|
After what has seemed like months of rain we are finally getting a break, and none too soon. Like many people, when these periods of rain go on for an extended amount of time, I start feeling a mild form of depression that is similar to cabin fever. But the sun is shinning again and the ground is drying out. It is only a matter of time before we are all complaining about how hot it is.
Unfortunately, what has replaced those rainy day doldrums has been the recent parade of deaths that have been coming at us like a massive wave lately. Pope John Paul II, Johnnie Cochran, Prince Rainier, and Terri Schiavo are leading the latest group that are making up the majority of the news stories that are permeating the airwaves. Rain for a couple of weeks is nothing compared to viewing funerals and reports of deaths from the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed. Talk about depressing.
I believe that if they thought they could get away with it, the news stations would do what they usually do when we are experiencing a bad patch of weather, give it a name. You know like “Storm Vigil 2000” except in this case it would be “Death Watch 2005.” Just like they do when they over report bad weather, they seem to be searching for every conceivable way to draw out this current streak of bad luck for humanity.
Wednesday was particularly brutal if you wanted to get the weekly weather, entertainment, or business reports. First, we started the day off with Johnnie Cochran’s funeral complete with celebrity clients and musical guests. Why we needed to see more of this other than the requisite showing of people entering the church, and possibly a short sound bite of a tribute given by one of the speakers, is beyond me. The man was a great lawyer but given everything else going on in the world I don’t think we needed to go live to his funeral listening to multiple speakers and hear the musical tributes. I guess I should be thankful that they didn’t show all 4 hours.
Then off to Monaco where they were reporting on the passing of Prince Rainier. They could have kept this relatively short and to the point due to the fact that most people mainly know him for the fact that he married actress Grace Kelly, and for the tabloid escapades of his three children. Instead, not only did we have to hear about his death but we got to re-live the tragic deaths of Kelly and two of his son in laws. It wasn’t like the reporters were just mentioning it in passing to maybe help keep the sadness factor to a minimum. No, it was as though they were re reporting these incidents as though they had just happened trying to squeeze out every last drop of sadness available.
Next they took us to the spectacle at Vatican City, and a spectacle it has become. As of Wednesday some people were waiting in a line that was 1 million strong for as long as 24 hours, all for a chance to spend a maximum of 10 minutes looking at or saying a prayer in front of the body of Pope John Paul II. As of this writing, it was estimated that as many as 5 million people will pass through this line before they have to break for the actual funeral.
I understand that this Pope did some amazing things during his papacy and that he was widely respected by not only members of his flock but by leaders of all religions. I also have been educated as to his entire life story, repeatedly, and being a fan of history, I can appreciate all of his achievements in trying to make this a more peaceful world, so I can understand the outpouring of emotion at his passing and the amount of airtime it has been receiving, but when is enough, enough?
All of this coverage I’m sure has a lot of meaning to those of you who are Catholic, but I am not, so my interest in these proceedings definitely has a shelf life. Not only that, to be honest, I don’t know anybody who likes funerals. As a matter of fact, they are the last things on my list of things I like to do, especially when an open casket is involved. So please excuse me when I say that every time they flash a picture, whether it be during a commercial or the news broadcast itself, of the Pope lying in state it kind of creeps me out.
And then, if this was not enough coverage in their little cavalcade of death, they toss in two other stories just to cover the rest of the bases. First, there was the local tragedy of the scumbag, a registered sex offender on parole, who was getting pulled over by the police in Mission Viejo who, when the cop started to approach his car, he took off. In his alleged drunken and drugged out state he started driving west on a street with eastbound lanes and crashed head-on to an oncoming car killing both occupants. This report was also complete with all the graphic close ups of the demolished cars just in case the words didn’t paint a clear enough picture.
As the grand finale, as if one or two people dying at a time were not enough, they throw at us that 16 servicemen died when their helicopter crashed in a dust storm in Afghanistan. I felt absolutely limp and had enough by the time this last story ran and I still hadn’t got the weather yet. To be honest, at that point I no longer cared what the weather was going to be like.
I have often been told that funerals are for the living, for those left behind. I think that the news agencies should adopt this attitude when reporting the initial death as well.
The Shrub Speaks: Government should be an advocate of faith-based and community-based programs, not an impedent to faith-based programs. Government ought to be not a road block. Washington, D.C., Apr. 1, 2005
B.D.’s Response: I love this one. He’s actually using a word that doesn’t even exist! And “ought to be not”!
|
