Uncle Sam Wants You, Katie Couric!

This week's media coverage of the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina inspired all of us here at RBIE to brainstorm solutions for getting more aid and supplies to the hurricane victims...in short, we want to do our part. Watching the news, it's clear what the next step should be. All the different news outlets must shut down their studios and send all of their employees to volunteer in the rescue efforts. Think of all the money and manpower they could provide if they just spent a little less time creating dramatic montages of the old New Orleans or paying people for clever catch-phrases like "now New Orleans is really singing the blues" or "this semester, the students have learned a hard lesson in adversity." (these were almost as painful to listen to as CNN referring to the rise in gas prices as "Gas Pains" or Katie Couric asking mothers with dehydrated babies if they would be more careful about planning their pregnancies in the future so that they wouldn't deliver during hurricane season.)

Questions like this make me want to throw sharp and heavy objects at my television, but i always stop short, struck with the utterly depressing realization that the "journalist" inside will escape unscathed while my plans of watching four back-to-back episodes of "Real World Austin On Demand" may be destroyed forever.

As long as the studios keep recycling the same video footage they've been playing for the last three days, the population's morbid curiosity will be satisfied and everyone can rest easy. It only takes one worker to operate a tape player and of course i'd leave it to the discretion of the studios to decide who should get that great responsibility. (I suggest Katie Couric, because i'm not so sure she'd be that helpful in terms of manpower. Her questions could easily get her killed.)

Here's my advice to our loyal readers: when you reach the point where you can state all the hurricane statistics before the news channel lists them, it is time to change the channel. If you really have nothing better to do and want to fry your brain, there are other more enjoyable ways of doing so. Afterall, MTV is only a few clicks away and Danny and Melinda are both pretty hot. How about this semester, you learn an easy lesson in apathy?

Genius, i know. The federal government hasn't put the entire RBIE staff through school for nothing.