbed by most of
what passes for news. I sense there is a monumental announcement poised on
the cusp of our collective awareness that will really disturb us. It seems
to me that with all the banal reportage of the Elian mess, the Supreme
Court's declarations that we may no longer be required to be silent, the
discovery of World War II soldier's remains and other disjointed facts from
around the world - we are expecting something different to be announced -
something monumental.
We are surrounded by minutiae. The deluge of announcements of new
developments in the way our consciousness is managed through electronic
means is truly devastating. In the pages of the Asbury Park Press this
morning there is a publication dedicated to printing web-page sites.
Advertisements appeared on its pages boast of the firms based on buying and
selling through the Internet. The drop in high tech stock prices did not
cause an instant depression - it only heightened the buying and selling
which made the market surge once again.
President Clinton uttered memorable words about the "sacred" nature of an
Oklahoma bombing site, a place jolting our consciousness just a few years
ago. The date is the anniversary of a massacre in Waco, Texas caused by an
attack by government forces against a strange cultic religion of a few years
before that. We will be reminded of the Columbine high school killings
designed by two dysfunctional boys just a year ago as plans for imprinting
this event on our memories go forward.
The news is disturbing because we are focused on the terrible things that
go on in our world. Plans to make things better die before being put into
action because we do not know exactly how to make things better. We just go
on inventing new ways to learn the events of the day more quickly, click
mice and click controls to see what the same old screen has for us today.
Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10
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