sardine -- post-11/7 -- television emesis

“television more and more defines what Americans call the agenda (the issues up for discussion, the subjects of the editorials, important problems to be covered) (Bourdieu, 332).

More and more I find myself trying to avoid watching the news. I prefer the news via Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report. Still, I often rush home to watch the news, and I don’t know why. I watch for that topic that had been previewed in the day with a sneak peek. However, more often than not, I feel that same discomfort I’ve gotten from eating a McDo meal too fast--that uncomfortable heavy stomach with the questionable unease. Will it come up or stay down?

But the ads between the segments sell that esophageal pain relieving anti-flatulence pill. It is a quick fix and a new fear to take my mind off the lack of substance and the indigestible. I have holes in my esophagus. I have an intestinal blockage, and I will soon be vomiting feces. Then there is the preview for the morning news and a peek at the new life-saving equipment or test or drug.

I can’t sleep. It’s almost like waiting for Christmas morning and that heap of presents. My alarm is set, but I awake just before and settle down on the sofa with my Starbucks coffee. And I wait at least one hour before the segment is shown. It is a life-saving apparatus that the news anchor willing tries out for the public. It is an MRI or blood test or PET scan or drug that costs thousands of dollars (insurance will refuse to pay by labeling it experimental), and it will save all those people who are suffering from having XYZ syndrome / disease. It is like the whole debate about stem cells. Broadening stem cell research will save so many people. However, those break-through medical advances will only be available to the few who can pay.

I am aroused. I am so proud of our great American scientists who sacrifice their lives, slaving away in their laboratories so they can save us. I am proud of the news anchor who displays her weak spongy bone matrix to the nation (related partially to years of yo-yo dieting and bulimia). I am proud of the drug company advertisement after the segment for the osteoporosis medicine that is only taken “once a month”. And I go to my cupboard and take down my Viactiv chocolate calcium chews. I am a good patriotic American. I live in fear, and I can be bought.