Disconnect

Yeah, I'm still here, and things are still busy. But I read this post by Glenn Greenwald just a few minutes ago, all about how the eavesdropping on American citizens that was taking place in the years after September 11 was so egregious that only when all the top people in the justice department threatened to resign did President Bush concede to make changes to the program (which remained illegal).

And then I went to CNN.com and looked at the headlines:

The latest top stories were a story from Gaza, a story about Prince Harry not going to Iraq, and then we have a woman lucky to survive an accident, a health update on Bo Didley, an update on Paris Hilton, an update on American Idol, a story about how CNN did not interview Paul Wolfowitz, one American politician calling another a 'Breck Girl', some kids who almost got hit by lightning, and last but not least, a story about how having women in bikinis can help sales. These are the top stories at 11pm pacific on May 16, 2007, according to CNN.

I'm not saying anything new here, or anything that you don't know already, assuming you aren't entirely clueless, of course. But sometimes even something you already know can become shocking again, simply through sheer magnitude.

Every now and then I take a step back and I wonder to what extent things have always been this way (generally speaking, not just the current disconnect between news and 'news' media) - it's hard to really get any perspective when you haven't lived through too many years. Is our society in decline the way it often appears to be or is that just a personal lens I see things through. After all, nothing is more cliché than the person who misses the good old days or says things aren't like they used to be. A topic for another day, perhaps.