In The News

Here are the five most popular stories according to reader clicks for one day as listed by a popular national news magazine's internet site.

Camilla, wife of Prince Charles, breaks her...
Cold War warrior mysteriously snubbed at...
Woods two behind Masters leaders Poulter,...
Stevens' successor would likely come from...
Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon accuses husband of...

Do you see any trend there? The first is about the wife of a figurehead "Prince" who broke her leg. I am trying to figure out why that is newsworthy at all. The second is a reference, not to the substance of a meeting about heads of state from the U.S. and Russia about a landmark nuclear arms agreement just signed, but that the former President of the Czech Republic was excluded from attendance because Russia is mad at him for saying that Russia is a "menacing presence" in the world now. I guess we need to know the Russian leaders are mad?

Headline three is about a golfer who was caught cheating on his wife and is making a comeback. It talks more about his cheating on his wife than about cheating on the golf course. For some reason readers want to know his gossip more than his golf score. The fourth is more gossip about possible successor to the retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, solely wild speculation that is better left unsaid.

And finally, number five is about yet another 'movie star has cheating husband and reacts in shock' story. But I think that in these times I am only shocked it is only if f those stars or spouses don't cheat.

The news media surely has to accept some blame for writing and promoting mindless gossip and trivia so prominently, but the readers bear the burden, given that the mediums print what the public demands and wants. And now they more and more demand the inane and ignore the substantive. "The World is Rotting Because of Our Rotting Brains" would be a more appropriate lead story in newspapers today, but I am not sure the public would believe it or even bother reading it as it might take away time from their reality TV, cell phone chat, ipod addiction, twitter and other disconnecting (from the real world) connections.

Just as we trivialize our lives with an accentuation of the amusing and degradation of the important, we even do the same when looking at the world at large. It reflects why too many people are connected to a small few and disconnected from the essential world at large. We seek solace in the non demanding trivial world and escape from the hard bitter world of reality. I wonder if our technology has bought both our souls and minds.

It is like a full cookie jar given to starving kids..fun to eat but lacking nutritional substance. After all, dumbing down the public makes controlling it much easier.