Greatest Story ever Sold

Jessica woke up this morning looking like a pirate missing her eye patch. Her right eye is swollen, red and spewing green goo....thanks preschool!!! Needless to say with her pink eye she stayed home from school and hung out with the rest of us. I'm sure we'll all have pink eye by Friday. One thing I did today while just hanging around was watch some of the Oprah shows I have Tevo'd. One show imparticular got me thinking a bit. It was the episode with Frank Rich the author of The Greatest Story ever Sold. During the show someone posed the question wether or not people in the US are demanding that we receive the truth through our media sources. It seems as though we have become so comsumed with celebrities and materialistic bullshit, that no one really cares what story is being told regarding to the war. It's like we could careless if the reporters are feeding us dogshit, as we're not really paying attention anyways. I'll admit I too have payed more attention to the rediculousness of Hollywood. Never in High School did I pay as much attention to "who" got what boob job, or "who" was dating "who." I feel that now as an adult with two children and a husband, for some reason I am actually buying those gossip magazines. And it's not just me, it's almost all of us. For me personally, I've become numb. The nightly news is almost the same, and it's been this way for years. Another roadside bomb....another suicide bomber. It makes me sad that I even think of it this way. But week after week, when you're looking at rubble and debris left from bombs, sitting on last weeks rubble and debris, sitting on last month's rubble and debris...you become numb to it. For me, it's so easy to look at a celebrity magazine and not have to put much effort into it. Not to have to figure out politics, war, hate and destruction. What makes me sad is the lives being lost and so many times it's just a new (higher) number on the TV. I really try not to have those lives be "just another number on the news" and try to think of the families left behind.

A few times I have heard about all the wonderful things "we" are doing in Iraq. "We're" building schools, hospitals, water systems, roads and bridges. So where the hell are the pictures and stories ?? Why hasn't the media shown me this? Some people suspect that the coverage of the war is slighted by the fact that it's such a dangerous war. You're not ever really sure who is fighting who and you can't simply carry your camera around videotaping what you like. But if we can show pictures of rubble and destruction, where it is obviously very danagerous, how hard would it be to show a peaceful school being built? The whole thing is hard to wrap your mind around. I'd really like to think that we're not a nation full of assholes that really only care about purses, Hollywood and materialistic crap. Are we not asking enough of our media or are they keeping up with our demands for "just another entertainment show"?