PERSPECTIVES The Michigan Daily Monday, November 27, 1989 " Page 8 Exposing 4 D Once again, there's a movement afoot in Congress to change the na- tional anthem. At present, of course, the national anthem is the "Star- Spangled Banner," a paean to the fundamental virtues that this country was founded upon (i.e., blowing up British people). The problem with the current an- them is that it spans a range of ap- proximately 750 octaves, ranging from several notes above middle "C" well into the infrared spectra, so the average person cannot sing all the notes of the anthem without the aid of either a Vocoder or a strategically- applied C-clamp. So a group of legislators periodi- cally pushes to change the anthem to a less challengipg piece, like the Emergency Broadcast System signal, because if there's one thing that America's all about, by God, it's that any shmuck in the country should be able to do anything, even - or should I say especially - if he or she is completely untalented. In this sense, Ronald Reagan was the greatest president America ever had Nowhere is this American value more apparent than in the recent rise of "Do It Yourself News." TV sta- tions across the country have been soliciting contributions from view- ers lucky enough to videotape news events such as tornadoes or plane crashes, in some cases even offering money for footage. This practice has helped to ease the burden of over- worked TV journalists, many of whom in the past have had to have had to cancel entire fitting sessions with their tailors because they actu- ally had to go out and cover some pesky news event themselves. Well, some stations (WDIV in Detroit for one) have upped the ante lately by establishing special phone numbers for people to call in news from their own cellular car phones. Go on, folks, feel free to creep by those multi-car crashes - remem- ber, you're not gawking, you're per- forming a public service! If the trend continues, TV news anchors will need be nothing more than a sort of switchboard operator, segueing between reports from Joe and Jane America. In the spirit of in- fotainment, I'm making you privy to a screening of, not the actual thing, but a lifelike dramatization of the Do It Yourself Newscast: "Good evening, I'm Biff Incisors with tonight's news. For tonight's lead story, let's switch over to Flem Gangrene of Springfield, Missouri, with a video of the DC-10 crash there earlier today. Flem?" "OK, well, right here's my boy Jesse's softball game, which I was tapin' when the plane come down. Jesse's the one in center field there, ) ItYoi with his fingers in his mouth. They was just switchin' sides for the third inning when all these pieces of metal started fallin' on the field. "Now here I cut to where we drove out to the interstate to have us a look at the crash site. Here's me holding the gold Timex quartz job that I got off this arm I found out in the field... OK, and then here the tape goes blank, which is where one of the state troopers committed a vi- olent act of press censorship on me when I was tryin' to get a shot of Jesse posing with the severed head of one of the crash victims." "Any word on the number killed, Flem?" "God damn it, I forgot to check. I think I can get about $150 for the watch, though." "In other news tonight, let's check in with Gracie and Merv Hig- gins of International Falls, Min- nesota, with a news analysis on the recent events in Eastern Europe." "Thanks, Biff. Here's some footage we shot last summer when our church group went on a tour of Europe. Here's Gracie by the Berlin Wall, which of course the Germans have torn down now -" "Excuse me, but isn't that the Arc d'Triomphe?" "You ever been to Europe, Biff?" "Well, no, but -" "And this is the Great Tower of urself News' Wretched Ref'use by Jim Poniewozik Communism, which was torn down just last week when -" "That's the Eiffel Tower, Merv. That's in Paris." "What?" "He's right, Merv. Remember, that's the restaurant where you al- most ate a snail." "Aw, hell. Well, my point is, these people in Eastern Europe -" "France is in Western Europe." "West of what? Anyway, the point is that we think these people in Eastern or Western Europe or whatever are really just folks like you and me, although their waiters are a little rude. But that don't mean we've got to start doin' this metric system bullshit." "Thanks, folks. Now for the daily Weather Poll. We called 2,000 cellu- lar car phone owners to ask them what the weather was in their part of the country. The results indicate a 57 percent chance of partial sunshine with heavy winds, a 29 percent chance of snow, and a 14 percent chance that abortion should remain legal in cases of rape and incest. Be sure to bundle up! "Finally, we have a late-breaking report in from Edna McCheese, call- ing from her cellular phone in Provo, Utah." "Hi. Um, I don't know if this is arrors important, but I was listening to the news on the radio, and it seems someone calling from their car phone in Washington says Congress not only voted to change the na- tional anthem today, but they also changed the national motto from E pluribus unun to, um... "Well, I couldn't make out the words, but apparently, it's Latin for .A,gjacan.&o it.'" 7; Hemingway, Morrison, Rushdie, Kingston, Steinbeck, Jong, Janowitz, Dante, Garcia Marquez, Groening, Woodward Se.uss, Milton, Didion, Berra, Walker, Dick Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Jung, Hawking Sc'nembechler, Waterson, Proust, Joyce. Do any of these names mean anything to you? Call Daily Arts at 763-0379 and ask for Mark. Or stop by 420 Maynard St. l;.^Y~r "%/"/U %/"%irin !r:"i '%/ %":'L~::"^i'~i .!!:%"ifre /rS Th'eritNThB Sot ssdtdPe WasungtoneSInernatoa SeftC -fierWlStreNBeWspeet-pfie IllutedBECASoEtTII E Thep" Nes TiWORKEDS~ HRE. I SQ" ' S Nay'° 'a . 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