seeing our shadow

ward egg ranch, san diego, california, february 2003: 15,000 hens, "spent" laying hens, their bodies so depleted of calcium they are useless for egg laying, are thrown, alive, into a wood chipper to die

chickens genetically altered to grow twice as large and twice as fast as they would naturally, according to a poultry industry journal says "grow so rapidly that the heart and lungs are not developed well enough to support the remainder of the body, resulting in congestive heart failure and tremendous death losses."

turkeys and chickens, stacked in crates atop one another, or sometimes kept four to a crate, often must be debeaked--the burning off of a portion of the beak, to make it less sharp--so as not to damage each other in their cramped quarters

birds that fall off the slaughterhouse conveyor belts are left to die, as taking the time to pick them up would delay production

dairy cows are impregnated so as to give birth every year and, through genetic manipulation and intensive production technologies, it's common for them to produce 100 lbs of milk a day (10 times more than they would naturally produce). like with the abovementioned hens, these cows often suffer from calcium depletion (more being taken out than their diet can put back in). and, their high energy diets (so as to get more milk produced) can cause serious metabolic disorders

newborn calfs are separated from their mothers, the females to be raised to be dairy cows like their mothers, the males to be raise for beef or crated to be raised for veal

the cia uses the following tactics (many used in abu ghraib):

• forced nudity and sexual situations (intended to violate muslim moral codes)
• use of unmuzzled dogs to threaten prisoners
• exposure to extremes of hot and cold
• sleep deprivation
• use of stress positions (binding in contorted or painful stances for long periods, or forced standing in one place)
• water boarding (tying the prisoner to a board and either dunking him in water or suffocating him with a soaking wet cloth, repeatedly to the point of near-drowning)

four young men died in california youth authority prisons last year. publicized reports had guards isolating young people in 6' by 9' cement cells for months at a time, abusing kids with chemical weapons and failing to provide basic levels of educational, medical and mental health care. a videotape of guards beating two youths made national news

yet, still we make war, we torture, and we shove generation after generation of animals into the factory process of the meat industry, generation after generation of humans into prisons or into armies. the catholic church pays millions to settle child abuse cases, our new attorney general promotes torture as a reasonable course of action

and, at gobbler's nob this morning, punxsutawney phil saw his shadow--or was pulled out of his fake stump, held up for the crowd to ooh and ahh and his pronouncement was made regardless of his involvement--so 6 more weeks of winter... but how many more weeks, months or years of abuse, imprisonment and violence do we get?

of course, who cares? we've got valentine's day coming up, then the oscars, st patrick's day, easter, and the occasions keep coming... and, no one bothers to fix anything or acknowledge anything bad for any moment long enough to distract them from picking out new cell phones or drooling over the new suv behemoth or fretting over what's going on over in the oc or on csi or law & order or desperate housewives

and, today we get the state of the union, bush's attempt to justify all the shit he's going to put us through rather than an honest appraisal of the union or her state

the good news

militiamen killed 16 people and kidnapped at least 34 girls last week in the congo

a un report has concluded that no ?genocide? was committed in sudan?s darfur region, where tens of thousands of civilians have died in the past two years, and an estimated 1.8 million have been displaced, not to mention more than 70,000 dead from hunger and disease. but, there?s no ?genocide? so it?s ok

meanwhile, in rioting in khartoum, sudan, there were, depending on the information source, 25 killed, 196 injured, 23 killed, 100 injured or 14 killed, 16 injured (those low numbers coming from the governor, as one might expect)

a 10 year old palestinian girl was shot and killed monday inside a united nations school in a southern gaza strip refugee camp, hit in the head by israeli tank fire, apparently

one of the suicide bombers on iraqi election day was a child with down?s syndrome, reportedly

the nepalese king has disbanded his government and tropps have surrounded the home of the prime minister, but it's not a "coup" surely

rebels fired homemade rockets on a military post in colombia tuesday, killing at least 14 soldiers and wounding about 25

and, michael jackson's molestation trial makes headlines, or you could skip past that and read about eva longoria's love life or, oh my god, orlando bloom and kate bosworth splitting... if you cared that they were together in the first place, that is

and, in other news, did you know that, according to mariam fam of the ap, sunday's election in iraq "occurred without catastrophic rebel attacks"? i guess 44 dead doesn't count as catastrophic, unless of course you happen to be a family member of one of those 44, but some of them will probably become disgruntled and hold us, or the authority in iraq, responsible for the violence, and they will soon be counted with the insurgents and then they won't matter at all, until they are dead and we chalk them up on our scoreboard--we're still winning, by the way, regardless of our lack of success; you go by strict numbers and there's been 1400+ dead us soldiers, a few thousand, i believe at last count, injured, and what's the latest count on iraqi dead? oh wait, there isn't one, at least no good one, cause the highest estimates put the dead at tens of thousands and we wouldn't dare admit to any accuracy there, so we throw out much lower estimates... and i don't even care to go find what our current estimates are cause we all have got to know they won't be accurate and will likely not even be trying to be

as much as i want to be inside the culture we have, to fix it from inside, or at least do my small part in fixing it--and who knows if i've even made a dent yet?--the idea of running away to some rural place far far from all of this shit is increasingly appealing from day to day. if only there were some appropriate place outside the system that wasn't antarctica...

i'll end today's rant with this note from iraq: monday, at the camp bucca prison facility, during a search for contraband, detainees (read: iraqis we've caged because we are gods and it's our right) got violent, throwing rocks and using weapons fashioned out of objects from their cells. as would be expected and damn well required from the good soldiers of the united states, we opened fire. i mean, how dare the caged animals try to get out. how dare they think they have some inalienable right to freedom.

only four were killed. but, is that good news? or is it more likely that most americans think that isn't enough?

monday: a return to life
so, sunnis are to iraq election as us disgruntled gen x nonvoters are to the us election...

or something. monday again and i don't know quite what point i want to make today

iraq had its election, some 8 million people voted, apparently, and the big noshows were "insurgent" sunnis, doing just we wanted. as one iraqi (48 year old history teacher qais youssif) was quoted by the ap, "the so called elections were held in the way that america and the occupation forces wanted. they want to marginalize the role of the sunnis. they and the media talk about the sunnis as a minority. I do not think they are a minority." minority or not, though, they didn't bother to participate in the new system which they didn't approve anyway. and, so, they'll keep fighting, and we'll keep fighting back and this election won't mean much cause there will still be a war going on, and no seems to actually want to stop that except by killing every member of the opposition. the american way of war, the american way of life: kill them all and you don't have to solve the problem

to get some perespective on election day, you should know there were nine suicide attacks, most near polling sites, 44 killed. and two us servicemen were also killed... fighting the sunni... which brings up an interesting question: how does a country have a democratically fair election while one segment of its population is busy being killed? wouldn't it have made more sense for our soldiers to honor the day with a ceasefire?

well, the answer is yes, it would have made more sense, except it would be entirely unamerican. where our authority can influence the election, it would do so, just like in our own election, with the eligibility challengers and whatnot. we can't have the "enemy" taking part in his country's election, now, can we?

in other news, a local detention facility has set aside a wing for military veterans. that bears some sort of repeating. a local detention facility (ie, part of our prison system) has already several prisoners who are (or expects to have a lot who are) military veterans, enough that they want to house them together, albeit because they believe the camaraderie will help them turn their lives around. nice goal aside, does no one care that our military veterans tend so much toward crime that we would have to do this sort of thing? and, anyway, don't we have military barracks in which to train these folks between times we set them loose on the enemy?

anyway, in personal news, had a good weekend. already got taxes done. and my birthday was on saturday. aside from the requisite cake, there was the viewing of all three lord of the rings films (my gift from my wife) in their extended versions inside a day, some nice gifts, the cake bible (already tried a cooked sugar cage thing from this), a couple lego sets, an architecture book, and with some birthday cash some wine glasses, wine and some kitchen supplies, and a good night of television last night with american dreams, carnivale and the finale of huff. and, today i get started on reediting the novel and screenplay versions of beginning

and, only a few days to the state of the union. everyone jump for joy

death isn't always brad pitt
yesterday in highland falls, ny, a father was charged with the murder of his 7 year old daughter, found stabbed to death in the restroom of her school

wednesday morning, just a few miles from where i live, a suicidal man left his car on train tracks, causing two trains to crash, 11 to be killed, 200 injured, then slashed at his wrists with scissors as he watched the aftermath. he was arrested after being rushed to the hospital and, because of "special circumstances" might face the death penalty

a sudanese bombing of a village in darfur wednesday killed or wounded 100

even as expatriot voting began, at least 10 iraqis and 2 us soldiers were killed (in relation to the war, that is) friday in iraq. since wednesday, at least 54 iraqis and 9 americans have been killed in "insurgent" attacks, and a helicopter crash killed 30 us marines

early this morning in new york city, a 28 year old actress/playwright was shot and killed confronting an armed robber

yesterday in peoria, il, a man confessed to killing eight women

in china, dozens of people were detained or beaten (one man beaten so badly his left eye looked to be coming out of its socket) for trying to mark the death of former communist leader zhao ziyang

this week a white farmer and two of his black employees went on trial in south africa for beating, tying up and throwing to lions (which ate him) another black employee

and, yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the liberation of auschwitz where 1.5 million were killed during the second world war

this is our world in a nutshell...

well, no, i neglected to mention environmental issues (like, for example, the bush administration approving drilling on desert grasslands on the otero mesa in new mexico, despite pleas to protect the area from energy exploration), ongoing genocide (like in the abovementioned darfur), and the statistics on just how many people are raped, beaten or murdered all around the world each day (more than 50,000 violent deaths a year in america alone)... aren't any numbers at all too many?

we live in a world in which abuse and death is commonplace. our troops humiliate and torture prisoners, and we barely care... hell, we're more likely to complain to the fcc that the photos made it on the air than to complain to the government or the military that the acts occurred in the first place. we're afraid to watch real violence or related imagery, lest we have to face it, really face it and acknowledge it. we like our violence to be pretty and well choreographed, for our movie star heros to be the clearcut good guys and the villains to get what's coming to them, with explosions and balletic kicks and punches a nifty bonus

somewhere along the line, in america anyway, we mistook the right to bear arms for the need to bear arms. like we mistook the right to cut down trees to make paper or lumber for building, or the right to kill animals and eat them to survive for the notion that we need to cut down all the trees and set up assembly lines to slaughter all the animals. we're okay with violence and death and environmental ruin as long as it's nicely packaged and we don't have to see any of it in gruesome detail

of course, rice was sworn in as secretary of state and gonzales will be attorney general soon. who doesn't want to kill someone?

too many christians waiting on the hollywood ending
last june, jeffrey lucey, a us soldier recently returned from iraq, killed himself, hung himself in the cellar of his parents' house with a hose. "the dog tags of two iraqi prisoners that he said he was forced to shoot unarmed, lay on his bed." those dog tags, he'd brought home with him, had worn them after being ordered to shoot them. his therapist told his father "he never wore those as trophies. he wore them as a symbol of honor to those men."

now, does this get big news coverage? no. gotta go to democracy now to read the interview with his parents. ran a search, and apparently a chicago tribune article made brief mention of his suicide, but without much background

"at the close of 2003, u.s. commanders put the number of insurgents [in iraq] at 5,000. earlier this month, gen. mohammed abdullah shahwani, the director of the iraqi intelligence service, said there are 200,000 insurgents, including at least 40,000 hard-core fighters. the rest, he said, are part-time fighters and supporters who provide food, shelter, funds and intelligence."

200,000 insurgents

keep in mind, us troops in iraq this month, according to the brookings institution's iraq index is only 150,000. sure, iraqi security forces are being trained, but aren't they just the group caught in the middle? the key here is we're outnumbered and unwanted... and, still we torture and shoot unarmed iraqis, traumatizing some of our own in the process

we create vicious animals or tramua victims of our own men. what happens when the war actually ends, when the iraq vets start trying to slip back into american society? people kept saying last summer that we needed to stop bringing up vietnam, it's been thirty years, let's leave that subject alone. but, clearly, no one learned anything from any of it, so maybe we should bring it up more, not less. maybe if john kerry had stopped playing the part of the high class massachusetts liberal he is now and embraced the antiwar, atrocity-admitting liberal he was a few decades ago, he could have had some impact, even if he still lost the damn election

we all know war is hell. at least, we pretend we know that. we say we don't need to see the dead bodies, don't need to watch the destruction on a personal level to know that war is hell. but, if we don't watch all the horror of it, if we don't particpate more directly (that is, tracking the details, the deaths, the injuries, the violence, rather than just checking brief news reports on whether we've won yet) then how will we be prepared to deal with the demons that come home with our troops?

of course, how many of us believe we're living in the "end times" and these troops won't necessarily ever be coming home, and even if they do, christ will show up and make it all better, a kiss on each wound and all the pain is gone?

too many, i'd say

too many christians waiting on the hollywood ending

"what is this--miami beach?"
bush wants iraqi voters to defy terrorists and risk their lives to go vote for the guy we already picked to win the election

condi rice will be confirmed as secretary of state, no matter who cares

two boys (9 and 10) in florida were taken from school in handcuffs after drawing pictures of themselves killing one of their classmates. police said it constituted a "written threat to kill or harm another person."

republican senator wayne allard out of colorado expects the gop leaders to call for a vote on a gay marriage ban (that is, the big amendment to the constitution) in the next year or two

but, of course the big, horrifying news, is that lexington, north carolina intends to use a damn potbellied pig for groundhog day. what kind of piece of shit policy is that? and, who do these lexington folks think they are, anyway, trying to steal the thunder from punxsutawney phil, especially because of a "heritage of barbecue"?

that's right. i picked the groundhog controversy over all the rest as the big item of the day. forget about senators trying to tell people that love each other they can't marry--not like we can separate the religious (read: god-ordered) custom from the legal corporation of two people, lest we have to allow three people to get married if they like down the line, cause how dare consenting adults try to live together--or that one of bush's biggest cheerleaders is getting an even more prominent cabinet position, nevermind how badly she pulled off the last one. forget about boys being arrested for drawing (of course, there are still comic book artists on trial or in jail for creating pornography or ultra violent comics, not to mention that one ordered never to draw again). forget about the national deficit rising even as bush demands another $80 billion for war costs (as the death toll rises and the fixed election looms). and, don't even bother thinking about whether or not we might be starting a war in iran by summer or fall at the latest (by bombing the government so the citizens will take it upon themselves to revolt and welcome us with hugs and garlands of flowers, just like their iraqi neighbors did). and, don't bother thinking about deforestation or overly large suvs devouring our gas, soldiers murdering in our names, abortion clinics being bombed, drug addicts being thrown in jail while corporations that rape the natural world get nothing but rewards (monetary anyway... it makes one want to believe in karma). let's all worry about whether or not paris hilton needs to be writing a book and how will the new season of the simple life be, whether street smarts will win out over book smarts on the apprentice, will claire have given birth while she was missing on lost, will jack bauer get to save the world again on 24, will joey ever be as good as friends once was, and will that pig 'lil bit' predict the same weather punxsutawney phil will?

maybe bill murray can repeat next wednesday over and over and over again (again) until the wars end and the forests grow back and the real world matters more than the real world.

---

fun endnote: the spellcheck thought punxsutawney was me misspelling punctuating. that would be some seriously bad spelling, methinks

a moment of silence (or not)

so, a new revolutionary era begins, or so some cnn type commentators would have us believe. bush was downright messianic in suggested we should rid the world of tyranny... except, hasn't that supposedly been the goal of all of humanity since the birth of our modern culture that breeds those horrible tyrants? so, it's a powerful, revolutionary message, to suggest evil exists and we should go kill it?

the only amazing thing in bush's speech was that he barely bothered with the big "terrorist" word, instead going for (or against, rather) "tyranny"

the "war on terror" (a concept and not really anything against which someone can make war) is melting into something even broader and scarier. if only we could actually use the might and riches of the united states to stop the tyrannical acts across the globe (without being tyrannical about it, ourselves, of course), if we could do that fairly and broadly, unilaterally... if we could actually be the police of the world, maybe it would come to something good... well, as good as one might expect from our modern culture, anyway. except, no one can actually expect us to be able to do any of that. we will go where there is money to be made

we don't care about "terrorists" or tyrants. well, that says it wrong. the people of the united states might care about "terrorists" or tyrants--they might also care about the streets smarts vs book smarts apprentice battle, but that won't be changing the world anytime soon, will it?--but the united states as an entity unto itself does not care about those who might do us harm except to mow them over as we head into the pastures of green (money, that is), the fields of gold (oil, that is)

that being said, i would like to officially change my view on suvs at this time. i say, now, that we all get the biggest, baddest suvs we can, the h2, the excursion, the escalade, the avalanche, the behemoth (oh wait, i think i made up that last one), and we waste as much gas as we can, just guzzle and guzzle and guzzle away. let's get the world's oil supply to dwindle at an even more alarming rate. let's just burn through it all as fast as we possibly can. hell, let's start running our appliances on it. let's stop running power plants on coal and run those on oil as well. let's make it our goal to rid the world of all oil or oil related materials by, say, 2010

then, maybe we can get the fuck on with living, without the shadow of "terrorists" or the "war on terror" and someone will have to get us a damn alternative energy source already or we'll have to start thinning the herd (or rather, it will thin itself out naturally... and you thought i was suggesting some sort of genocide, didn't you?) so we can live comfortably without the expense of other lives (human lives)

or, we could keep stepping all over foreigners, killing near-indiscriminately because we want control over all the money and fuel and damn the consequences

all hail emperor bush

8:54am pst : what the fuck is this girl singing? announcer fella (trent lott, i guess) called it the american anthem. i expected the star-spangled banner. i guess i'm at fault here

so far, there's been parading and announcing and cheney swearing in and lots of hoopla

8:56 : bush sworn in. gun salute. lovely.

supposedly his speech has been clocked at 17 minutes. that's about 16 too long for me, but i'm gonna try to watch it anyway, just cause i'm a masochist

9:02 : the first real groan, with that line about everyone in the world having equal rights cause they bear the image of the maker

9:03 : i grab the dictionary to doublecheck the definition of tyranny, since our goal is to get rid of it by force and all

9:05 : "freedom is eternally right" so why does god have rules?

9:06 : "america's belief in human dignity" like that in chomping down on bull testicles on fear factor

9:07 : i swear a soldier in the audience just rolled his eyes at the permanent tyranny/permanent slavery line

9:07 : "when you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you" or on you, if that's the way it has to be

9:08 : "rulers of outlaw regimes" - technically, bush isn't one of those anymore, is he? the lucky bastard

9:09 : "freedom's enemies" - didn't he just explain that every mind goes toward freedom? so, who are these enemies then?

9:11 : so, he's talking about the dead soldiers and it occurred to me: with all the money spent on the celebration today, could they have afforded to invite the families of the 1300 + dead soldiers to come represent their fallen family members? not that they'd want that visual a symbol of all that death, of course

9:13 : "an ownership society" - isn't that the problem? that we're all about owning everything and believing the world belongs to us?

9:15 : cool, didn't know ennoble was a word. dictionary confirmed, though, he wasn't just making up that one

9:18 : he's just rambling now, soemthing about the ebb and flow of history, the author of liberty, and something

9:19 : the liberty bell meant something when it rang?, does he really want to reference that bell as a symbol here? i mean, considering that it's been broken for years

and, he's done, and he's got that shit-eating grin going on, and i'm done for now

i'd rather let the kids watch a few cartoons than listen to anymore of this, though i'm sure i'll check in again later

ALL HAIL OUR HOLY EMPEROR BUSH (and check out that halo):

"keep contributing to the tsunami disaster"

that title comes from leonardo dicaprio, from sunday's golden globes. obviously, he meant that we should keep contributing to the relief effort, but poor wording is poor wording. so, i'm going to assume that dicaprio loves disaster and wants more of it--he did, afterall, star in the most successful disaster movie yet. we must assume a fetishistic connection there: leo loves disaster and death just like mel gibson loves torture (see the mad max trilogy, braveheart and, obviously, the passion of the christ)

of course, leo isn't the only one talking about the tsunami. it would seem all the celebrities, big or small, are getting involved. hell, there's already been a network telethon. but, i'd like to point out a few statements from some government folks

first, there's condi rice, the devil on bush's shoulder (not to imply that there isn't a devil on the other shoulder, as well). at her confirmation hearing tuesday, she said "the tsunami was a wonderful opportunity to show not just the us government, but the heart of the american people. and i think it has paid great dividends for us." isn't the kind of attitude we try to save for private government meetings, not the televised ones? sure, it makes us look good to be all helpful, but aren't we supposed to at least pretend we're doing it out of the goodness of our hearts and the righteousness of the action? should be openly helping people to try to repair our worldy image of late? or, should we be helping people because those people need help and we've taken it upon ourselves as the most powerful and rich nation on the planet to act like a real big brother (and not that literary referenced one), supportive and understanding?

so, let's turn to colin powell. "i hope that as a result of our efforts, as a result of our helicopter pilots being seen by the citizens of indonesia helping them, that value system of ours will be reinforced," he said. he might have a point if, say, we'd postponed killing muslims at the same time we went off to save some from the destruction? but, as long as we continue shooting and exploding the so-called insurgents and terrorists in iraq, not to mention the numerous innocent bystanders, can we really try to win favor with the world by helping some other folks a few thousand miles farther east? isn't all just so obviously a PR campaign if we are so selective about it? if we really cared to help people, wouldn't we be helping the innocents in iraq as well? hell, wouldn't we have offered $350 million on the first chance, rather than the $15 million and $35 million we offered instead to the tsunami relief efforts?

if you're kicking a guy while he's down, is it really much of a gesture if you help his brother up at the same time?

and, if we think the world is so bad off, the starving, the poor, all those third world folks we try not to see on those commercials that plead for donations, just pennies a day and all that jazz, shouldn't we have already been donating money to help them, even before nature threw out a big fuck you to tens of thousands of coastal dwellers?

what's the point in being great and powerful if everybody beneath us hates us? what's the point in being great and powerful if all the lowly peons and plebes are going to die from before we can exploit them to make us some nikes?

it's not real until we see it on tv
Now Playing: green day - american idiot

a little caffeine and chocolate and some medicine and i think i'm up for a blog entry, in theory. that is, i'm not feeling too great today, but after an extended weekend, i really want to be productive today anyway

thing is, just like last january, oddly enough, the world is boring. war goes on, no significant changes, no chance of a real ending anytime soon. bush gets reinnaugurated this week, and despite the talk of how way too much money is being spent on the celebration and the protestors look to suck, i'm not sure i fell like being bothered by any of it. no one is about to do anything drastic or even entertaining. it is in our cultural makeup that we will sit idly by and let the government do whatever it wants, an odd cultural twist considering this nation was built on the backs of revolutionaries and folks running from religious persecution...

we white folks need to take a cue from the blacks or the jews. if once we were persecuted, we should keep playing the victim and live our lives as if those in power are the enemy... except, the ones who were peresecuted before are now in power and the slaves and concentration camp folks still aren't getting much of it (the power, i mean)

but, it is in our cultural makeup to play ourselves as victims, isn't it, even as we contend that we are on top of the world, omnipotent and arrogant and american. we're the greatest country on the planet. but, terrorists want us dead so let's all cower...

*sigh*

not like i don't jump on that bandwagon each time i sit down to write something here. oh, woe is me, poor persecuted middle class white guy with every opportunity in the world. i got to go to a great college, so i dropped out. i had a great office job thing going, with opportunity to take on more responsibility and more hours and make a career (if you will) of it, but i quit and went back to some temp work and then nothing, trading the selling of my time for a happier existence with my wife and kids

except the world went on as it had before, indifferent to whether or not my life was better when i wasn't selling it hour by hour, doing work that served no obvious purpose. the world went on before, no matter how much i made a go at being a writer (whether in novel form, comic form or here in these political/social/cultural essays/blog entries). the war on terror followed closely on network television's war on originality and hollywood's war on depth and all that seems to be coming of any of it (the wars and rumors of wars, that is) is more of the same, one child of mother culture ruling the rest at the expense of a soul (not that i believe in that sort of thing)

i can be happy in this place, this apartment, with my kids and my wife and my books and my cds and my movies and tv and drawings and writings and i can separate my life from the world... but, what happens when the world decides i'm too loud (too outspoken, anyway)? or will it even hear me? it's not like my blog had a huge audience. it's not like my revolution is coming and everyone is just dying to get in line beside and behind me. we don't want a revolution. we just want more of the same, our country getting richer as the world gets poorer, our entertainment getting shallower as the shark infested waters of the third world get deeper, explosions on the evening news and in our saturday morning cartoons, the destruction of the world just another commodity to be bought and sold and watched between espisodes of the apprentice and without a trace and trading spouses, trading spaces, law & order and csi and... we can turn to the matrix or lost for philosophical commentary. we don't have to think about the real world as long as we can boil it down into hour long fictional blocks or even just edited down segments for reality television

there is no reality anymore. that's the way of it. as long as we can make a show about it, it isn't real enough for it to really take up our time. as long as we can put embedded reporters into the thick of things and the digital footage looks hardly more real than the latest first person shooter, why should any of us take any of it seriously? why should we care except if it doesn't bother to entertain us? then, we can change the channel to something that will and maybe send a letter to the fcc