Vampire Whores on Parade

Sooooooo, I'm multi-tasking this AM, reading a book on robotics, eating a tangerine and halfway watching the Today Show while deciding whether to go to the range and shoot or clean my aquarium. This "when we come back from commercial" pops up on today: "There is hope for the people affected by the Christmas tsunami. When we come back, the authors of Tragedy to Triumph — Lessons of Recovery and Hope..."

So I put down the robotics text and listened.

Let me put this as simply as I can...I'm sure the authors, Robin Finegan and Krista Flannigan, are perfectly nice people in their everyday lives. But their material is UTTER BULLSHIT!

The people affected by the tsunami are facing a panoply of horrors, from the loss of loved ones and homes to diseases right out of our nightmares — cholera, typhoid, dyssentary. They don't NEED to know how to build a roadside memorial or talk to their children about "grief counseling" — they need to friggin' survive!

Grief counseling is one of the many tools the media uses to "get the widow on the set," as Don Henley sang in Dirty Laundry. It allows the media to get at least an extra month of coverage out of a Columbine or any tragedy. And the people who pander to the voracious maw of the media are exactly that, people who pander to the basest desires/longings of any human being, the urge to stand next to grief to mentally assure yourself that it didn't happen to you.

Calling these people whores is far too kind.