You got the wrong guy!

I would like to amplify my criticism of the press and their propensity to turn every tragedy into a sideshow feeding frenzy...

The bodies of the victims shot in cold blood were hardly cold themselves before the accusations began to fly. The fickle fingers of FOX et al. weren't being pointed at the the culprit (identified already in earliest reports as "a Asian male") but instead at the police and university officials who failed to shut down the entire 40,000 member college community after the initial incident. "Parents Demand Firing" screamed the headline. (Faux News found a grieving mother and father willing to call for heads to roll, so the headline is infact truthy.) All the rest of the networks joined in the criticism.

When the identity of the killer became known on Day 2, the media couldn't even take the time to agree on just how to mispronounce his name before cranking up the in depth speculation machine. Cho Seung-Hui. Or is it Jo Song-We? Chow Sung-He? Nevermind the fact that Koreans tend to reverse first and last names, showing that the news models really had no idea who they were theorizing about. The bell tolls now for Pop-Psy 101.

It's ironic that the 24 hour news cycle brings us now little more than a voyeuristic recycling of other people's feelings and the senseless specualtion ad nauseum of "experts" on the payrolls of corporate media. I recall a recent gym visit where FOX and CNN were both staked out with video cameras rolling in the Bahamas, waiting for the Danielynn Smith Gabor Birkhead Stern paternity results. Time stretched on and the talking head just gabbed and gabbed. Finally, CNN had to break for a commercial. Seconds late the baby daddy emerged and declared live on TV (except for CNN), "I told you so!" It wasn't Zha Zha's husband. This i had to learn Live? Meh...

Virginia Massacaust

I don't know how to feel? So it's a good thing i have no indirect connection to the events at Virginia Tech. Otherwise i might have been broadcasting LIVE on GMA, Gooooooood Morning, Viet Naa. ... er, Americaaaaaa.

Eventually, it gets down to that most probative of questions: "So tell, me. How did you feel?"
"We were like, 'What's going on?'" comes the inevitable reply.

I'm just part of the unwashed masses, soaking up the bystander trauma in HD TV. I don't know how to feel.

Just the week before last, we got to witness the public flogging of Don Imus. "Nappy-headed hos" he called members of a team in a sport i don't follow. I follow no sports. But i know the women of Rutgers now, the almost champs. One told me on the TV, HD TV, that she was scarred for life. Her name was Matee, a witness to the need for this wall to wall news coverage.

I go to the gym, not 'cause i like sports. I lost a bet. On the plus side there are wall to wall TVs (though none yet in HD). Simultaneously, you've got CNN, C-SPAN, FOX, MSNBC and MTV. Just choose your audio or read all the subtitles. Faux News followed a story live for an hour or more last week: "Mare Stuck in the Mud in Texas." Her name was Champ. How would i have felt if this nappy headed horse hadn't made it out alive?

Live at the gym, the old networks are representin', ABC, CBS, NBC... Only PBS seems to be dissing the national nightmare by televising some show on painting. It's not even live. Where's their probative specualtion on the matter? With 30+ victims, it's the worst civilian shooting in US HISTORY. How can you help but to feel... i don't know.

30+ civilians die violent deaths on any given day in Baghdad. How do you feel?

30+ students die on American campuses each week due to binge drinking or suicide. How do you feel?

60, 70, 80+ Americans die in Iraq every month. How do you feel? I don't know.