CNN Has Lost Its Goddamned MindWeary and rain-soaked, the Rude Pundit trudged into his flat last night close to 10 and, as is his way, lit a joint and turned on CNN to see if they had found the goddamn plane yet. There was a panel of, oh, hell, let's say 6 people, all talking to ostensible "newsman" Don Lemon. The first thing he heard was a correspondent for the network, Richard Quest, actually ask a guest, "It may seem an odd question, but I know these people have been used in murder investigations on many, many occasions." Then Dick Quest read a something from Radiotweek on Twitter, who is obviously who you turn to for reliable news. "'Investigators sometimes use psychics. Why hasn't anyone considered the services of a credible psychic specializing in missing persons?' I mean, it sounds incredible, but they have been used before."
You get this, right? A supposed journalist asked Jeff Wise, an aviation expert and scientist, why not use someone who thinks that ghosts talk to them or tarot cards or sky energy or whatever the fuck to find a very real plane with very real people on it? A plane that's way more than likely decorating Bikini Bottom right now? Yeah, let's ask every con artist and all the people who hear voices in their head what's going on. Why the fuck not? We got 24 hours to kill and nothing even remotely like news about the fate of Flight 370 to report.
Wise answered, "I think it's difficult to find a credible psychic," which is shorthand for "Are you fucking kidding me, you miserable excuse for a reporter? Let's just break out the Ouija board?"
But, oh, CNN was not done. A couple of minutes later, Lemon brought out more tweets in order to say, "Whether it was hijacking or terrorism or mechanical failure or pilot error, but what if it was something fully that we don't really understand? A lot of people have been asking about that, about black holes and on and on and on and all of these conspiracy theories. Let's look at this. Noha said, 'What else can you think? Black hole? Bermuda triangle?'" And then Deji says, 'Just like the movie 'Lost."'"
Okay, Lemmywinks, if you're relying on someone who doesn't realize that Lost was a TV show, you're scraping under the barrel for the goo that's dripping from it. Sorry, Noha and Deji, for spoiling your moment in the dying sun of cable news.
But, wait, he continued, "And of course, it's also -- they're also referencing The Twilight Zone, which has a very similar plot. That's what people are saying." People are also saying it's the Illuminati in cahoots with, fuck, let's say Mossad and, why not, the Masons. And what episode of Twilight Zone? The one where the plane was an illusion? Or the one where it went back to dinosaur times? Or are you saying it was gremlins? Was it gremlins? Do we need to get a psychic to talk to the gremlins with her mind? Goddamnit, where is Medium when you need her?
Lemon was quizzing Mary Schiavo, former inspector general of the United States, about black holes, Bermuda Triangles, islands where everyone is dead (except they're not, but maybe they are; goddamnit, that was a waste of six years), and gremlins. "I know it's preposterous," Lemon scoffed, then added quickly, "but is it preposterous, do you think, Mary?"
Schiavo looked like Lemon had asked her if she spits or swallows as she said, "A small black hole would suck in our entire universe. So we know it's not that. The Bermuda triangle is often weather, and Lost is a TV show." She then laid down some science: "I always like things for which there's data, history, crunch the numbers. So for me those aren't there." It would have been beautiful if she had just said, "Yes" and then stared at Lemon like he had just grown a boob on his forehead.
Does Don Lemon really want to be known as the Black Hole Guy? 'Cause he should be.
"Is CNN high?" the Rude Pundit wondered aloud and high. It's the kind of thing that you'd talk about sitting around with your stoned friends, passing a bong: "Dude, it's fuckin' wormholes. The plane is in another dimension, man. They're never gonna find it. It's up to the passengers to find the right wormhole to get home." Then someone would go on about aliens, someone else would chime in that it's now a ghost plane, a Flying Malasianman, perhaps, and finally someone would bring up how Ron Paul wants to legalize drugs and the whole conversation would be worthless.
The obsession CNN has with this story (which is all about ratings - it's the first time anyone's paid any attention to CNN in a long damn time) borders on psychopathic. Check out this partial list of yesterday's transcripts:
That's an entire day spent on nothing (with a brief diversion for something something Israel). Right now, Ashleigh Banfield is asking some dude about the scattering of debris and what if the floating thing near Australia is a shipping container or part of the plane (spoiler: It's probably a shipping container). CNN has become your crazy cousin who sits in the corner and rocks back and forth, muttering the same thing over and over.
Of course, there's always an upside to madness:
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