Monday, September 05, 2005

Camille Meets Katrina

Camille Paglia, who comes across in interviews as a lesbain classics professor crossed with Auntie Mame, points out that the hurricane showed the incompetence of both the administration and the news media. I tend to agree with a lot of complaints about the news media, which is why I get my news from the wires and skip the TV. I also tend to find that people who hate CNN love FOX News and those who love CNN hate FOX News. Frankly, they're both "slanted" towards people who are too dumb to live. I've watched both and can't honestly see much difference.

I think the problem isn't really what direction they're slanted. It's that they all reduce every world event to a commercial for the event. Paglia is right in bashing the news media in general. Also, she's pretty amusing, as usual. Not sure I get this line though:
"What is highly surprising now is the disintegration of the administration's mask of competence and confidence, as New Orleans sinks day by day into squalor and savagery, a shocking panorama of unrelieved human suffering."

Highly surprising?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

<<"What is highly surprising now is the disintegration of the administration's mask of competence and confidence,>>
I think she is referring to the fact that the tame poodles in the US media have pretty much given Bush a 'free pass' on so many issues, but that Katrina is just too overwhelming, and causing some media to express what they truly feel.
I have been reading some Washington Post reports, which are all about the spin that Bush is trying to put on the news about Katrina, and then reading UK Guardian articles, which actually have news.
I find it bemusing that the Washington Post can report straight out that Bush is actively trying to put a spin on the news, and yet somehow, the spin itself becomes the news, not the actual events that Bush is trying to spin.

Rufus said...

It is strange, isn't it? It's like the reporters who actually are liberal have felt that they needed to compensate for that by giving him a free pass, but now they're finally sick of it all.