Jim Rome is BURNING

I think Jim Rome is hilarious, but not because of anything he does intentionally. I remember a quote from Noam Chomsky that Americans are not stupid, just easily distracted. With the facts any red-blooded male can rattle off about baseball, football, or even pro wrestling, how easily could this mental energy be converted towards following international politics or philosophy?

Perhaps Chomsky was wrong. I'm starting to think he was. I think people don't want to think about things like that, and so let themselves be distracted. This isn't a country with a collective case of ADD - it's a country in the stages of a deep depression. This is why pop-culture spewing wanks like Jonah Goldberg annoy me so much - being up to date in who is dick-deep in Paula Abdul or some ten year old boy at the Neverland Ranch is more important than who is dying in Sudan or Congo, or Iraq. I wonder how Bush or Cheney would hold up to a group of adversarial youths in a town-meeting session, like Blair was in Britain. We'd never do that, because it's unpleasant to see someone of substance go through that if it's not done in the hatchet-job medium of news journalism.

Watch the news and then watch Sportscenter. Is there really that much difference between them? The gravity of the subject, the importance of the subject matter?

Rome is hilarious because of his hot-shit attitude and self-congratulating smirk after calling out Mark McGwire for steroid use. He's so proud of his work, he's a latter day Upton Sinclair. What's the difference between him and his gravitas and that of Sean Hannity or any other news media schlub? What's the point in having ANY of them around unless they serve the role of distraction?

I guess it's moot, many people complain about the shallowness of the media. I needed something to do, though.