this just in: your newspaper is retarded
i went to a restaurant down the street the other night to grab some food for my husband and me, and happened across an article in a local paper while i was waiting for my food. the article was on page A15 in the World section-- you know, the part of the paper where they put all the most important news from around the world? that is, the space allotted in each edition to the news that the editors find most newsworthy from around the entire globe? you'll understand my stressing of this point when i tell you the title of the article: "Guantanamo prisoners captivated by Harry Potter." i swear on all that is holy this is true. the subtitle reads: "Detainees avid readers of the series, eagerly awaiting the next book."
WHAT THE FUCK?! seriously, what the fuck? this is so WTF what the fuck that there are, in fact, two levels of WTF-ness about it. probably more, if i probed a little deeper.
WTF level #1: there's a library at the guantanamo prison?! who woulda thunk it? i'd have figured these guys were too busy having their basic human rights violated to spend anytime reading for leisure. huh!
WTF level #2: okay, let's role play for a minute here. you're a large newspaper in a major metropolis, with readers numbering into the thousands, reporters stationed all over the world, and enough ad space to buy a small planet. like most major newspapers of your variety, you dedicate the front page to breaking news, and the remaining fourteen or so interior pages to major news from your country and others around the world. however, while you are a large paper-- the largest and most popular in your city-- you cannot afford to give limitless space to the day's news. it's simply not financially feasible. therefore, you must be very selective about the news you choose to cover. from the hundreds of nations on the planet, you must sift through stories of war, famine, genocide, political scandal, global economics, social unrest, disease, corruption at all levels of government, etc etc etc, and from these innumerable stories, it is up to you to pick the 15 or so most important ones to print in your paper. you are, after all, in a unique position to bring news to the people of your city. so why the fuck-- and i'm willing to wager i'm not the only one asking this-- WHY THE FUCK are you wasting your print space on Harry Potter's popularity amongst guantanamo prisoners?! seriously, if you have an answer for me, i'd love to hear it, because i honestly cannot wrap my brain around such a complete and utter waste of my time, and the time of every single other reader of your paper. if you're going to write anything on guantanamo, how about dedicating a few lines to the overwhelming and abhorrent human rights violations taking place there?
oh, wait a minute~ it looks like you did. it's tucked in there somewhere, one just has to look for it. the article has a total of eleven paragraphs, in which we are told, among other things, that religion tops the reading favorites, but the Potter series is a close second; that the prison librarian's name is Maggie; that the prison has already pre-ordered the next book in the series; that surfing and fishing were the main reading interests of David Hicks, an Australian who pleaded guilty earlier this week to a charge of supporting terrorism; and that Hicks is, indeed, an 'avid reader', according to Maggie (who declined to give her last name). "He almost has his own library. He has quite a few items that people from Australia send him..." and so on-- and then, there it is! so small i almost overlooked it. "Former detainees have alleged they suffered abuse and torture [at guantanamo], charges the US denies."
oh really? the prisoners at guantanamo are being tortured? and the US is denying it? i had no idea. gee, thanks Vancouver Sun. your paper's been really fucking illuminating.
... sigh. all right. i'm sorry. i've been ranting. but it wasn't my intent. it really wasn't. you don't need that, i know. you just wanted to relax, do a little bit of blog reading before bed. you were thinking to yourself how much you just wanted to read something pleasant, something light-hearted. you were thinking, 'man! the world is a real shithole right now. what i wouldn't give to get my mind off things, to forget about the war in iraq, bush robbing me blind of my civil liberties, the fucked-up GOP screwing my kids' education in the ass.' but then you came here and had to read this? it's terrible, i know. it's like torture, is what it is. it's like somebody pulling all your fingernails out one by one, or having dogs bark in your face so you can't sleep, or having buckets of ice cold water thrown at you, just for the heck of it. and you didn't want to read that kind of thing. you wanted to read something easy, something fun, something with no strings attached.
i hear Harry Potter's pretty good.
WHAT THE FUCK?! seriously, what the fuck? this is so WTF what the fuck that there are, in fact, two levels of WTF-ness about it. probably more, if i probed a little deeper.
WTF level #1: there's a library at the guantanamo prison?! who woulda thunk it? i'd have figured these guys were too busy having their basic human rights violated to spend anytime reading for leisure. huh!
WTF level #2: okay, let's role play for a minute here. you're a large newspaper in a major metropolis, with readers numbering into the thousands, reporters stationed all over the world, and enough ad space to buy a small planet. like most major newspapers of your variety, you dedicate the front page to breaking news, and the remaining fourteen or so interior pages to major news from your country and others around the world. however, while you are a large paper-- the largest and most popular in your city-- you cannot afford to give limitless space to the day's news. it's simply not financially feasible. therefore, you must be very selective about the news you choose to cover. from the hundreds of nations on the planet, you must sift through stories of war, famine, genocide, political scandal, global economics, social unrest, disease, corruption at all levels of government, etc etc etc, and from these innumerable stories, it is up to you to pick the 15 or so most important ones to print in your paper. you are, after all, in a unique position to bring news to the people of your city. so why the fuck-- and i'm willing to wager i'm not the only one asking this-- WHY THE FUCK are you wasting your print space on Harry Potter's popularity amongst guantanamo prisoners?! seriously, if you have an answer for me, i'd love to hear it, because i honestly cannot wrap my brain around such a complete and utter waste of my time, and the time of every single other reader of your paper. if you're going to write anything on guantanamo, how about dedicating a few lines to the overwhelming and abhorrent human rights violations taking place there?
oh, wait a minute~ it looks like you did. it's tucked in there somewhere, one just has to look for it. the article has a total of eleven paragraphs, in which we are told, among other things, that religion tops the reading favorites, but the Potter series is a close second; that the prison librarian's name is Maggie; that the prison has already pre-ordered the next book in the series; that surfing and fishing were the main reading interests of David Hicks, an Australian who pleaded guilty earlier this week to a charge of supporting terrorism; and that Hicks is, indeed, an 'avid reader', according to Maggie (who declined to give her last name). "He almost has his own library. He has quite a few items that people from Australia send him..." and so on-- and then, there it is! so small i almost overlooked it. "Former detainees have alleged they suffered abuse and torture [at guantanamo], charges the US denies."
oh really? the prisoners at guantanamo are being tortured? and the US is denying it? i had no idea. gee, thanks Vancouver Sun. your paper's been really fucking illuminating.
... sigh. all right. i'm sorry. i've been ranting. but it wasn't my intent. it really wasn't. you don't need that, i know. you just wanted to relax, do a little bit of blog reading before bed. you were thinking to yourself how much you just wanted to read something pleasant, something light-hearted. you were thinking, 'man! the world is a real shithole right now. what i wouldn't give to get my mind off things, to forget about the war in iraq, bush robbing me blind of my civil liberties, the fucked-up GOP screwing my kids' education in the ass.' but then you came here and had to read this? it's terrible, i know. it's like torture, is what it is. it's like somebody pulling all your fingernails out one by one, or having dogs bark in your face so you can't sleep, or having buckets of ice cold water thrown at you, just for the heck of it. and you didn't want to read that kind of thing. you wanted to read something easy, something fun, something with no strings attached.
i hear Harry Potter's pretty good.
posted by zipper @ 4:32 AM
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