Weiner, Wiener

The national media, having nothing else to report, has for days now focused the country's attention on Anthony Weiner's wiener. While I do think that Weiner was an idiot of the first magnitude for what he did, and for lying about a supposed 'hacker', this is a bit much.

We have huge problems with our deficit, with the perpetual gridlock in Congress, with the massive fraud perpetuated by Wall Street, the corporate takeover of government, two and a half wars, etc, etc. I could go on and on. 

But that's not my job.

That is the job of the media. The fourth estate. Guaranteed by the Constitution to protect the citizenry against the malfeasance of the ruling classes. Unfortunately, they are now as much of the problem as the solution. The type of reporting that goes on in most of the media used to be the purview of supermarket tabloids. Thanks to unbounded, and largely unregulated capitalism, most of the media is, if not owned by, at least influenced by the very corporations that they need to be reporting on.

When Con Agra or Monsanto buys a vote in Congress, if it is reported at all, the reporting is a watered down version of the facts. The Nightly News is going to be careful not to bite the hand that feeds them when they depend for their existence on ads for Cheerios and Toaster Strudel.

I don't know the answer to this one. I'd like to say break up the mega-corporations to reduce their influence, but I know that's unrealistic. I wish I could encourage others to seek out alternate news sources, like the BBC and Al Jazeera, or get on the internet and check out the news aggregators like Huff-Po, Salon, yes even Drudge or National Review. But that won't happen either. Even those that do check out unconventional news sources tend to go to the one that fits their wordview and exclude those that don't.