Interrupted By..... You're fired!

There was a very small story I happened to catch in the news at the beginning of this week that begs follow-up. I didn't see it captured in any major news story. In fact, I only recognized it in one of those small streaming lines at the bottom of the screen that displays stories about puppy dogs that save children from burning houses and how well the Japanese poppy seed market is doing. It read " CBS Producer fired after breaking into programming during CSI- NY". Ok. And let's not brush over the fact that the interruption was to announce the passing of Yasir Arafat. So, here we have CBS firing a man due to supposed procedural errors because the airing of the interruption occurred at an untimely moment during the final five minutes of CSI- NY. And this was all done without senior executive approval. The producer should have placed the breaking news in the same streaming line that features the fucking Japanese and the miracle pups. My god. I understand fans across the country were outraged and this is what prompted CBS to take the drastic action of giving the producer the chop. They utlimately re-aired the episode of CSI the next night (and ABC announced how the show ended so people would watch their Friday night line-ups instead... God bless competition). Without sounding too pessimistic here, I have to say that we truly are the most unintelligent, uninformed and disrespectful race walking the earth right now. Here we are- a generation of people so embroiled in the weekly lives of a fucking television show where no matter how severe the scenario, I promise you we'll have a fucking answer within 50 minutes- that we're fit to be tied over the fact that a MAJOR news article of world politics has interrupted our zombie like state. Is that too pessimistic? Now, granted, this is not a pro-Arafat piece. I firmly believe the man was a terrorist who carried no other assumptions than violence- he proved this when he was minutes away from creating a Palestinian breakthrough on the lawn of the White House in 1998 and then turned away, content to recycle methods of bloodshed and become a hermit. But this is a story that, ultimately, can affect history. It posits the Middle East on a precipice of uncertainty. Who will take control of the PLO now? Whatever progress or regress is made there can most definitely effect our lives here in the United States. What if someone as equally dangerous and maniacal steps out of the Hammas blue and becomes the next leader? Will Arafat's deputy (who is certainly leaning more towards U.S. diplomacy than many Arabs desire from their political leaders) stand in? All of this is important to us... and we get upset because we don't get to find out which officer breaks out the ultraviolet light and identifies the killer's cum hidden behind the bed of the dead girl? I literally became nauseous when I found this story. I'm not sure what's worse.. the stupidity and utter blindness presented by the American people or the fact that no one else finds it supremely unsettling. But hey, we can now sleep safely because the killer on the fictional television set has been captured.