Numbero Uno

I recently attended a speech by Howard Zinn here at Busboys and Poets in DC, and by attend I mean I showed up way late and had to watch the speech from the sidewalk in the freezing cold - thank god for mounted outdoor speakers. Howard said something that night that I was fortunate enough to hear over the chattering of my own teeth. I won't attempt to quote Mr. Zinn directly but here is the gist of it; How do we Americans know what's happening in the world? By watching the news of course - a no brainer. Only problem is, according to Howard and common wisdom, news is a major network affair (ABC,CBS,FOX,NBC) and their main concern is not to inform us but to satisfy the advertisers that keep those networks up and running. Which is to say, there's more interest in that 'Britney throws a backstage tantrum' story than for instance - is Pakistan really the most dangerous country in the world right now? We're more upset with twenty-something olympic athletes hitting the bong than we are with politicians who don't pay their taxes or corporate executives who lost all our money and were then given more of our money to try and fix the economy they ruined by losing all our money. I didn't so much need Howard to tell me these things as to get me all worked up about it, so here I am.
What you will be getting from this blog is my own personal take on the news. While this could be viewed as a personal vanity project, my hope is in finding others who have the same thoughts, hopes and fears, A place where we can discuss what the news is covering, how it is covering it, and why some stories get all the love while others fall through the cracks - and most importantly why do I all of a sudden like Michael Phelps so much more these days? I want to tackle not just the serious but also the silly, the absolutely important and the absolutely absurd. My goal is to try and post once a week. This is my first blogging attempt, so who knows, in a month or two this could easily turn out to be the 'What's Jessica Simpson Eating Now?' blog... So please -Stay Tuned!!