Sunday, April 21, 2013
Current Events
I have to say that this was a really bad week to have half of the internet blocked at your workplace. As events unfolded on Monday, I was dying to pop onto Facebook to make sure that my friends in Boston were okay (they were), but social networking sites are pretty much the antichrist to internet filters. And then on Friday, after waking up and discovering that the Internet had exploded from overnight coverage of a crazy dramatic standoff that seemed to have been directed by Jerry Bruckheimer, I really wanted to watch live coverage of the standoff, but any streaming media are of course strictly verboten. And so I had to force myself to concentrate on briefing juvenile sentencing issues, when all I wanted to do was gape at nothing in particular happening on cable television with everyone else.
I did get my wish, of course, when I got home, and it was, of course, disappointing. Given all of the reporting of half-truths and outright misconceptions this week, I'm still not sure that I understand all the facts of what actually happened this week. (I think a dark-skinned Saudi Arabian set a fire at the Kennedy Library while robbing a 7-11, but that could be wrong.) And the big thing that everyone wants to understand -- the why -- is the one thing that we may perhaps never fully know. But it was kind of fun to watch anchors contradict and talk over one another as they tried to balance the various bits of non information they were receiving. Television at its finest.
I have to say that this was a really bad week to have half of the internet blocked at your workplace. As events unfolded on Monday, I was dying to pop onto Facebook to make sure that my friends in Boston were okay (they were), but social networking sites are pretty much the antichrist to internet filters. And then on Friday, after waking up and discovering that the Internet had exploded from overnight coverage of a crazy dramatic standoff that seemed to have been directed by Jerry Bruckheimer, I really wanted to watch live coverage of the standoff, but any streaming media are of course strictly verboten. And so I had to force myself to concentrate on briefing juvenile sentencing issues, when all I wanted to do was gape at nothing in particular happening on cable television with everyone else.
I did get my wish, of course, when I got home, and it was, of course, disappointing. Given all of the reporting of half-truths and outright misconceptions this week, I'm still not sure that I understand all the facts of what actually happened this week. (I think a dark-skinned Saudi Arabian set a fire at the Kennedy Library while robbing a 7-11, but that could be wrong.) And the big thing that everyone wants to understand -- the why -- is the one thing that we may perhaps never fully know. But it was kind of fun to watch anchors contradict and talk over one another as they tried to balance the various bits of non information they were receiving. Television at its finest.
