Media and Mother

2002-07-24 - 6:36 a.m.

Two things now...

First off, my mom called, sounding chronically sad. It really, really bugs me to hear her sound so sad. I want my old happy mom, my pre-losing-an-election-and-her-job-and-her-house-and-her-pets-and-her-friends-and-her-political-convictions mom back.

Of course, we can't have a conversation about how she sounds like she's going to slit her wrists open and down a bottle of bleach as soon as she hangs up the phone, so we talked about my protesting adventures last month.

I guess I was pretty smart to not call her until 5 seconds before I left, because she said she had a whole shwack of motherly warnings for her well-meaning-but-danger-prone eldest son. She talked about how things had been in Halifax, and I agreed, and reminded her that I'm, mostly, a peaceful protestor, and then we talked about the media. I told her about how the Globe and Mail seemed to have decided that peaceful protests meant a lack of interest, and she mentioned that she had noticed there is something terribly wrong in Canadian media.

This is from a woman who, at one point, was in the running to be a "media expert" for CBC. She's been involved in the news industry/biz since she was in high school, and has worked for newspapers all over Eastern Canada, ever since my brother was out of his diapers. She knows people in the industry and knows how it works.

Her saying that really, really worries me. She can remember a time when the media would take up the cause of the underdogs, and she doesn't see that anymore...she sees the news in this country as being mainly a mouthpiece for the rich and powerful.

So, at least I know that if my anti-captialist leanings are delusional, they're at least a family delusion.

And I completely forget the other thing I wanted to say. Probably about the Pope and faith and agnosticism, all under the guise of being an analysis of The Karamazov Brothers. Man, it is taking me -forever- to read that book. And darn it, the blurb promised a murder, the inrtoduction promised a murder, and I'm almost at page 400 and the murder that was promised has not happened yet! Darn it, Dostoevsky, you only have 500 to 600 pages left to handle the ramifications of said murder! Yes, Ivan's an atheist, yes Alyosha is pious, and yes Dmitry's passionate, we -all- get that, so stop talking about starets Zosima's past and get to the murder already! I'm starting to believe that Fyodor will die of old age!

Cheers,

The Magus

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