"I am writing this book because sometimes, often, a young person who is motivated to perform, to better himself, is sometimes, often, frustrated not just by bad luck or circumstance or some personal deficit, but by a person. Sometimes that person is ourselves. Michael Jackson would know, so would Homer Simpson. But sometimes one person – other than ourselves - can sometimes flush away a person’s dreams. Think of God and the Devil, Cane and Abel, Delilah and Samson, Brutus and Caesar, Judas and Jesus, Joan of Ark and the Bishop, John F. Kennedy and whomever killed him, Al Gore and George Bush, Madonna and her husband, and the plethora of ordinary murderers out there who wipe out lives and dreams with the movement of the index finger on a trigger.
In all of those cases, someone either died or surfaced on the other end barely alive or badly beaten.
We can rationalize some of those losses, but sometimes they are profound. Of course, when someone dies it is hard to be philosophical if you’re the one that’s dead."
The mainstream media from the inside is a cesspool of insecure misfits and courtyard keepers. Everyone suffers from chronic attention deficit disorder. Everyone is addicted to something. Words are their weapon of choice, life an after-thought, terminal diseases - especially cancers, tumors and anal brown-nosing - a certainty. Nick van der Leek, in this brilliant satire, through his experience in a South African newsroom uncovers the real story behind who and what makes the media, and suggests we stop caring.
The folks who work tirelessly behind the scenes, splattering their bullshit on the front pages of newspapers - the sub-editors, journalists, the slackers, the internes, the suckers, the cubicle slaves and other subhuman characters - do they know what they're doing? In a word: Hell No.
'We live in a world where the news today is indistinguishable from spam, and spam [according to Wikipedia]'provides very little in terms of vitamins and minerals...it has been listed as a food that is a poor choice for weight loss or optimum health; it's a food that "is high in saturated fat and sodium".'
The news, the people responsible for writing it, editing it and stupid enough to read it get skewered in this devilish yarn.
[Disclaimer: NOT based on actual events.]
[Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: Or is it?]
[Disclaimer to the Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: Is it all a very *very* thinly disguised veneer of satire...aimed at blowing these poepols out of the water?]
[Disclaimer to the Disclaimer to the Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: Or not?]
Available here.
