(Being) Meat is Murder

Did you see this dress?

As a once and future vegetarian, I understand the whole meat-is-murder argument. In fact, given the recent factory farming crises in the beef, poultry and egg industries, I'd hope every sentient being would have an idea by now that, for omnivores, local and compassionate is the way to go for such things (eggs? try the free-range Jones farm on 5&20 in Bloomfield; Beef and chicken? Seven Bridges Farm on the Lima side of Factory Hollow is the BEST for us locals). But I don't want to talk about animal meat. I want to talk about human meat.

Lady Gaga's meat outfit at the MTV music awards was brilliant, I thought. I don't care for her music, but loved her absurd extreme.

In the exploitative, hyper-sexualized culture that MTV et al promote, every bit of push-em-up silicone, exposed lipo-ed thigh, and botulism-infected lip turns our screens into  butcher shop windows, so why not call it out quite literally? We hang our celebutantes on meat hooks and send them around the airwaves. We leer, stuff wads of cash in their g-strings, then throw them to the flash-popping, flesh-catching wolves. We sit back and shake our heads in judgment when the drinking-drug-sextape-insertscandaldujourhere inevitably breaks, complete with breathless back story, online video and falling-out-of-the-limo-curbside 8x10s.

Lindsay, Britney and Paris are just a few in the ever-lengthening line making their way across the butcher block. Who will sate our appetite tomorrow? It seems to me Miley and Katy Perry are well on their way there. As some of our young ladies and gentlemen emulate these flavor-of-the-month attitudes and actions, all the more reason to embrace Lady Gaga's outfit as cautionary:

BEING MEAT IS MURDER.

My undergrad degree is in broadcast communication.

I remember well my very first day of my very first broadcasting class, and the very first lesson from my very first communication professor. She shared the story of a small local newsroom in the southern US (if memory serves). A call came in one day from a man who planned to go to the town square, soak himself in gasoline and set himself on fire in protest (of what, I can't recall). 

A reporter and videographer went to the scene at the appointed time, and there was the man with his gas can. As the cameras rolled, he set himself on fire. Horrible.

The question was called to all of us media-wannabe neophytes: Were the reporter and videographer culpable in the mentally unstable protester's death? Had he set himself on fire because they were there?

I watched video yesterday of a Gainesville newspaper reporter being kicked off the property of that stupid church where they're threatening to burn the Koran (yes, I know the name of the stupid church and its stupid pastor, but they've gained more than enough publicity already). The intent of the video was to show how unfairly the church was treating one reporter because his paper had published an unflattering story, but I was taken with how many satellite trucks and eager observers were present. That first lesson from class at Brockport State came to mind.

Remove 24-7 HD coverage from the picture and one less bloated, self-important jackass can send shock waves around the world. Remove 24-7 HD coverage from the picture and the terrorists lose most of their sting. 

It is far past time for someone to report on the media's ever-expanding role in creating the news they then report.Depth and nuance are lost, but more and more air time is filled, nonetheless. Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. Lately when I turn on the news, I feel like a rubber-necker at a car wreck. PRURIENT is the word that comes to mind (marked by or arousing an immoderate or unwholesome interest or desire). 

I have this fantasy that all of the reporters and satellite trucks will leave Gainesville before Saturday night, and that idiot pastor will find himself alone with the crickets when he steps out on the church lawn to build his shameful fire. (I have another fantasy that he'll start a grass fire that burns his church to the ground, but I try not to dwell on that one.)

There is no solution -- probably not even a cogent point -- to all of this. But all of those people who send in videos of family members getting whacked in the gonads, hoping to win $100,000? I think several of them are now news directors at cable news channels around the world.

The difference between that pastor and his namesake pictured above? One of them is perversely doing whatever it takes to gain attention. The other one is an excellent comedic actor.

Terry Jones as Brian's Mother

THIS Terry Jones is the one we should be listening to...