9-12-01   Whoa-K,   Here we go...   I sit here watching the never-ending stream of video showing the planes hitting the buildings over and over and over and over and over...   I don't think it would be so bad but the anchors seem to get more and more excited with each replay. In the background I hear ooohs and aaahs as the Dan Rathers of the world groan in near sexual ecstacy as the plane is shown crashing into the tower from 857 different angles. I keep expecting the camera to prematurely return to the news desk only to find the desk crew masturbating while watching the umpteen thousand people dying umpteen thousand individual deaths by fire, smoke, and blunt trauma. The clips are played, the people die, and the clips are played again... And any reason is a reason to show the clips.   Peter Jennings: "I am currently thinking of the last time I was walking down the streets of New York... Speaking of streets of New York, let's see what it looked like when the building blew up from the street level. And just to make sure that you understand the difference between street level shots and sky level shots, we will juxtapose these two views in a video montage that will effectively demonstrate the street/sky differences. What the hell, let's throw in some Nine Inch Nails just to make it interesting." Yeah, great. Anything is a reason. Anything. Tom Brokaw: "Uh, Wheaties! Yes, Wheaties! That reminds me of what the poor slobs must've looked like after they caught on fire and fried to death. Yeah, that's it. Show the video again, Fred, and this time run the caption 'Wheaties' across the bottom of the screen. Christ, what a great shot..." And the computer simulations. Christ, what are these jerks thinking? The computer animations demonstrate how the building fell down in a straight line and where the friggin' dust came from. Do we need to see a simulation of this? What next? How about a computer simulation of what the people looked like when the tons of building crashed down upon the victims heads? Dan Rather: "Our production department has been feverishly working on a computer simulation of what it may have looked like from the inside of the tower when the tower collapsed. As you look at the screen, you see the victims running frantically around, banging into desks and chairs, and attempting to jump out of the windows. The lights are flickering and things are seen falling from the ceiling. Note the victims' blood splattering across the virtual camera's lens as the upper floors turn the victims' heads into a gelatinous smear... A truly horrific sight." Change the channel you say? OK, good idea. Here's the Home Shopping Channel showing the Canadian version of events. As with nearly everything Canadian, it is a poor imitation of the U.S. approach. Somehow Canada thinks it actually plays an important role in all of this. Canadian Anchor: "While the U.S. fights to save their own from the devastation, Canada hurries to double its output of maple syrup and third rate actors so desparately needed by the victims of this horrible tragedy." The Christian channel with Bible pounders are even more offensive than the computer-simulated brain smears. I'm not even going to bother trashing this one, I will undoubtedly get hundreds of death threats from those who believe that technology is antithetical to Christian beliefs and yet somehow manage to watch ministers on TV. Yeah... Yet another channel shows a half hour loop of "news" over and over again. If nothing, it is original in its unapologetic approach to replays. At least there is a reason for the replays, they were too cheap to go with a live update. The worst of it is that real people died real deaths. Phone calls to loved ones are trivialized by constant replays on the air. Peoples' choice to inadvertantly commit suicide is turned into "Survivor" with real consequences, they are participants in a makeshift "Survivor" except that there are no real "survivors" in the end. Due to the repetition, panic and tears are flattened into two dimensional events with all the credibility of cartoons, with an audience waiting for yet another anvil to fall from the sky. Wait, that is not the worst of it. The worst of it was that I sat here and watched it over and over and over and over and over...