Yahoo.com

Okay...today, on Yahoo.com, the featured stories are 1) The Seattle Sonics will be moving out of Seattle. 2) Reality Show nonsense, 3) "Why [Christina] Aquilera is happy to be a non-partying mom" and last, in the bottom right corner of the Featured Box, 4) "Rampant job loss to continue into 2009."

4 to 1, or 3 to 2, depending how you see it. The Seattle move will affect the lives of many people, economically speaking. And then Aguilera? Reality shows?

Shoved into the box for secondary news: information on Alzheimer's, MASSIVE FIRES RAGING IN CALIFORNIA, a missing girl's body found, freed hostages, and information on the Justice Dept. considering the use of racial profiling. This Justice Dept. article can be found here. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080702/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/terror_profiling)

I just reloaded the page, while typing this, and the reality show article was replaced on the Featured Box by an article about baseball.

Many of the arguments against The Media come from The Media. "The media, the media, the media."
"The media is biased."
"The media fails to cover important information."
"The media talks too much about celebrities."
Indeed, they focus on crap. They focus on crap because we, the viewers, watch this crap. A certain food is only considered food because most people eat it.

And Britney Spears is news because certain people make it a point to watch her. They watch ET. They buy pointless crap about Angelina Jolie's 1,000 children. Good for Angelina. So why do you care . Sure, it's entertaining. And my walking up to you physically and berating you and your magazine renders me a nut. This essay is best left for a semi-formal atmosphere like this.

And so we view crap. We view crap that has very little influence on our lives. As sweet as Jolie may be as a person, you could do better things than

memorize her childrens' names. And the more you view this crap of the magazine stand, of the TV, of the Internet, the more the media craps this crap. It's a vicious cycle.

They give. You take. They give more. You take more. And so on. Forever.

People blame the media for this surplus of crap. "The media should put out more useful information." They do. People simply fail the read it. See, the

media are slave to their sponsors. They are slave to McDonalds, and everyone else who buys ad-space. the media is a business. Money is needed to run a

business. The media needs money. They get money from advertizers. The more viewers a media outlet commands, the higher prices they command in ad-space.

Ad-space, ad-space, ad-space. $$$$$$$$$$$$$ It's your money, too. And so the more you tune into TMZ, and ET, the more money these shows stand to receive.

So they put out more useless information. Clogging the arteries of the international bank of knowledge. Outlets that put out useful information, well, tend to fail or do just a little worse.

Maybe Rupert Murdoch and the Evil Conglomerates of the Word really do want us stupid so as to stay rich. But guess what? Only so they can stay rich. If we turn our attention to some other TV show, advertisers will put their money with that show. And even if that fails, so what? The media can't force us to do anything. They can't force us to read what we read. They can't force us to believe what we believe. They only take up a visible, but small corner of the world.

If you want to live, live your damn life.

We believe what we believe, and read what we read, and write what we write, and do what we do. Our emotions are involuntary, and we guide those emotions toward whichever actions we choose.

I wrote this essay. Fuck Rupert Murdoch.

People have no excuse for ignorance, for laziness. "It's the only thing they give us." Other information is available. In the library. In the Internet.

Hint, hint. If you want to sit on your ass, it's your fault.

If I want to sit on my ass, it's my fault.

If they want to sit on their asses, it's their fault.

It's our fault the world sucks. Cut out this 'us vs. them' crap. 'They' do what we would do in their situation. If we stood what they stood to gain and lose, we'd do the same.

I mean, we're so stupid.

I'm stupid. Have you ever heard me speak? You're better off reading my writing. In my head, I compose these glorious essays about human nature, philosophy, psychology. And the vocal expression of these ideas trips up. Word weaves out over word. It's clumsy. And yet I continue to speak. I speak even sometimes when I damn well know the other person is hardly interested, because I need the practice. Because I like the practice, and the practice makes me better.

And you can practice too. And you can read, too. And you can erase your limitations as much as possible, too. And you can get over your shit, too.

This essay sounds like a coke-induced advertisement for Zoloft. Speaking of which, be happy. I say this so as not to be mistaken for Ayn Rand.

Be happy. Always happy. Life is short. Too damn short. SO be happy. If you stub your toe, be happy. If you get the runs, be happy. If you get into a car accident, be happy. Try it. It works.