What's Michael Jackson got to do with politics?

I have often wondered what it would take to stop New Yorkers from being so busy. Have we developed into strange new creatures in which time is our enemy and the subway is our savior?? Have we forgotten that life is better slower? Do we remember what it is like to wake up without an alarm clock?

With these questions floating through my head, I walked into Times Square on a recent extremely hot NYC afternoon. Entering this hub of pop culture I felt a sudden feeling of comfort. It was just as I remembered, full to the rim with a sense of excitement, consumption, and glitz. The ads beckoned me into their world of safe consumption and the masses of people excited my senses.

But something was different about today. People weren't bustling through Times Square as usual. People weren't moving. People were watching TV!?!

As I looked around I felt as though I had stepped into another world. Hundreds and soon thousands of New Yorkers were outside in the steamy 95 degree weather watching the final verdict in the Michael Jackson case on a massive screen. These Manhattanites stood and stared at the screen.

Does it take something as absurd and irrelevant as Michael Jackson to stop New Yorkers in their tracks?

This got me thinking. When/how was it that pop culture became news and how does this affect politics? As the day progresed my thinking began to take form. I cycled through the liberal rhetoric in my heard-- the right wing bias of the media, the evils of FOX News, and the stupidity of George Bush. They all center around a lack of public debate in the media and the constant buying and selling of information and news which shapes our media.

----"Ok, rightt,I've heard all of this before." Where does Michael Jackson fit into this?

The Jackson story fits into a new way that we need to think about media and news. I am going to title this new way of thinking "poser news." "Poser news" is popular culture or entertainment buzz "posing" as news. Although this has been an ever increasing trend, in the past 5 years "poser" news has begun to take hold of our entire understanding of news and the world around us.

Our media has become obsessed with celebrity,popular culture, and sensationalism. This has caused a change in our population. A change in which people care more about a deranged celebrities future than the future of healthcare in American. A change in which people tune into MTV to watch arguments in an RV, as opposed to music videos. And the startling thing is that no one seems to care !!Perhaps these are broad generalizations. Perhaps I'm not giving my fellow Americans enough credit. Perhaps I'm being dramatic. But perhaps we really need to think about these issues and how they are affecting our understanding of the world.