I have spent the last week without any contact with the internet. No blogs, no online news sites, no email. My family and I accompanied my wife, her brother and her mother to Florida to participate in a memorial service for my father-in-law hosted by the Hurricane Research Division of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Agency, other wise known as NOAA. I’ll write more about that event in a few days, because he was, as I learned, a very important scientist, a genius in the field of meteorology whose work fundamentally altered our knowledge of the formation of cyclones and hurricanes, and how to track them. He deserves to be remembered, not just by his colleagues at NOAA and other meteorologists, but by all of us, because his dedication to his chosen field of endeavor, to science, has changed lives — indeed, it no doubt saved many lives.

But for now, I’d like to share with you another experience — what it feels like to be without any source of information other than cable television news shows. It was a window into a world I had forgotten existed, a world I had abandoned many years ago when I learned that the internet provided far more information about the world, and about what I wanted to know about that world, than television ever could. A world in which I was, like Moses in Exodus 2:22, a stranger in a strange land.

(cont.)
We left on Sunday afternoon to fly to Ft. Lauderdale (on Jet Blue Airlines via JFK in NYC) and finally arrived in our Miami hotel about 12:30 am on Monday morning. Jet Blue has had a bit of difficulty over the last week with canceled and delayed flights. I not only learned of this first hand, but since each Jet Blue aircraft we flew on had a small television screen located in the seat backs of each chair directly in front of us, I also learned it was a major story on CNN, Fox News and MsNBC. That and discussion of the legal battle over the corpse of Anna Nicole Smith.

In fact, Anna Nicole Smith was the topic du jour on all the cable networks for most of this past week (Jet Blue’s troubles were soon relegated to the backwaters of CNBC business news reporting).

I barely knew who this woman was before she died (some D-List celebrity former Playboy model/porn star/gold digger from what I gathered who had on again, off again problems with her weight) but no matter. Anna’s death, and the battle over who had the right to bury her dominated television news. I learned that when she died in the Bahamas she left behind an a ex-boyfriend who hated her new Svengali-like boyfriend (who shares a name with shock radio jock Howard Stern) both of whom claim to be the father of her newborn daughter. I learned she was estranged from her mother, and that her a 20 year old son Daniel recently died of a drug overdose in November.

I also learned she had a multi-millionaire husband whom she married when he was 89 years old who promptly died after 13 months of presumed marital bliss with Ms. Smith, leaving most of his massive estate to her. I learned she had lost a court battle over her husband’s will in a lawsuit brought by her husband’s son, and that she then filed bankruptcy and had that decision overturned. I learned Ms. Smith may (or may not) have had an affair with a prominent Bahamian government official which was causing a bit of a a scandal. I learned her daughter’s name was Daniellynn (“Daniel” from her recently deceased son and “Lynn” from Anna Nicole’s own birth name “Vicky Lynn Hogan”), and this baby girl stood to inherit millions of dollars — maybe.

I especially learned that cable reporters and anchors loved to compare Anna Nicole Smith to Marilyn Monroe, as in “she was our generation’s Marilyn” or “she idolized Marilyn” or “she once sang Diamonds are a girls best friend at a party to honor Marilyn” or she “looked just like Marilyn” or “her tragic death was much like Marilyn’s …” I even got to watch them put pictures of Marilyn and Anna Nicole side by side on my TV screen in order to show the similarities in their facial features and “figures.”

These reporters didn’t speak much of the vast gulf of talent between the two, but then one shouldn’t speak badly of the recently deceased. One shouldn’t, that is, unless you are talking about their drug abuse and posting pictures of what was in her fridge when she died (purportedly vials and vials of methadone prescribed by her personal physician). In that case, we heard a great deal about Anna Nicole’s wild night life, her poor mothering skills, and her (according to one psychiatric expert) narcissism and co-dependency issues.

There was really only one story that gave Anna Nicole a run for her money last week. No it wasn’t the Scooter Libby Trial, or the situation in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the crisis with Iran, though I did see CNN hyping an exclusive interview by Wolf Blitzer with Secretary Rice in which she said she’d love to talk to Iran if only they would just agree to all of our demands as a precondition to those talks. And it wasn’t even the kerfluffle between the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns over the statements made by David Geffen, an Obama supporter, that the Clintons “lie all the time” (although that was the most significant political story last week, if you measure significance by how much airtime is devoted to its coverage).

No, the only other story to throw a scare into Anna Nicole Smith’s dead body was the Britney Spears shaves her head and enters/leaves/re-enters rehab reporting. Oh, those pictures of a bald Britney! The eye witness reports of the hair stylist who refused to shave her head! The paparazzi, like so many locusts, clustering around Ms. Spears bewigged entrance, then exit, then entrance again into the Promises Malibu Treatment Center. The cancellation of her custody hearing with K-Fed, her 2nd ex-husband and the father of her children. The sad/snarky/bored with it all commentary about how her career is in a death spiral. Oh, and she got a tattoo, too.

Luckily the trial regarding who had the right to bury Ms. Smith was yesterday, and it was broadcast live on all the major cable networks. That’s right. The legal hearing in a Florida courtroom to decide where and to whom the corpus was literally to be delivered for burial was so important that we got to watch it live while flying home yesterday, and while stuck in JFK International airport on a 6 hour layover. Every broadcaster was having coniption fits about the judge’s behavior which to them seemed like a buffoon on steroids (trust me, as a lawyer I’ve seen much worse — being appointed to the bench brings out the inner egomaniac in a lot of people).

I was fascinated. Not in the sense of being entertained or enthralled, but more in the sense of a passerby on a freeway who slows down to look at the aftermath of particularly ugly accident. You look on in amazement that such a thing has happened (and is happening) before your very eyes, but then you drive on.

Except, I had no other option but to look. If I wanted to find out any news at all I was forced to endure this endless inane absorption in trivial pursuits by our major media companies. You see, they (i.e., CNN, Fox, MsNBC) still ran a text scrawl at the bottom of the screen with tidbits of the other important news of the day running along beneath the courtroom “drama.”. That scrawl was my only small window to a world beyond the Anna Nicole Smith.

Not that the scrawl was particularly useful or informative either. It seemed to consist primarily of bland statements about helicopters crashing in Afghanistan or bombs exploding in Iraq, or the quotes of officials and politicians, all taken out of context, or, to be more precise, lacking any context in which to place them. And, lots of information about Britney Spears, of course. Did you hear she got a tattoo?

It was a frightening reintroduction to the world that too many of our fellow citizens live in; a world where what is considered the most important news of the day is whether Anna Nicole Smith would ever be embalmed, and whether Britney Spears is a worse parent than her estranged husband Keven Federline. No wonder evangelicals have created their own alternative news outlets, and are more willing to believe what their pastors say about current affairs than what Brian Williams or Katie Couric might report. Our TV news media has come to resemble the front page of the National Enquirer, where the lead story is always the most salacious or violent one. It’s all about sex and stuff getting blowed up real good, all the time. It makes me wonder if the Iran War will happen merely because the networks need some new and exciting programming for the May “sweeps” period.

After a while, I just gave up. I was being titillated and seduced, mesmerized and distracted by the TV screen, but I wasn’t being informed. I wasn’t told that the UN inspectors for the IAEA had stated US intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program was as bad as, or worse than, the WMD intel the Bush administration gave to weapons inspectors in Iraq in 2002-03. I wasn’t informed that Australians protested over Cheney’s visit to their country. I wasn’t informed that American colleges had too few science majors enrolled, threatening our future competitive edge. I wasn’t informed that scientists are concerned global warming may lead to an increase in childhood fevers and disease.

I wasn’t even told that former Senator Daschle had endorsed Obama for president. I did see a brief story about the atrocity which is our military’s aftercare for wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, but that was old news for a denizen from the liberal blogosphere, like me. As for the Scooter Libby trial? Only a small portion from Keith Olbermann’s smorgasboard to whet my appetite, but hardly an entire meal. Then even he went on to elucidate me regarding the fine points of the Anna Nicole Smith trial.

But ask me anything you want to know about dead, former playmates of the year, and crazy former Madonna smoochers. I consider myself an expert now. Unfortunately.