Monday, June 03, 2002

one of the local enternewsment broadcasts last night began with "Terrorists could be targeting bridges! The Coast Guard is on alert!" and then went on to describe how the collapse of the I-40 bridge last week has shown the Terrorists how vulnerable our bridges are. is this just a local thing, or are the national news programs saying the same thing?

so, the scene would be: Mr. Terrorist is sitting on his futon, drinking a wine cooler and watching the news. just after the reports on the amazing sunglasses-wearing, tree-climbing terrier and the results of the city-wide poll to determine whether Cheese Nips really are better than Cheez-Its, the bubbly news anchor is suddenly somber during the report that a bridge has collapsed and blah blah blah. Mr. Terrorist suddenly sits upright, and shouts "That's it! We shall destroy their bridges! Without bridges, the Americans will be unable to cross rivers and gorges! The Keys will be cut off from the rest of Florida! People will be trapped on Long Island, and others will have to take the long way to get from Oakland to San Francisco! What a brilliantly diabolical plan, and I must attribute the idea to NewsChannel 5's coverage of that story!"

does it make people feel safer to think that Terrorists are that fucking stupid? the local paper's Calls to the Editor section seems to always have someone complaining that the media shouldn't report Some News because it'll give the terrorists ideas. because, you know, they'd never thought to hijack planes and crash them into buildings until that CNN report on how to do it. damn, we'd better pull Volunteers from the video store shelves right away! geez, let's not report things like this, or the Terrorists may sneak into our country to rent fog machines and turn them against us!

i also like the "What You Can Do In Case of Biological Weapon Attack!" stories. like anyone would know it was happening until too late. "My god! Look at the giant green cloud of bacteria coming our way! Quickly, everyone into your biosuits!"

come on, people! wake up! don't you realize that your kids and grandchildren are going to be laughing at you in the future? this War on Terrorism is the duck-and-cover of the 21st century. heck, some of us have been laughing at you for a while. one day, when MTV wants to show its audience how relevant and cool it is, it'll trot out clips of you buying your gas masks and four hundred gallon jugs of water and your stupid little anti-Osama bumper stickers (because, of course, by laughing at how uncool you were, MTV will be proving how cool it is). it that the legacy you want, to be an MTV joke?

and back to the topic of collapsing bridges : The Mothman Prophecies should be out on DVD tomorrow.

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