'##::::'##:::'#####:::'########: VIVA LA REVOLUCION! CERDO DEL CAPITALISTA!!
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  ##:::: ##:'##:::: ##: ##::::::: THE HELOTS OF ECSTASY PRESS RELEASE #464 !!
  #########: ##:::: ##: ######::: ZIEGO VUANTAR SHALL BE MUCH VICTORIOUS!  !!
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  ##:::: ##:. ##:: ##:: ##::::::: "Mass Media"                             !!
  ##:::: ##::. #####::: ########: by -> Reflecks                           !!
 ..:::::..::::.....::::........:: 1/27/99                                  !!
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        Baby held responsible for 7-11 robbery.

        President kidnapped from in front of grocery store.

        17 year old kid to lead country to war.

        Sensationalism, Sensationalism, Sensationalism.

        Call it yellow press, tabloid news, or pulitzer-prize winning
 material. it is the stuff the brave new world is made of.  We thrive on
 information which has nothing to do with us.  We want to know what is
 happenning to 74-year-old bingo players in Florida.  We like war.  We
 like peace.  We like death.  We like life.

        We want headlines.

        What is with this dreaded thirst for news?  The news which we get
 has absolutely nothing to do with us.  In all frankness, I am not so
 affected by brush fires in wichita or robberies in quebec that I must
 learn of it from a slew of media vendors. a common example at the moment
 of people receiving an overflow of useless information is the clinton
 thingie in washit-town.

        For one thing, far too many people have far too many soapboxes.
 Cable news, wire news, radio news (AM, FM, shortwave?), television news
 (broadcast alone).  Newspapers, magazines, tabloids (they shouldn't even
 count as magazines).  Then word of mouth.

        Back in the day, word of mouth was pretty much the only way news
 got around.  People in one country wouldn't hear of a death in another
 part of the world.  And so they were happy. Ignorance is Happiness, to
 an extent.  Sure, word wouldn't get around to australia that there was a
 polio vaccine. crocodile dundee wasn't all that great, anyways.

        But maybe it would.

        News of great importance usually manages to get to those it
 touches.

        Introducing a semi-new concept, I introduce the Worldly Bubble.

        The Worldly Bubble is defined as what we see and hear and all
 that.  When we introduce the world (woes, troubles, and wars) into our
 Worldly Bubble, we get so much to sift through that it becomes impossible
 to eat a burger without thinking of the poor ethopian boy, Ngopopo.  We,
 in turn, let ourselves be so moved by Ngopopo that we turn our Worldly
 Bubble into a mirror of the other-Worldly Bubbles.

        Famine, Hunger, Death, Civil War for Ngopopo!

        That, or we turn ourselves into apathetic mass media-hating
 mongrels.  I don't care about the kids, beat the seals, bomb the
 cambodians!  See if I care!

        And then there are the rare gems of Worldly Bubbles.  The ones who
 get off their fat Fritos-eating asses, jump on their own soapbox, and
 actually rally a crowd up. they get them so foamy at the mouth and so
 teary eyed that they raise donations for the food, for the boxes, for the
 clothes, for the plane and the pilot to fly the relief supplies across the
 world to ethiopia and feed that starving child. at least they tried.
 Maybe they succeeded.  Maybe Ngopopo turned into a civil rights leader
 in the country he was exiled in to.  Maybe he made a change for the better
 and actually changed the governments and made it better so his people
 wouldn't BE starving and wouldn't BE dying.  Maybe he did what those
 Twinkie eating lard asses did and he changed the system, not just oiled
 the squeaky gear.

        As heart warming as the story is, I made it up.  There is no
 Ngopopo (okay, now, all at once -- "awww!!!")

        My point, as deluded and self-defying as it is, is that I would
 rather see more world news and less local news in the mass-mass-media
 circuits.

        Local bradcast news < PEZ

        (Eh. but what isn't?).  Anyways. yeah.

        I'd rather eat my burger than watch the Red Shoe Diaries of a
 local politician.  Viva la thirty-nine cent Wednesdays!  Or something.

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 !! (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! HOE #464, WRITTEN BY: REFLECKS - 1/27/99 !!