A lot of us are thinking, could the news media mince the minutiae any finer? Geez.
The trivia that some few in media perseverate on: today a comment by a fellow introducing Senator McCain, a fellow who tried to make a joke by calling on the name Tiger Woods… a small matter really. But, all of a sudden Keith Olbermann, who I like, had on Professor Dyson, who I respect, saying in too long a segment, that this remark was “racial.”
The remark was this, and I don’t doubt that it referred to race, but whether it is Big News, is another question . This from The Politico:
Several hundred veterans stood in the cold drizzle Tuesday morning for a man they called their hero.
“You can have your Tiger Woods,” David Bellavia, a former Army Staff Sergeant told the crowd of pro-Iraq veterans. “We’ve got Senator McCain.”
Only a few in media reported this intro; but it spread like sinfluenza.
I am not keen on discussing race in trivial terms of what some poor soul introducing a Senator said in this case… not unless there’s also far more meat to the story.
Little is settled by calling people out. Much can be bridged in conversation where ALL representing the polarities within each race, are called to the table.
I’d rather talk seriously about intra and cross-racial discrimination, or the raw deal poor whites often get in the discussion of race (they are mostly left out entirely), or the poor blacks who have no discernable voice in these discussions, let alone Asian-Pacific peoples, Native Americans, Hawaiians, and Latinos.
I’d rather, on some days, with my own people and everyone else, institute with some levity, a race discussion re “the four-generation rule,”
(I made that up), that says you cannot whine about what you, he, her, him, they did to your great great great great-anything, if more than four generations has come and gone and you had a chance to go to high school. No matter what race or nationality you are. True life and death grievances remain on the table.
I’d seriously rather talk about how some don’t realize they don’t have more opportunity in life, not because of race or gender or anything else other than that they’re not all that good at whatever it is they want to be good at, or people don’t particularly like them, or other… and that discrimination is a reality in how humans ordinate their worlds– all humans– and animals– and when discrimination is serious, it is seriously dehumanizing… but discrimination is not ‘the real cause’ lurking behind every personal dashed hope and disappointment.
There’s a lot to be said about race. Far more than I’ve mentioned here.
Especially by those who have not yet spoken, I think. Especially those who never get to speak, or who are afraid to.
On a related note, I think we need a new amendment to the Constitution that says nominees’ campaigns cannot ever again be over 2 months long.
Sun Tzu, in The Art of War says that a long war is almost certain to force a loss, for the combatants become fatigued and the people lose interest.
The daily media perseverations on trivia, as though ubiquitous human foibles are huge momentous, monumental events worthy of our parsing and discussing and furrowing our brows over, and debating (another subject for another time about what passes for debate nowadays…) may indeed be signal that the collective is distracted and restless… impatient even.
Often people resort to nit-picking and trivial matters when they are not fully engaged, that is, when they are bored.
Are we bored? Frustrated with lack depth and breadth of concerns? Over a million people losing their homes in the mortgage Bloody mortgage, and an entire city destroyed and not rebuilt nor its people properly cared for, tanking dollar, you name it… and just a few polite inquiries of General Pet, a glancing blow to President Bush about going or not going to opening soiree at Olympics in China. Are we bored and frustrated? My bet is leaning toward Yes.
Are the candidates saving up their jing for July? Is that why we’re getting so much that seems insipid– except maybe Senator’s Clinton’s news that her chief adviser who recently stepped down is Executive of a PR organization that according to Mullen here: also reps Blackwater.
Are investigative reporters coming up without smoking guns? Or are they saving some ‘big’ news they know, for a critical moment?
Whichever it is, boredom or hoarding or other, even with such oddities and clangs, still, sanity alone notes that Wagnerian operas which always seem at least a half a century long, are shorter than this campaign.