FASTER, P.T.! Were P.T. Barnum, the celebrated circus and carnival tycoon, be saying "there's a sucker born every minute!" today he would find his estimate of gullible persons waiting eagerly to be fooled to be far short of his "wild"guess-timate made years ago.
He could, perhaps, discard use of the allusion to the hour hand on his watch and use the minute hand with sixty seconds as a better guide line in deciding how many numskulls are born in any time today.
The most evident sign of such ineptness on the mental state of the American public is the nature of the television programs watched; the nature of the news events followed so avidly in print and on the tube thinking all that is there to be important, and then, too, the warped values we tend to retain and accept as being laudable to form the basis of our everything living.
The farce being dragged before a world-wide audience today features a fading Michael Jackson in a loosely connected series of events which seems to have accomplished only one thing thus far - that being a modicum of success in making our judicial system appear to be a sham operated by a weak set of fumbling functionaries.
Jackson, by means of carefully orchestrated, council-guided actions has disrupted the court proceedings, caused costly delays and made tangently appended points to seem important.The court responds with some distant thunder, no lightning and no downfall of any kind.
Then, on the very day his accuse is to divulge this evidence against him, Jackson, the defendant, turns up an hour late, dressed in his pajamas with a coat thrown over his haggard , paid-racked body, as he steps gingerly into the courtroom area.
TV made full use of every foot of coverage showing that entry as runs and re-runs,. It threatened to become overdone, but out of far-off Atlanta, Georgia a new story of the murder of a Superior Court Judge and several deputies which served well as a replacement for the Jackson run on.
. No doubt, the networks would have had to revert to re runs of the Martha Stewart house arrest, an interruption for which Martha should be most appreciative. The Georgia story took much of the shimmer from the Jackson performance. His show had pretty well took over for the early part off the day and viewers found out what the accuser said on the late night summaries before Jay Leno took over. Georgia's murder story and twenty-seven hour man hunt which followed held off Jackson re-runs and this will give people time forget how forlorn the dancing star has become and to ponder what they mean by saying he is now on a "suicide watch" night and day. That's the angle to be worked tomorrow, perhaps, or is that too logical for the Jackson story?
We are witnessing just one of the many factor dictating the demise at home TV as we know it today. The Dan Rather departure is indicative of a move away from bulk handling of the news by designated pundits. Watch for "channels" to go next and "on order TV" will follow soon.
A. L. M. March 12, 2005 [c543wds]
