The Jackson Trial Is Over

My local news -- that is LOCAL as in Washington DC metropolitan area -- has spent the past hour going on and on about the verdict. They showed some dingbat releasing a dove for each count that resulted in an acquittal. They are making it local by interviewing people in traffic and asking them how they feel about Michael damn Jackson. And I continue to be stunned that what are supposedly news outlets are proud of being the National Enquirer. And the news reader are all puzzled about how an acquittal is possible. They are speculating about this jury, as they speculate with the juries of Robert Blake and O.J.Simpson, are celebrity happy. How, when everybody had declared him guilty without a trial could a jury possibly acquit?

Maybe they just didn't have the damn evidence.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't give a big rat's ass about the Jackson trial. And yes, I'm glad the damn thing is over. But inspite of the fact that the Jackson trial is over but there will be another one and another one and another one just around the corner. It seems that Marx was wrong. Pseudo-crime TV is now the opiate of the masses.

So we will have another in the never-ending parade of white women who are lost or raped or who run away from home or who are shot. And of men, preferably black men who are suspect or hunted down or guilty until proven innocent. And of fetuses called "unborn children" named things like Christian who die before birth and are roundly mourned. And of "Amber" alerts. And we will call it news.

We don't really want to bother people with the details of economics or the Downing Street memo or the jobless rate or of people who are dying because they don't have access to health care or any other big problems that affect their daily lives. Those things would be all complicated and messy. Instead let's have pretty people read pointless information about crime stories and call it news. There is hardly a need for the first Amendment when there is virtually no press.

It all makes me so discouraged.