Take ten minutes out of your busy schedule and watch this heads-up, good-to-know news item.
When you're done, come back for the rest of the story... (sorry, Paul).
As important as the above news is to your health, and that of those you care about, the real news here is the utter failure of our castrated and dysfunctional MSM to bring their immense resources to bear effectively even when, on those increasingly rare occasions, they decide to shine their gigawatt Klieg lights in all those dark corners, aka, their job.
I had never heard of the show this clip came from, CBS News' Washington Unplugged. While it's true that "unplugging" (canceling all but my broadband service) my own TV 3 days after New Year's Day has left me less in touch with the quotidian inanities of the boobtube, I've still managed to stay informed on the news and news sources.
It's also true that I have, for some time, dismissed, out of hand, the gravitas quotient of
any MSM news source, save
60 Minutes and one or two others. But, still.... So I pulled up the CBS News home page.
http://www.cbsnews.com/
Spying a 60 Minutes piece on H1N1, I clicked through thinking there might be a link to the WU clip I'd just watched. No such luck. In fact, the focus of this piece seemed somewhat at odds with the Brasscheck clip.
After a weird 15-second ad with a robotic arm fistbump, I settled in for the 2.13 clip. Seems this one's focus was the long lines and public skepticism as to the safety of the product. Imagine, not taking your government's word. What next, I wondered.
The most common sense on offer here was that of a mom/nurse, Michelle O'Brien, who was not convinced the "numbers' (the same ones guessed at in the Brasscheck clip, and the same CDC guy trying to stampede the crowd to get the shot) added up to a viral holocaust. She then said she would "revisit" her decision if the situation appeared more dire down the road; clear; level-headed; those kids are in good hands.
Back to the Home page I go, ready to unleash my secret weapon: the Search box! Typing in "washington unplugged", my finger quivered over the Enter key in rapt anticipation. Plunging down, I now had quite a few answers - 507 scattered over 51 pages, to be exact.
The first entry solved one puzzle. CBS had only started this program up 28 days after I severed relations with its faux-news division parent. Too, it turned out to be a web-only service; just one of the slew of reasons we need to get to fully-subsidized, basic universal Internet access. Today, if you have the money, you get better news, or, at least , have a chance to. There's a lot wrong with that picture when you think about it. The Internet is a public service, not a profit center. But, I digress (oh, you noticed).
So, nearing the finish line, I now pulled up the Home page for Washington Unplugged, or at least tried to. After a minute or two, it was found lurking under the Other button at the end of the topics row:
Turns out, it's a daily 15-minute webcast. I bookmarked it. From the above odyssey, by now you have figured out that the quest for real news is not for sissies and you'd better pack a lunch.
My twists and turns above reveal, to the fullest, how screwed up the news presenting process has become. Maybe it's all those analog execs trying to adapt (poorly) to an onrushing digital universe. Our history as humans tells us that any new technology only works at its max when the ones who use it become the ones who manage it. That I should have to spend more than a minute or so in order to find this site that, on the surface, is providing some quality info of public benefit (any broadcaster's trust) says a lot about how far we have yet to travel to ease access to expository news.
CBS is a for-profit outfit, Democracy Now is not; it is free for the asking. You may find this video - and many others on this subject via site-search - in seconds. It supports the initial video's conclusions; arguably from a more authoritative source.
Shannon Brownlee: Does the Vaccine Matter?
Nigel Watson freethinker 727.493.1990 freesense@Gmail.com
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." – Krishnamurti
-A good pun is its own reword.
