All the News …

Two observations on news and the national consciousness (and conscience).

First, there’s been a huge amount of coverage of late regarding child abductions (and usually, though joyfully not always, murder).

Margie observed (and I’m not sure where she got the stat, so if anyone has anything that confirms or denies it, let me know) that in reality, the number of child abductions of this sort have not substantially increased. It’s just the media’s coverage has increased, either reflecting public interest or generating it or, to be charitable, both.

We saw this last summer, too. Only then it was shark attacks — and, as we now know, the frenzy of shark attacks wasn’t anything, statistically, to worry about.

In 1999, about 203,900 children in the United States were abducted by family members seeking to interfere with a parent’s custodial rights, according to the guidebook produced by the Justice Department and several other federal agencies.
At least 98 percent of those children were returned home; none of them were killed, the guidebook said.
In the same year, about 58,200 children in America were abducted by non-family members, often in connection with another crime. According to the guidebook, 115 of those were the most dangerous types of abductions _ those perpetrated by strangers where the child was kept overnight, held for ransom or killed.
Forty percent of those children were killed.

Nonetheless, we now have to have a National Conference to try and allay the fears of the populace about this “wave of horrible violence.” . Even though the number of kids kidnapped and killed by Homicidal Maniacs is the merest trifle of the number killed by, say, kids not being buckled up in the car.

On a vaguely related note, we’re rapidly heading toward the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. And I am, already, tired of hearing about what sounds like it will be an orgy of Memorials, Commemorative Events, Grave Recollections, and, yes, a National Day of Media Mourning. Hell, even advertisers are trying to decide whether they can (or should) run TV ads that day, during what promises to be 24 hours of Profound Programming.

Yes, 9-11 was terrible. Yes, we must never forget. Yes, it’s an appropriate day to pause and reflect.

But let’s get real, folks. It’s been a year. Donning the sackcloth and ashes ignores everything that’s happened since — and what may happen soon.

I would feel better if I didn’t really have the sense that it’s the Media that’s generating a lot of this, with an eye toward showing that they are, indeed, Possessors of Gravitas and so forth. I can even hear Dan Rather mouthing Weighty Profundities on This Somber Occasion. The horror …

(Even worse, I can see the Purposefully Planned Celebrations of the Indominatable American Spirit, complete with a scattering of rose petals and a release of doves. Yeesh.)

My own plans for 11 September? I plan on popping a good action flick into the DVD player and having a nice, mindless, escapeful Wednesday night. Bond, maybe. Or Roughnecks. Or True Lies. I don’t need to be reminded of the Profound Sadness of September 11th, or of the Determined Resolve of These United States.

Certainly not by the Media.