Boobs vs. Legitimate News

by Everett Griffiths

I'm pretty much socially retarded when it comes to pop culture. I forget the name of the guy Britney Spears was married to, so the deep significance of their sudden reconnection was completely lost on me. I'm retarded, I guess, and I just don't care. But that changed when the TV in the break room broadcast non-stop about the sudden death of Anna Nicole Smith... sometime after my fifth coffee break with the same story blaring, something inside me snapped. Now, I have nothing against this woman -- I wouldn't wish an early death on anyone, but why did her death merit such intense media coverage? How many 39-year-olds had died that day? How many worthwhile news stories were shunted aside so that every TV viewer could know the "real" story behind the 1993 Playmate of the Year? What made her so special? The answer was simple: she had boobs. And apparently, that makes all the difference. Which is not only embarrassing, it is dangerous on a fundamental level.

You see, boobs are really weapons of mass destruction -- booby traps, if you will. If you obsess over them and let them occupy your mind unchecked, you end up as a Cosmo-reading fashion slave (learning latest ways to drive your man wild!), as a Sports Illustrated junkie (when's the swimsuit edition?), or as an awkward conservative like John Ashcroft, whose mission it is to cover every boob he ever saw.

If you obsess too much about boobs, you miss out on the critical issues that are facing this country and our world. There are some truly significant things going on right now that are simply more important than the death of a heavy-chested woman with an 8th grade education.

What if the really important things going on in this country had boobs? What if electronic voting machines had boobs? Then people might actually care about the fact that more and more states are counting and casting ballots in ways that are completely unverifiable and have no place in a Democracy -- they might even consider the possibility that Chuck Hagel probably rigged the voting machines he built just prior to his run for the Senate. If George Bush had boobs, maybe people would have watched him more carefully as he refused to intervene when Enron's criminal profiteering sparked the energy crisis in California -- people might have recognized his lack of action for what it was: a favor to his close personal friend and massive campaign contributor, former Enron CEO Ken Lay. Interest in Bill Clinton reached an all time high during his promiscuous brush with breasts. If Bush had some really big knockers, would people have actually demanded criminal prosecution when it was discovered the depth of his lies to justify the war in Iraq? Or would he have to look great in a bathing suit too?

Yeah, I'd love it if one of my soapbox issues even got mentioned in the news, but alas... they don't have boobs, so it probably won't happen, and even if it does, most people just won't pay attention.

Now I have seen the light, and I really do care about pop culture. I think it's important -- it's REALLY important that every man, woman, and child realize that pop culture has its place... and that place is NOT at the forefront of our minds or on the front page of our newspapers. If you know the name of Britney's estranged husband but you don't know the name of the current Secretary of Defense, I'd say you have a problem. If you know the score of the last Superbowl, but you don't know the name of the memo that proved that George Bush was fixing "facts" around policy in order to mislead us into invading Iraq, I'd say you are a boob, and you should go learn some of the basic facts of what's really important in this country.