Once again we as a people have been insulted by the media. It isn’t the first time this has happened, and certainly won’t be the last.

Here’s what I mean: Do you really think in any way that what happens to Britney’s career will effect your life? Do you imagine in your wildest dreams that Angelina and Brad adopting another disadvantaged child will cause you to lose your job, or raise your taxes? Do you care whether Sally Field used an expletive to condemn war in accepting her Emmy? If you do, I suggest you need to get out more often.

But here’s the real kicker: Does O.J. Simpson’s life alter yours in any way? I suspect the answer to all these questions is “no.”

So why must each of the news channels, particularly the so-called 24-hour “news” outlets give us O.J. ad nauseum again? I personally don’t care whether he commits a crime, unless of course it was against me or my family. In his most recent escape, it was against neither, and possibly was not a crime at all. I don’t know, because I wasn’t there, don’t have the facts, haven’t seen the evidence, and neither have you. But now we seemed doomed to relieve the 1994 murder trial, his road rage incident in Florida and every other moment of inappropriate behavior he has ever demonstrated.

Please tell me that there is a reason why hours are spent on this on national television, particularly while we have a war raging a half-world away. Aren’t there any priorities anymore? O.J.’s story deserved five minutes. He was under investigation, he was arrested, here’s the charges. More information when there is truly information, not just when we find another raw bone to gnaw on.

Do we not have an attention span greater than that of a gnat? Apparently not, or we wouldn’t give a hoot about Paris or Nicole or Britney or Lindsay and certainly not about O.J. The world will little note nor long remember any of them (sorry, Abe) but will recall our national achievements and blunders, and what we as a people have done to help, or hurt humanity.

There is nothing with even the least amount of civility about exploiting our voyeurism toward celebrities. Interesting for their given five minutes, but let’s move on. They don’t raise our taxes, put our nation in debt, or put our children at risk of death on foreign soil. We have other things to discuss that should be the focus of media reporting. Things that can and do each of those things. That’s where our focus should be.

Are we that easily distracted from things that really matter? What? O.J. called Britney to ask her out before the hotel robbery incident?

Ooohh, tell me more.

Doug Rhoades lives in Kelseyville.

{mos_sb_discuss:4}