from Amazon
Thursday, September 09, 2010
If you burn a book, but no one was there to see it, did it really happen?
No sports herein.
If the media is not there, if the news wasn’t pre-made, then what you are left with is an event of ignorant fools gathering. If the media were to report on the event after it occurred, would they make it front-page news, or simply put it in some back page (or even ignore it altogether)?
This is a news matter that should be limited to the local town.
About 15 years ago, we had a nut in Quebec, an english nut, who wanting to fight the french takeover of Quebec, announced that he was going to Times Square, go on the soapbox, and disparage the french-government’s plans. So, what happened? There was pre-outrage by both sides. The media dutifully followed him, and, well, if you’ve ever been to Times Square, you would know that people go on their soapboxes and shout useless sh!t all the time, and are ignored by virtually all passer-bys. And that’s what happened. There was more media than people listening to him.
That’s what this fool is doing: getting onto his Times Square soapbox and shouting (or burning) obsceneties. And the national media, desperate to create, not report, news, is there to give him that platform. The news is NOT the burning, but the reactions of people who are going to see the burning that the media will broadcast.
Let the guy do what he wants to do, but just like a crying baby on his temper tantrum, or somebody throwing a lame party, simply ignore him. The baby will stop crying, and, you won’t even know that a tear was shed (or that a flame appeared).