"We've turned into this nation of overfed clowns, riding around in clown cars, eating clown food, watching clown shows. We've become a nation of cringing, craven fuckups."Outraged by the front page status awarded to American Idol while issues like Darfur, Iraq and the steady erosion of US Democracy go barely mentioned, Stephen Pizzo at News For Real says art has stopped imitating life and simply become a substitute for it.
- James Howard Kunstler,
Author, The Long Emergency.
From the comments at Smirky's:
At a jobsite recently I was talking with another worker about a story I'd read about some pending crisis or another (hard to keep 'em straight) when a third worker nearby said "Ya see, that's the problem with the newspeople! They write all that stuff and it gets everybody all worked up and worried!"
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I forgot to note that we effectively became a nation of clowns when we elected a clown - Ronnie Reagan of 'Bedtime for Bonzo' fame.
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Since more Americans vote for American Idol than vote in elections, why not combine entertainment and news and have politicians sing and dance on tv to get elected. Oh, they do already.
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The "Idol" winners have all come from "red" states (Taylor Hicks is from Alabama--and he does a killer Joe Cocker impersonation), presumably because the red staters actually took time out of their lives to cast more votes for something as brutally idiotic as a TV show karaoke contest. They also voted for Bush. Coincidence?
