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The news is a big entertainment apparatus; advertising must continue to vie for our attention in an increasingly loud world....this was only a matter of time.
What do I make of it? It reminds me I cannot take the news seriously, which I haven't for years anyway.
The news teaches us two things: 1) What issues, events, people, etc., shock us the most, 2) We will never grow bored of these things.
We can interpret much more from the news than these two items, but that is another issue--the analysis/deconstruction of the news. What makes the news interesting to me is that is speaks volumes about our society, and this advertising, now that it has creeped in, is a fascinating little bit of hyperreality.
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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
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