12.19.2007

Gag me

This morning NPR had an interesting story about how uneven care for the mentally ill is within US territories. Basically, if vacationing to the Virgin Islands, you should wait to get home before going crazy because they’ll just park you in a jail indefinitely if you do; even though doing so has resulted in the territory repeatedly being held in contempt in US federal courts.

Good information. The kind of fact based, objective reporting that allows me to tolerate the gentry liberalism of NPR.

But of course NPR never stops with just the facts. Knowing that their listener base generally has an impaired capacity for reason, NPR proceeded to communicate the “emotional truth” of the story with all the subtlety of a (fair trade) double espresso.

Naturally the fact that the most sympathetic victim* of these unjust detentions does not speak is no problem to these artisans of advocate prose who so routinely conjure the hopes, dreams and wishes of similarly communicative glaciers and polar bears:


He's wearing a red T-shirt. He looks unremarkable, one face among thousands of
young black men in prison — except for his eyes. They are like the weather
changing — going from clear, to foggy, to dark and raw, to soft and then clear
again.


His smile is like lightning, a bright flash out of nowhere.


Yes, freaky weather eyes and spontaneous smiling really highlight the human cost for me. Thank you Libby Lewis. Why don’t you just finish that bodice ripper we know you’re working on and leave information collection – what I’m paying you for -- to people with brains that haven’t degenerated into flaccid, sentimental mush?

*So this guy is essentially a mute who’s greatest advocate – his sister – is terrified of his capacity for violence. Just how non-radio-friendly are the other guys?

3 comments:

Joe said...

Is "bodice ripper" a recognized literary genre? I thought it was just my nickname.

Anonymous said...

It is in the Clinton Presidential Library (Rim shot!!!).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e0/Thetawnygoldman.jpg

Seriously since you are clearly the guy depicted on the

Anonymous said...

(I really hate blogger)

cover the man and the genre are one.