ETCETERA

NIGHTCAP

Inquiring Minds Want To Know

By Harry Kirsbaum

ust a few questions...
If Westboro Baptist Church leader
Fred Phelps says that the Oklahoma
tornado is God's divine retribution to
NBA player Jason Collins coming out as
gay, should it garner the same re-
sponse as Pat Robertson claiming that
Hurricane Katrina was God's divine ret-
ribution for the sins of New Orleans? As
in ... "Why is this even being reported?
I wonder how long cable news an-
chors will remain in Oklahoma report-
ing on the tornado disaster in Moore

J

before they chase the next bright shiny
object.
I wonder if the people living on
Boylston Street in Boston are happy
that they no longer have to share their
street with Anderson Cooper and the
other cable news anchors as they get
back to some type of normalcy.
School shootings trump natural
disasters in the United States, which
trump high-profile trials — and war
trumps them all, unless they've been
going on for more than 10 weeks
because it costs too much to cover, and
there's not enough stuff blowing up to
make for good TV.
In the past month, we've seen heavy
coverage of the Jodi Arias trial, followed
by the Boston Marathon bombings,
then to the West, Texas, fertilizer explo-
sion, then to Cleveland to cover the
rescue of three imprisoned women,
and then back to Jodi with a quick
stop at OJ's trial in Vegas, and now this
tornado.
And who will throw the telethon to

raise money for Oklahoma tornado
victims — country music stars or rock
stars?
And how long will the media wait
before they look into how much of the
funds raised by said telethon actually
make it to the victims — two months
or three?
Who will interview a scientist to link
climate change to the tornado season
first, CNN or MSNBC? How many nano-
seconds will it take for Sean Hannity to
try to link that scientist to Saul Alinsky,
Rev. Wright and Mao?
I hate to sound cynical and angry, but
it's hard not to be. I follow the news for
a living, and sometimes it just gets to
be a bit too much.
I fixate on the inane. Is Anderson
Cooper wearing the same CNN jacket in
Cleveland that he wore in Boston and
New Jersey during Hurricane Sandy, or
are they different weights?
Are anchors Nancy Grace and
Ashleigh Banfield interviewing each
other about the Jodi Arias decision
via split-screen video satellite hookup,
even though they appear to be stand-
ing in the same parking lot?
Why didn't the A-list anchors travel
to West, Texas, but they're all over

Oklahoma?
Should the Fox News network
change its slogan to"We Report, We
Decide"?
And why doesn't Barnum & Bailey
cover Washington?
Why shouldn't members of Congress
replace their limos with clown cars as
a mode of transportation? Would the
promise of balloon animals help attract
them back to the Beltway to do some
legislating, instead of taking 239 days
off this year to raise money in their
districts to get re-elected?
Should the HBO's series The News-
room be required viewing for all news
media? Is Will McAvoy the most trusted
man in fake news?
On a personal note, with the war
in Afghanistan "winding down," my
nephew, Spc. Eric Kirsbaum, touched
down at Bagram Air Force Base on May
20 on a 10-month tour of duty as part
of the 715th MP Company. He's not
allowed to talk about his job, other than
he's working at the airport. With all the
other"important" news being covered
by the media, we can't forget that there
are still approximately 68,000 American
troops in Afghanistan. I wish him a safe
tour.

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