Ignorance is Piss

The tumult in Iran has lasted late into the night, and yet, here in America, the cable news networks are firmly in fire-and-forget weekend programming mode. Larry King was on during his regularly scheduled slot this evening, MSNBC is running it's standard "documentaries" on prison life, and CSPAN-3 was airing an interview with former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who has been dead for over ten years.

Meanwhile, here's the main page of CNN.com, which might as well be a representative sample of America's perspective on the world:




That's right. A (counter?-)revolution may well be brewing in Iran, and in CNN's best judgment, Americans should be more interested in the bankruptcy of a national chain of amusement parks.

Sometimes I marvel at the extent of our national self-absorption. Is any other country on Earth as staggeringly ignorant and dangerously influential as ours?