Accustomed To Assassination

 

What struck me as most curious about the shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner was that, once I knew that no serious harm was done by the shooter, and that he had been apprehended, I felt no pressing curiosity about what had taken place.  I'd learn what there was to learn soon enough.

I watched some of the news coverage after the shooting had taken place and saw guests of the event milling about, drinking and talking together, some of them even smiling.  Nobody seemed particularly concerned.  The talking heads described what they saw, and then they and the various pundits and politicians summoned to appear in front of the cameras began to solemnly abhor violence.  I confess I returned to watching what I was watching before learning of the shooting.

This is not to say I wasn't appalled by the shooting.  But in a disturbing way it wasn't interesting.

I had seen it all before, of course.  Eventually, politicians of one party began to blame those of the other party for the act; something I had also seen before.  I assume there will be talk of stricter gun control, which will be ignored.  Something else seen before.  We can accurately predict what will be done or said in each case.  I missed nothing by ignoring the immediate tumult.  

We await the next shooting.  Perhaps it's more accurate to say we expect it. We accept the violence, and are resigned to it as something regrettable but inevitable.  It's just a part of life in our Great Union.

The fact that the shooting was in this case politically motivated makes it less common than the other mass shootings which seem to take place, now, on a daily basis. But we can't say it's unique or unusual on that basis.  We have a history of assassinating political figures, or trying to do so.  Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley were killed.   William Seward was shot.  Teddy Roosevelt was shot while speaking in Milwaukee.  Huey Long and the Kennedys were killed.  Truman, Ford and Reagan survived the attacks made on them.  The list goes on.

Politically motivated shootings or attacks are themselves used for political purposes.  It's no longer possible to be surprised by attacks on politicians who so often attack each other.  We're jaded observers of the efforts for and against our jaded politicians, violent or otherwise.  The outrage they express doesn't even seem genuine anymore.

What have we become when violence and death are considered dull, unless they can be used for personal or political benefit?

Let's Kill all the Pundits

Shakespeare's line "Let's kill all the lawyers" has attained a certain popularity, due to the fact that lawyers are, surprisingly, unpopular.  So many things and people are these days, of course, so perhaps this is a suggestion applicable to others as well.  

In fact, Shakespeare was writing of a plan to establish an autocracy.  It was recommended that the lawyers be killed as a first step of the plan.  Perhaps lawyers were actually being praised, then, as protectors of the freedom and rights of the people.  If so, I doubt whether that conception is very widespread now, though the recommendation still is.

I propose that this sentiment is more properly applicable to political pundits.  They infest the media.  They're omnipresent, and I can't understand why.

If news consists of the reporting of events of importance, it no longer exists, if indeed it ever did.  It would be refreshing if that actually took place.  More significantly, it would be useful without being merely the expression of opinions and speculation.  Imagine if what was reported in the media were merely events and actions.  For example, it would be noted that so-and-so gave a speech somewhere, at some time.  The content of the speech wouldn't be described.  In most cases, the content may be inferred in any event, as political speeches are largely repetitive.  The speech itself wouldn't be broadcasted.  What joy!

We would no longer be subjected to the ponderings and speculations of those deemed experts.  Several of them are now produced whenever anything happens.  Questions are asked of them by whomever it is that's supposedly reporting the news, and they respond.  Sometimes those selected disagree, but in most cases they agree.  We're told they know what they're talking about.

For me, the inherent fault of this manner of reporting the news is that for the most part, the news itself isn't reported, or is at best merely noted as fodder for an extended discussion.  Instead, what some person or other thinks about the news and their interpretation of it and its consequences is reported, and in detail.

My difficulty is that I don't particularly care what that person thinks.  They're entitled to their opinions, of course, but if I wanted to know them, I'd seek them out in some fashion.  That they're foisted on me by media lackeys is something I resent.

Then one must recognize that these experts may be stupid, ignorant, in someone's pocket or prejudiced.  They may not in fact be experts. In simple words, their opinions and statements may be wrong.  Why, then, are they presented as news?  Why dignify them?  Why give them influence?  Why foster the belief that what they say is factual...is in fact news?

It may be too late now to stop the ascension of punditry.  It must have become a kind of trade or industry by now.  People no doubt hold themselves out as experts willing to squawk obligingly and winningly on the various "news" networks and make a good deal of money for doing so.  It's no longer the news that's important; it's what a select group of people think about the news.

 

The Modern Eclipse

It wasn't just any eclipse, was it?  I've never witnessed a total eclipse of the Sun, I admit.  So, however enthralling that experience may be, it hasn't been within my experience.  But I was alive when the last totality was visible in these United States, and even know of someone who witnessed it and spoke to him about it.  I saw media accounts of it as well.  But my recollection is that the accounts of that eclipse were not nearly as bewilderingly exclamatory and rhapsodic as the accounts I've seen of the one that took place yesterday.

Media accounts I saw addressed, live, such things as the reactions of those who gathered at a particular location in which totality could be observed to be married during the eclipse; the reactions of various animals in a zoo to the eclipse; the remarks made by people witnessing the eclipse when questioned; and even claims made by employes of Fox News that immigrants were donning black clothes and taking advantage of totality to illegally cross into our Great Republic unobserved, somehow, presumably during the approximately four minutes the totality lasted.  All who spoke agreed the eclipse was wonderful.  There can be no question of that.  But as much as this was emphasized, and repeated--and thus the reference to "rhapsodic" accounts--somehow, the descriptions made were uninspiring in the end.

The media representative assigned to witness the impact of the eclipse on people getting married during the eclipse unsurprisingly declared that doing so was a unique expression of love, and this declaration was confirmed repeatedly by those getting married.  Love was mentioned more than once during that broadcast.

At the zoo, we were told that birds were being noisy, a giraffe was being trailed by a zebra, an ostrich may or may not have laid an egg in the run up to totality, and flamingos and penguins began grouping together as they apparently do at night.  The ominous, and frankly silly, statements regarding immigrants dressing in black to take advantage of the totality on Fox News were made in a clip I saw.  Whether it occurred to them that the same could be done every night, and it was unnecessary and indeed foolish for anyone to await a solar eclipse and a four minute period of near darkness for this purpose, I don't know.

My guess is that most would know that temperature will drop during a total eclipse, at least if they thought about it, in addition to it growing dark, so remarks to that effect didn't strike me as newsworthy.  But I don't doubt that the eclipse itself was newsworthy, as a total eclipse isn't something visible regularly, nor do I doubt that witnessing one personally can be a remarkable and even spiritual experience.  What I do doubt, however, is that successive broadcasts taking place along the path of the eclipse, during which the same amazement was expressed, the same questions were asked,  the same responses were made and the same observations noted, were needed or interesting.  In fact, I think this rendered the eclipse mundane.

We're told that in ancient times in all cultures eclipses were wonderful, magical, supernatural, awe-inspiring and fear-inspiring events which profoundly influenced people and events.  Most of us no longer believe in magic, and know that eclipses are not supernatural.  But wonder and awe still seem appropriate reactions to a full solar eclipse.

Some remarks were made regarding the eclipse which indicated that certain people appreciated the event as reflecting the wondrous nature of the universe,  its sublime workings, its vastness and our small place in it although we are nonetheless part of it.  I think that's what would strike me if I had the good fortune to be present; that together with the acknowledgement that our disputes, conflicts and wars are petty, and our conceit boundless.

But in the main it was clear that coverage was the essential purpose of the media accounts of the event; coverage of everything. What took place, everywhere, over and over again; what was said over and over again; and what the feelings were of those who were witnesses.  The purpose was to describe the same event which took place over and over in different locations and to do so in much the same way in each case.

There's nothing wrong about doing this, but there's nothing significant about it either.  Nothing positive is achieved.  Curiously, this extensive and repetitive exposure diminishes an eclipse.  Our technology allows each of us to have a say about everything that takes place in the world, to express our feelings about them, and plainly most of us think it's important for us to speak and be heard.  Our society caters to this, as does the media.  Unfortunately, though, in most cases what we feel, and think, and say isn't remarkable or insightful or interesting.  

It seems that our media, if not our society or culture, is premised on the belief that what every person thinks or believes or says has equal significance, important and value, and should be known.  Our technology certainly encourages each of us to express our thoughts and feelings by ourselves, without the assistance of anyone else.  I'm uncertain, though, that this premise is useful, and suspect it deadens our appreciation of important things in life.